Our last night in Roma!

As we were staying in Rome before our flight out, we decided to go in and see Rome at night.  Were we glad we did!  And that's all she wrote.  We were on a plane and home on the 8th.  10.5 months, 25 countries, 5 continents and a million smiles and memories later.  What a fantastic trip!  (and our favourite city to end it in)

The Trevi Fountain at night (every bit as crowded)

The Temple of Saturn

She'd had a lot to drink.....

Anzio

I took the car one day and drove south out of Rome to Anzio where a cousin of mine on both sides (William Faulkner Douglas) lost his life and was buried at the Anzio Beachhead Cemetery.  He was a member of the first Canadian Special Forces aka the "Devil's Brigade" a joint division with the US rangers.  They were given many of the dirty jobs and had a great record.  William Holden even starred in a movie of that name that detailed them which was always one of my favourite WW2 flicks growing up.  I never knew "Billie" was part of that unit until I looked him up.   We saw lots of Commonwealth cemeteries on our trip but this one really struck home with me.  RIP Billie!

Add caption

Billy's tombstone.  Lost but not forgotten!

Maratea

After Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, we decided that we'd head south along the western coast to Maratea ("the other Amalfi" in Italy).  We were glad we did.  We ran into a beach that was stunning with NOBODY around.  It went for kilometers.  We took some stunning drives too.  This is an area of Italy not many tourists get to. We were very glad we did.

This is  a road that they couldn't build the hairpin tight enough to stay on the mountain so they build it over thin air!  

Here's why we drove all the way up there...  The thing is about 80' tall.

And the view from the top wasn't bad either!

Nice little town.... a crappy little apartment you wouldn't dare live in because it was so run down was 389K Euros.  I guess they all get their properties passed down.

Pompei

We took a day (we picked a 40+ degree scorcher) to tour the ruins of Pompei.  The volcano erupted in 79AD and killed everyone.  Most died by poisonous gases.  The town was then buried in volcanic ash and was preserved as things were that day.  This is only 80 years after the death of Christ so was very instructive to us as to what life would have been like back then - surprisingly modern.  They had sewers, running water, bars, laundry mats, brothels, colosseums and theatres.   Add some electricity and internet and most people would be quite happy here.  We learned a lot.

Our first view of the ruins of Pompei

Amazing that this was all under lava

A hot tub!

For storing wheat and barley.... get your mind out of the gutter!

A bar

A mortar and pestle... the thing was nearly 4' tall!  You could crush a lot of garlic in that!

A family they uncovered

Burial tombs from right around Christ's time.

We'd had just about enough...  

A cast of a body buried in the lava (died from the poisonous gases)

They held up pretty good considering it was over 40 degrees in the shade