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Italian Style!

I had a trip to Naples, Italy, and decided to take my wife, Rhonda, with me. We had a great time! Rhonda's cousin, Victoria, lives near Naples with her husband, Tom, and their daughter, Elizabeth, so we got to visit with them as well as do a little site seeing, and, oh yeah, I worked a bit, too. Rhonda and I took a day trip to Rome, where it was raining, and I hadn't brought my camera anyway, because of horror stories I'd heard about theives, etc, so I had to "borrow" a couple of pictures off the web. (I'll take my camera next time.) Driving was a nightmare, but I managed 18 days without putting a scratch on the rental car.
Anyway, we toured the Coluseum, and got to the Vatican just in time for mass, which we attended. The inside is really splendid, and I wanted to see the museum but we were both pretty worn out, so we'll save it for next time. Rome is one city I would definitely spend my own money going to see, and stay a few days. I really want to go back and see the Sistine Chapel and some of the other sites. We did manage to tour the area that has all the dead popes, including John Paul's tomb. There were a couple of Swiss Guards outside but they had raincoats on over their outfits, which weren't as colourful.


We actually visited this site first, but I have to say St. Peter's was much more impressive. Still, the Coluseum was very large, in pretty good shape, and gave a sense of the magnitude of the accomplishments of the Romans. At least their hunger for entertainment.
We also went to the top of an active volcano, Vesuvius, in Naples, and walked around the crater. There's steam coming out of the sides, and they say (experts that Vic and Tom are) that the volcano is several years overdue for an eruption. After climbing up then down that mountain we spent several hours walking all around the ancient city of Pompei, which had been buried by an eruption of Vesuvius, well, long ago. Fascinating stuff!
Beyond that we shopped at several markets, bought shoes, clothes, food, etc, and tried to eat as much buffalo mozzerella as we could (I did, anyway). Great food, great weather (part of the time, after all, it is the rainy season), and really great company (Tom, Vic and Liz). Vic is more than ready to bring "Aversa" into the world, but she's hanging in there. I think we should be hearing from her any day now with the news. They (all four of them) are planning (tentatively) to visit us (Rhonda and me) for Christmas, and we're really looking forward to having some family around for the holidays.
In other news, I'm enjoying "school", am getting ready for another trip to Scotland, and have a tour at a maltings scheduled through the generous efforts of Brian Eaton, Heriot-Watt University, International Centre for Brewing and Distilling... thanks again, Brian.