| From: "Bron Gondwana" <brong@brong.net> Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 21:21:38 +1000 (EST) |
The two girls who had the good (i.e. not bunk) beds in the room were leaving, so we grabbed their beds. Made it a little more tollerable, so we decided to stay one more night. There was so little space that they were nearly shoved together anyway, so we had effectively a double bed. Breakfast was a stale bun and a small cup of drink. Found a supermarket for food, then train to Herculaneum (quite crowded). We decided it wasn't worth fighting about, and paid for the train. Only EUR 3 return each. We forgot to take enough film, so had to buy some more there. Expensive (yay for tourist prices), but better than no photos. Luckily they accepted Australian passports as well as EU ones for cheap entry under 26 into the ruins. We went to the toilets inside, and found someone with a couple of bits of cleaning equipment and a bowl taking 'tips'. It looked a bit dodgy to me, and we didn't pay. When we went back later the guy was gone, as was the bowl. Opportunistic behaviour at its worst - the service he provided consisted of pointing at the correct door for us (as if we can't read) and occasionally wiping the floor cleaning tool around in the middle of the floor. It certainly wasn't clean and nice enough to be worth paying for - especially inside a restricted area we've already paid to enter. The audioguides were discounted for groups of 2 or more, and we decided to get one each. Again, really, _really_ worthwhile. We spent nearly 6 hours walking around the ruins, and listening to everything. I listened to every single item on the whole guide, and Kate only missed a couple of (actually quite boring) bits on the various styles of art. We stopped for a picnic lunch in one of the garden areas. They've done a fantastic job of putting green bits in where they belong, and making it a whole lot brighter than it would have been with just the buildings. Some of the buildings are amazingly preserved, and we're really glad we came here instead of Pompeii. Another crowded train to Sorrento, and out for dinner to try the Southern Pizza[tm] (thick base) as opposed to the Northern Pizza. It was really nice, and very cheap (especially with free shots of a lemon flavoured spirit afterwards), but the experience was marred by seeing the cook smoking over the top of the food as he prepared it. We left immediately after seeing that, and didn't leave a tip. Slept much better in our new beds. |
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