Travel With 3 Kids We Must Be Mad!

Tuesday, 11 June 2013

Herculaneum

Today we visited the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum which like Pompeii was lost in the eruption of Mount Versuvius in AD79. Unlike Pompeii Herculaneum can be seen in almost its original splendor as it was buried in up to 19m of ash (Pompeii just 4m) which preserved the upper stories of the buildings. Also the ash was hotter which preserved the wooden parts of the buildings, food and even bodies. Herculaneum was a wealthier city than Pompeii so there is a large number of fine houses with lavish use of marble and mosaics. It is estimated the city was approximately 20 hectares housing a population of 4000, only 4.5 hectares has been excavated. The site is surrounded by apartment blocks.

It was a great place for 'Hide & Seek' as it was a bit like a maze and hard to find your way around. The decoration inside some of the houses was amazing, beautiful mosaics and frescos on the walls and floors and intricate carving details. The Taberna's were interesting, (see pic below) they were basically pubs with a large marble counter which housed large dolia jars which contained food. They were widespread and served hot food and drinks as it was unusual to eat your midday meal at home.

Mosaic of Neptune and Amphitrite

Pub with dolia jars.

Remember this is 2000 years old!

Street water fountain

Crazy Naples and Volcano Solfatara

We slept for a few hours at a service station just south of Rome then continued to Napoli on Sunday morning.

It was just the day for our GPS to give up the ghost on the outskirts of Napoli!! We ended up in the centre of Napoli down by the docks in completely manic traffic towing our not unsubstantial caravan. There were cars and scooters going in every direction, it was a complete free for all and of course no-one wanted to be behind a caravan. At one point a friendly cafe owner frantically waved us down indicating we couldn't go any further down the road as it got too narrow and helped us do a 3-point turn in the middle of this chaos.

We tried to ask for directions to our campsite in our non-existent Italian and the lovely man hopped in his car so we could follow him to our destination.

Our campsite is situated in the shallow crater of the volcano Solfatara in Pozzuoli on the outskirts of Naples. It's a dormant volcano having last erupted in 1198. It lets off jets of steam (which come through the tarmac on the roads around it) and sulfurous gases which have been used for medicinal purposes since ancient times. It's also the site where the bacteria Sulfolobus was isolated and where two saints were beheaded in 305.

Alex and Charlie collected some crystals from one of the old steam rooms and tried to re-grow them (with limited success) but successfully melted chocolate and marshmallows in the hot rocks.

Pozzuoli was a great base to explore the area. There was a fantastic pizza place and probably the 'best rotisserie chicken I've ever had tasted.

Pizza Chef??

1 Metre of Pizza

It's a hit!

Our Campsite in the Volcano!!

Charlie uses the dive mask to stop the smell of Sulphur!

Growing crystals

Thursday, 6 June 2013

Blog Comments

A big hello to all our friends!

Just to let you know your blog comments are coming through loud and clear, it's great to hear from you and the kids love getting your comments!

We see them on the blog and we're emailed a copy.

Sam says please can you remember to add your name so we know who the comment's from.

Sam says I can talk pretty well and have a mind of my own!

Night Ferry to Italy

We decided to cut out a lot of driving (some 1500km) and get the ferry from Barcelona to Rome!

The ferry was pretty good, our cabin was great, much more spacious than I had thought with an en suite. Everyone had a very good night's sleep. Phew! Food was good and great value. Unfortunately our plans of living it up on deck in the pool on a cruise liner were thwarted as the pool had no water in it (see pics... very dodgy indeed!). There was a kids room but unfortunately they'd forgotten to put any toys/ activities in it.

Main downer was the ship arriving 4 hours late into Rome, we disembarked at 0100... great!!! Nowhere to park up at the ferry terminal, what do you do with 3 kids and a large caravan at 0100 on a sunday morning in Rome?? Drive to crazy Naples of course!

Alex and Charlie and Board

MV Barcelona

Italy here we come

Sunset over corsica

Shame the pool had no water! And a very dodgy
net to stope people falling in.

As advertised pool full of water.....

Chocolate Moose from Alhambra

We're finally posting this informative clip now that we've left Spain. The Spanish authorities had suppressed CM's freedom of speech by specific command from the King Jean Carlos. Now we're in more liberal Italy the post can be viewed!!

Tarragona, Northern Spain

This post is slightly out of sync as we're still having real problems with internet connectivity.

We've travelled up to Northern Spain, staying in the town of Cambrils (180km south of Barcelona) which has fantastic cycling / running tracks along the foreshore so rented some bikes (see kids blogs for pics) and set off. Did some lovely rides, highlight being going on the tandem... except don't be behind Daddy (?!!) then jumping in the sea for a refreshing dip at the end.

Also visited the nearby city of Tarragona which has some fascinating Roman ruins. The Pont del Diabel which was an aquaduct, 217m long and 29m high. We walked across the top to the other side then down into the gorge. The aquaduct was very poorly signposted and difficult to find and the main freeway to Barcelona had been built right next to it. You can't help but think that more could have been made of this important site.

In the town of Tarragona itself there is the remains of a Roman Circus (chariot racing arena, the Roman equivalent to Formula 1) which was 450m long. There were amazing tunnels under the arena for the gladiators and their entourage to prepare in which the kids loved running around and having their own "chariot races" in. There was also an interesting museum with lots of Roman statues and a large amphitheatre.