To Milan, but not Minsk and then further

Since the day that we struggled to catch a train from Rome to Civitavecchia I have been dreading today. The taxi to the station was easy, and the train back to Rome was also easy. Woohoo. Nothing can stop us now. 

We found a travelator that we never knew about. Then we found the long tunnel to the platforms. Easy peasy. 

At 10:00, Annette and Nanna went in search of toilets. Our train departed at 10:20. I had a general idea that the train to Milan would go from around platform 2 to 5. We were at 24. We walked up to 5 and stood in front of the indicator board. I asked staff where the train would depart from only to be told to look at the board. Finally at 10:18, platform 2 popped up. 6 bags and Nanna to get up the stairs. At least everyone was in a panic, not just us. 

We got to the luggage rack first through our new-found bullying tactics, found our seats, found the toilets and off we sped ...13 minutes later than scheduled. In Italy, the timetable is just a guess.

On the train I just accidentally purchased an espresso instead of a coffee. I have been seeing people drinking these in Europe. I wondered what the deal was. I typed all of this in 3 seconds thanks to that tiny coffee.

Now I'm typing from this point, about 24 hours after the event. It's all a blur.

Milan to Colico was packed. Of course our final destination was Tirano, but taking a page out of Sydney Trains, there was a trackwork bus. On a positive note, even though the train was late, the bus waited.

The scenery is very nice. It's just been a long day. On arrival we struggled in the heat to find our hotel, and once found, it was hotter inside our room than outside.

It was about 33 degrees out. 

We went walkies and found our departure point for tomorrow about 50 m away. Hooray. Good news.

When in Italy, eat pizza. That was dinner.

The night was so hot. Not sure the fan made any difference. I was considering pouring my bottle of water over me during the night, but opted for drinking instead. 

Pompei

We had been tossing up whether to make our own way to Pompei by train, or to do the organised ship tour. After choosing the ship tour, news of a 4 hour train strike was delivered. We chose wisely.

This one had a lot of walking, so we bid Nanna farewell at breakfast and hit the tour bus.

Napoli (Naples) itself looks old and sort of like every other Italian city. Go figure. Anyway, our first stop was to be Sorrento. Some excellent views from the right hand side of the bus. High above the ocean, the area is basically built on cliffs. The tour guide talked of people visiting the beach. This is the beach:

Very touristy, lots of jewellery shops to go in and then head off in the wrong direction, and I finally purchased something that was not cola related.

Lunch was provided at a nice restaurant overlooking the main square. The salad was lettuce with lettuce and a little more lettuce thrown in to bulk it up. Cannelloni and lemon cake filled us up. It's very hot and the water at lunch was much needed.

From there it was off to Pompei. Long story short, mountain erupts, mushroom cloud of dust covers entire city, city is lost and forgotten for hundreds of years, then is rediscovered, and archaeology is born. 

It's a bit mind blowing to see the city as it is slowly uncovered.

We did about 2 hours there, which in the heat was just right. There haven't been many "do yourself a favour" places to visit, but this is one of them.

Back on board, last buffet of the holiday, last minute packing, watched the last of the golf. That's about it from the ship. Captain Stubing steered the ship well, and we never saw Isaac, as at USD11.5 plus 15% service fee for a cocktail, we never visited. 

Looking forward to our 3 train and 1 bus trip tomorrow. It could be an adventure.