I have been to.... Naples

 More holiday snaps from last year  I'm afraid, nearly there. 

After Sicily we sailed up the coast to Naples, see Naples and die and all that. Well, a chance would have been a fine thing as it was torrential rain, although it did clear up later.

The cruise port is right in the middle of the old city. A nice fortress right in front of us, shame the weather had broken.

Various warships and a coast guard vessel moored in the harbour.

We were mainly there to go to Pompeii, so off we went. 

The sun began to peep through as we arrived. 

And to be honest, I was just amazed.

I was expected ruins and walls a couple of feet high, not an entire town. It really was astonishing.

You can see where they got the inspiration for the wall colours in the TV series 'Rome' (and 'Plebs', which used the same sets).

Shop front.

More of those Roman cart tracks. The stone roads in Pompeii have stepping stones as the ground is quite impermeable and the roads turn into rivers.

Out of season and due to the rain it wasn't very busy at all.

I was very taken with the fountains and water spouts.

There weren't many people around at all. This is the main east-west thoroughfare.

Remains of a largish villa, just missing its roof.

An unfortunate person trapped by the pyroclastic flows.

A restored bit of the main square.

A bas relief.

Original Roman lead pipework. It looks as dodgy as the pipes in our cellar!

More wall painting.

The Pompeii brothel, complete with an illustrated 'menu'.

More in the main square.

The surviving walls in this section were two stories high.

Normally there are huge queues for the on-site museum, but as it was so quiet we were able to just walk in.

Coins and pottery.

Some more plaster casts of victims.

And some lovely frescos. The latter is Dionysus and Ariadne, from the reign of Nero.

This wall fresco is earlier, from around 40BC.

And a divan, for lounging. Not sure why this appealed to me, perhaps it was seeing the 'divan rooms' in Antalya

A statue of Nike. There is something quite distinctive about Roman statues, a slightly different style to Greek ones.

This claims to be a cast of a preserved chariot wheel! I suspect it was just a a cart, but even so, it still has an iron rim.

This was a picture decorating a fountain.

A dead horse. Bits of the skeleton are showing through the plaster.

A family group.

These casts are quite famous and endlessly reproduced in images. 

Another victim. The folds in the clothing are very obvious.

A fresco of Alexander and Roxanne. Alexanders face seems to have been copied from the image of him riding Bucephalus against the Persians.

Ammunition (for catapults presumably).

And another Sphinx. Popular creatures around the Med it seems.

Venus on a carriage drawn by elephants. 

A map of the town. You can see how big it is and the main thoroughfares.

Back through the mean streets of Naples.

And a stop at a vinyard on the slopes of Vesuvius (you can see the black volcanic soil) for a spot of wine tasting.

On the way back into the city the clouds finally lifted and Vesuvius appeared.

The cruise port building is very fascist architecture, but rather grand.

And off we went into the sunset leaving Naples and Vesuvius behind.

That was fabulous, I really loved Pompeii and the whole Bay of Naples just looked amazing. I've only been to northern Italy before (and Sicily) so that is somewhere to go back to for a proper trip in the future.

Final stop coming up soon.