Day 1 – Travel from Rome

After spending 3 nights in Rome it was time to drive south to Naples and our next AirBnB which was actually on Mount Vesuvius! It was a 3 hour drive so we set off quite early and arrived just after lunch. The AirBnb was on the owners property and had a pool and beautiful views over the Bay of Naples. We explored the grounds, took some photos and met the owners dog before heading off to climb Mount Vesuvius.

^{Views from our house on Mount Vesuvius}

The carpark for the trail up Vesuvius was just a ten minute drive from the property. We parked up and hiked to the summit collecting a geo-cache on route. The views as we ascended were stunning and we could see inside the crater.

^{Inside the crater.}

At the top we could see the Bay of Naples and Pompei – the city destroyed by Vesuvius in 79AD.

^{The top of Mount Vesuvius}

We headed back to the house where Tom & Izzy spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool – despite it not being particularly warm!

Day 2 – Pompei

We chose to visit Pompei as Tom was learning Latin at school and he had been studying some of the buildings and people wo had lived there. The first place we stopped at was the massive amphitheater where we also found a geocache.

We then explored the roadways and and the kids pretended to be shop keepers in one of the old vendor stores.

^{Exploring Pompei.}

We enjoyed Pompei but the site is huge.

Day 3 – Paestum and Herculaneum

The weather wasn’t great so we drove South to Paestum (about 1 hour away) to visit the ruined Greek temples. When we arrived it was raining so we spent some time exploring the museum.

We eventually headed outside to wander around the temples – where I spent ages trying to do some artistic photography!

^{Greek temples at Paestum}

Eventually the sun came out so I had to go and take more photos so there was some blue sky in them!

We drove back towards Naples as we wanted to visit Herculaneum for the afternoon. I actually preferred Herculaneum to Pompei as the site is much smaller.

^{Exploring Herculaneum}

Day 4 – Path of the Gods

For our final day in Italy we wanted to hike the ‘Path of the Gods’ as it is often described as one of the most beautiful hikes. We were aware parking could fill up quite quickly so we arrived at Bomerano early to ensure a parking spot.

The hike begins quite tame – walking through countryside and you can see the ocean in the distance.

^{Beginning of the route}

However it wasn’t long before we were walking along the cliff path – although the views were amazing.

^{Path of the Gods}

Neither Stu or I are good with heights and we got to a point where the path was quite narrow on the cliff edge and we decided it was time for us to turn back. No one else doing the walk had an issue with the path though!

As it was still early we decided to drive the Amalfi Coast and head into Sorrento on our way back. (Stu and I had visited years ago and said we would never drive the Amalfi Coast road again due to it being very slow and congested) We were reminded on the drive why we said that – and we will definitely not do it again!

It was lovely to go back to Sorrento and we visited the church and took some photos of the coast line.

^{In and around Sorrento}