2017 BOCA and BUBBA INVADE THE CONTINENT: DAY 29 TUES JULY 11 POMPEI AND CAPRI

Enroute to Pompei. Bubs and Alex tried to get here a few years back but missed the tour...so he is all jacked up to see the Pompei site. We are the first folks to ride on the new Golden Insight Bus. The leg room is fabulous- Bubs can even cross his legs....the bad news is the seats width are not Bubba-Bocasized. So lots of "move over, get on your side!" going on. He is enjoying the wifi keeping his wife busy and not bugging him with a million questions so unrelated to the trip, the day, the excursion or for that matter anything relevant.

Pleep enjoys sitting behind the girls, the always have a banana for him.

I think he is crushing on both of them!

While his Pop is enjoying the ride as well.

Stop off for a capachino and some morning mozzarella?

Finally- Pompei- along with several other thousand folks- hot, dusty and crowed.
Per Lonely Planet: The ghostly ruins of ancient Pompeii (Pompei in Italian) make for one of the world's most engrossing archaeological experiences. Much of the site's value lies in the fact that the town wasn't simply blown away by Vesuvius in AD 79 but buried under a layer of lapilli (burning fragments of pumice stone). The result is a remarkably well-preserved slice of ancient life, where visitors can walk down Roman streets and snoop around millennia-old houses, temples, shops, cafes, amphitheaters, and even a brothel.

And our tour guide- MARIO POPPINS- educates us about the history and story. By the 1st century AD, Pompeii was one of a number of towns near the base of the volcano, Mount Vesuvius. The area had a substantial population, which had grown prosperous from the region's renowned agricultural fertility. Many of Pompeii's neighbouring communities, most famously Herculaneum, also suffered damage or destruction during the 79 eruption. The eruption occurred on 24 August AD 79, just one day after Vulcanalia, the festival of the Roman god of fire, including that from volcanoes.

A multidisciplinary volcanological and bio-anthropological study of the eruption products and victims, merged with numerical simulations and experiments, indicates that at Pompeii and surrounding towns heat was the main cause of death of people, previously believed to have died by ash suffocation. The results of the study, published in 2010, show that exposure to at least 482 °F hot surges (known as pyroclastic flows) at a distance of 6 miles from the vent was sufficient to cause instant death, even if people were sheltered within buildings.

The people and buildings of Pompeii were covered in up to 12 different layers of tephra, in total 82.0 ft deep, which rained down for about six hours.

Get a move on Mr. Bubba, there' some shade up there somewhere.

Pompeii has been a popular tourist destination for over 250 years; and you thought this was a recent phenomenon, it was on the Grand Tour. By 2008, it was attracting almost 2.6 million visitors per year, making it one of the most popular tourist sites in Italy. It is part of a larger Vesuvius National Park and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. To combat problems associated with tourism, the governing body for Pompeii have begun issuing new tickets that allow for tourists to also visit cities such as Herculaneum and Stabiae as well as the Villa Poppaea, to encourage visitors to see these sites and reduce pressure on Pompeii. Doesn't look like that's working out.

Delirious from the heat, crowds and crawling along on the original stones brought a frightening laugh to our faces. OY I think Bubs said something like...we gotta be nuts to come in here in this heat with these crowds.

Did you people knowa "Mount Vesuvius has not erupted since 1944, but it is still one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. Experts believe that another Plinean eruption is due any day--an almost unfathomable catastrophe, since almost 3 million people live within 20 miles of the volcano’s crater?"

Still doing research.

Pompeii remained mostly untouched until 1748, when a group of explorers looking for ancient artifacts arrived in Campania and began to dig. They found that the ashes had acted as a marvelous preservative: Underneath all that dust, Pompeii was almost exactly as it had been 2,000 years before. Its buildings were intact. Skeletons were frozen right where they’d fallen. Everyday objects and household goods littered the streets. Later archaeologists even uncovered jars of preserved fruit and loaves of bread!

Many scholars say that the excavation of Pompeii played a major role in the neo-Classical revival of the 18th century. Europe’s wealthiest and most fashionable families displayed art and reproductions of objects from the ruins, and drawings of Pompeii’s buildings helped shape the architectural trends of the era. For example, wealthy British families often built “Etruscan rooms” that mimicked those in Pompeiian villas.Today, the excavation of Pompeii has been going on for almost three centuries, and scholars and tourists remain just as fascinated by the city’s eerie ruins as they were in the 18th century.

Hey, why is everyone heading up the hill??

Yes, Bubs one more picture of you with a statue that has a close resemblance.

Turn around Bubs! Is Mt. Vesuvius erupting again!

Well it that's the case then we're gonners- no way can we run down these streets, hell we can barely walk them!

Fires all around the hill..what is going on??

Per the local news: Tourists and residents were reportedly evacuated from parts of Mount Vesuvius for the second time in a week on Tuesday, after several separate blazes broke out close to the volcano. Firefighters and workers from the Civil Protection Agency were on the scene tackling the flames in the national park, as forest fires burned across large parts of Italy. Smoke from the fire rose more than two kilometres into the air and was visible from Naples. In the below tweet, weather channel 3B Meteo compared images of the fires with pictures of the volcano's most recent eruption in 1944, which destroyed three villages.

Fires had broken out at Via Valle delle Delizie on the volcano' north-eastern side, news agency Ansa reported, as well as in two locations on the south-west, including Via Vesuvio in Herculaneum which was the scene of another blaze the previous week. The latter two fires joined together later on Tuesday, due to dry soil and winds, complicating the firefighters' work. Italy has seen a huge number of fires, particularly wildfires, following months of lower than average rainfall and high temperatures, and the situation is most serious in the south. Dozens of animals were killed in one fire in Sicily which destroyed hundreds of hectares of farmland over the first weekend of July.

What a wild site! Even the tour guides were taking pictures...

All that smoke, dust eating and cobble stone walking makes a person thirsty and gelato ready. That has got to be the smallest ice cream aka gelato"dish" on the planet. Don't they know we're Mericans!

Next stop Naples, you know the real Naples. Requisite castle of course, a rather industrial city...nothing to look at...hey what is going on...

Naples version of Boston's Big Dig. New subway coming soon.

Should be completed 2030? My Italian friends are not known for timeliness but they sure know how to live! Didn't see too many folks actually working on it?

Time to get on the ferry boat to high tail it over to Capri. Yahoo. 50 min ride.

It's always an adventure on a ferry....I goess the guy next to me must have bought 3 seats. Per Bubba, Jim Pierce wouldn't ride over on this. Geeze.

While Bubs looks out watch Vesuvius continuing to burn.

Even from Capri it is visible....

Still can't make up our mind on what flavor pooch to get? And should we get 1 or 2? And should they be the same flavor? Oddly we haven't seen too many dogs in Italy- unlike France. Reason?

CAPRI PALACE
New one on me...and oh so appreciated. Bubs and I ate enough dirt today and looked forward to a shower which were sure would turn into a mud bath. After all that schlepping and stepping around Pompei we were ready for a bit of comfort.

Even the whack taxi ride up the mountain, didn't bother us- Ravello broke us in.

Hoping the shower is big enough for Bubs and Boca....the Hotel Bernini in Rome was...more on that later...

CAPRI PALACE- very very nice. Have you stayed here?