Today we went to Paestum, an incredible place on the coast and around an hours drive - it is an Ancient Greek settlement from 600 BC. The city was originally built and settled by the Greeks then taken over by the Lucanians then finally by the Romans. The river silted up and disease and other issues forced the Romans to leave. The city was inundated by silt and eventually discovered and dug up last century. The three temples stand proud and in excellent condition....

A sad day for Sonia - it is a year since her mum passed away so we stayed in the village. We headed up to the town centre to the florist Pina for some flowers for the crypt and the florist shop was quite lovely. I bought a potted olive tree to give Zio as a small thank you for making me so welcome. It might be like bringing coal to Newcastle as he has an olive grove but I thought he might enjoy having a baby tree. It is a double tree and covered in olives and loo...

A perfect day for our last day at the beach. We set off and went to the top of Cape Palinuro for some photos. We then drove down to the port to take a grotto boat tour. Only a short wait and once on the water in our little boat with 4 other tourists and the boatman we set off around the Cape. First stop was the blue grotto (Grotta Azzura) and it was so beautiful. You enter by way of a cave entrance in the cliff and it is big enough to turn once you're deep in t...

Today I went to Pompeii, it was a long wait...... in 1984 we took the train to Pompeii only to find it was closed. I have a memory of standing outside holding onto a barred gate almost in tears because it was going to be a highlight of our trip. But it was not to be as we were booked on the ferry to Greece the next day and had to travel down to Brindisi to catch it. So I arrived in Napoli on the 30th and booked into my hotel - Palazzo Alabardieri. Wow, a beauti...

This post goes from 25 August to 31 August due to inability to connect to post each day - I hope you enjoy my blog. 25th - I am travelling from Verona to Naples today via train to stay overnight and travel to Corfu early tomorrow. I did a bit of shopping and arrived at the station to find my train leaving as I had read my ticket info wrong but no problem, there are many trains so I rebooked using the auto machine (very easy) and got better trains going to Milan...