Thankfully, our last night in Italy was a restful one. The temperature was probably only 26 or so. At this point, it was heaven. We awoke to a beautiful day and headed for the ruins of Pompei. We'd printed off a walking tour by Rick Steves and looked forward to the experience. We arrived in quick time to no line-ups. In we went, only to discover, moments later, that we were at the wrong starting point for our walking tour. As we headed back to the entrance, about 8 tour guides began stalking us (OK, fine, not 8 - but it just occurred to Margaret that because she is doing this blog, she won't be able to exaggerate all of her stories when she gets home, darn!). Anyway, the tour guides stalking us began to close in for the kill. We saw one lone couple trying to escape, shaking their heads so vehemently we were sure they spoke no English. We asked, "How much?", only to be told 80 Euros!!! Eek. No way! We began walking away but they had herded the couple towards us until we were circled. No, they explained, you go together, 40/40. Still not willing, we broke through. The other couple followed us, so we told them about our walking tour. It turned out that they spoke perfect English, and they introduced themselves as the Mans family from Hamilton, New Zealand.

We explained our plan and invited them to join us, to which they agreed. However, they probably regretted it when we began walking. And walking. And walking. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to exit the grounds and re-enter at a different entrance, so we had to walk the long way through the ruins to get to our starting point. To our surprise, though, the Kiwis stuck with us and David's wife, Pamela, even suggested we jump the fence illegally to hurry up our journey to the other gate.

Finally, we got to the right entrance (legally) and began our walk. The Mans were a lot of fun, and between their tour book and our tour notes, we got a great look at Pompei. We started at the Porta Marina which showed where the sea used to be and then we went into the Antiquarium which had artefacts and very bizarre and sad casts of well-preserved victims, including one crouched down in terror. It was very creepy! From there, we saw the Temple of Apollo and Isis, the Forum, the baths and really well-preserved house, the bakery, mill and Barry's favourite, a brothel complete with a menu of several "services". Overall, the walking tour was great and so was our time with the New Zealanders. It turns out David is also an IT guy. No wonder we all got along so well!