This is a view from the top of the Pompeii colosseum back towards Vesuvius. You can see the ancient Pompeii walls running down one of the vias and the partially-exploded crater of Vesuvius in the distance.
After Pompeii, we visited Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast for dinner. We stopped in an incredibly dangerous cliffside by speeding drunk Italians to take this picture.
It just so happens that some of my good Flickr friends live here in Naples. My mom doesn’t trust anyone on the internet and my grandmother thinks the internet is the most evil thing since Elvis, but I met up with them anyway. I mean, look at their pictures… how bad can guys like this be that take these kind of photos? The first is Valerio. The second is Sergio. Their wives came along to make sure everyone behaved.
It was great havng Napoli locals show me around… all the hidden spots, the best places to eat, etc. In the afternoon, we went to Pompeii then to the Amalfi coast for dinner… Those pics coming up in later updates.
Here are two from Naples. The first is a dark corner of Gesu Nuovo and the second is of Santa Chiara. The Santa Chiara was first begin by Robert of Anjou n 1310 and was subsequently used by Angevin rulers as a site for their tombs. That shotm from the inner cloister, features 72 octogonal pillars decorated with majolica tiles painted by Donato and Giuseppe Massa.
This was a spooky and moody place; a tiny chapel underground with very low ceilings. The structure had three corpses laid out in the front of the altar, reclined in iconic expression.
Here is one of the most famous shopping areas of Milan. This was one of the first iron and glass constructions in the world of this scale.
Here is the Ancient Roman Forum about midnight. In the distance, you can see the Colosseum.
As luck would have it, all the taxis went on strike last night about midnight. Over 300 taxis rolled into the central area around the Vittorio Emanuelle II monument and turned off their engines.
I had just finished dinner at a friend’s villa near the colosseum who is a famous Italian actor. I should not say his name, but we have recently become associated in some business I am doing in Rome. Anyway, he had a beautiful villa and owned the top four floors of a fabulous 600-year-old building. He had two level verandas, the second one occupying the entire roof with a 360-degree panorama of the city. He had a servant that brought out wine, appetizers, dinner, everything. At the end, he even brought out three flavors of homemade gelato that we all ate while staring out the night-lit city of Rome… It was really something else.
Anyway, after leaving, I found out about the strike. Walking around, quite far from my hotel in Esquiline near the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, I found a nice man on a motorcycle and I offered him ten Euro to take me back to my hotel.
He said he refused payment and would absolutely give me a ride. We waited on his wife to come out of the restaurant and she let me borrow her helmet, while she used her daughter’s that was stashed away. I tried to pay her since her husband refused, but she also refused, stuffing the money back into my pocket which appeared to the casual passerby as some kind of surreal fight where two people are gesticulating wildly while stuffing money into one another’s pockets.
I got on the back and this guy floored it… He was like the Italian Evel Knieval as we whipped around corners on almost totally empty streets, since they were bereft of the normally clogging taxis. His wife flew along beside us with a pleasant smile on her face. After I got off, I snapped this picture and tried to offer them money again. They refused so I gave them my card to buy them dinner if they ever come to Texas.
These are the best preserved and most grand baths from the ancient Romans. They were built between 212 and 216 AD and could supposedly hold up to 12,000 bathers at a time. Some places say 2-3K, the signs there said 8K… but the baths themselves included gymnasiums, a library, etc., and after being there, I think the 12K figure for the thermae area itself is more correct.
