The Purple Penguin

Up, breakfast, and off to the city again. This day’s ticket had the Cave Canem mosaic on it. This time we went down to the path that goes around the city walls to see the Porta di Stabia and the mausoleums along that road. Then to see the small theatre and areas of the city we’d missed the day before. So another 6 hours of walking along those uneven streets. The street surface is way below the pavement, so there was a bit of climbing to get up and down.

There was one area completely covered off by hoardings while work was going on, but we noticed a walkway went around the top and a sign said it opened at 10:30. So we stayed in the area looking at several areas and then headed up to the walkway. There is a lift and as Joe was limping and had his walking stick they let us use the lift – luckily because it’s about three levels up. The walkway goes all over the area that is being worked on and you can watch archaelogy – they were using a digger to uncover a roof next to the building which was fascinating but Joe only let me stay there for a bit. The exit put us at the cafe which is at modern level so high above the ruins. We then had to climb back down to Pompeii.

We also saw the small theatre – again lovely building – and then the botanical garden. This is a project to grow the plants that would have been in Roman Pompeii and is interesting. And we went through the Venus Marina villa on the way out, with very sore feet.

We tried a new place for dinner, which was in the guidebook as good. It was ok, very much set up for tourists and tour groups, and we’ve been spoiled by the food at Varnelli. So while the food was good and we enjoyed dinner, it wasn’t Varnelli!