Hi all, sorry I haven’t updated in a while, Amalfi isn’t really an internet cafe sort of place. Sorry if the following update is a bit terse at points, I am working from memory here.

Since I last updated we have been to Rome, where I checked out a lot of the old Roman stuff and did my best to ignore anything remotely related with the vatican. In Rome we ran into a friend of Stuarts ( well she knew we were there via Email anyway ) which was handy as she managed to score us accommodation at the same place they were staying at, it wasnt palatial and the toilets stank like hell but it was okay for a few nights.

Day 1 in Rome we headed over to the Colosseum and through a friend of Jackies ( Stuarts friend ) we managed to score a free tour of the place ( still had to pay entrance fee ). Very cool building, it was annoying to see that somebody had scratched “Melbourne 2005” into the walls, but hey thats dickheads from Melbourne for you isn’t it. After that we headed over to the Forum to check that out with the tour which was good too. I found the “church” which was built on top of the roman building quite interesting as you could see exactly where the building was buried up to into the ground and get a good idea of how much was excavated and just how much was buried before the Archaeologists got there. After standing in the sun for a few hours we were fairly burned and hot so we skipped the final leg ( the Palatino ) and went for a cold drink nearby. Stupidly we forgot to check the prices and I wound up paying 8 Euros for a beer which costs 75c in the supermarket. Bloody Italians! We did manage to find the funniest old restaurant with this whacky waiter, you would sit down, check the menu and then order say the lasagne, only to be told, “no, you have the pasta” and then he would get you that instead, it was bloody good so it’s hard to argue but funny anyway.

Day 2 in Rome we did the standard stuff of heading to the Trevi fountain and then onto the Spanish Steps which were nice but not hugely impressive, unfortunately that fountain in Barcelona that Gaudi helped build has set the bar way too high for other fountains. That night we went back to the same Restaurant, more crazy waiter antics ensued.

Day 3 in Rome we headed back to the old Roman areas and wandered around the forum again, this time I decided to see the Palatino, Stuart had already seen it so decided to give it a miss and wander off and look at other parts of town. I really enjoyed wandering around the Palatino, what an amazing place that must have been, absolutely amazing. After that we headed off to see the Pantheon, of course since it is now a catholic church we had to sit in McDonalds drinking beer ( thanks European Maccas ) waiting 2 hours because some rich bastard had booked the whole place out for 2 hours for a christening. The crazy restaurant was closed that night so we headed to Trastevere for dinner and walked back home via the river and got a bus.

The next day we hired a car with Stuarts friend Jackie and her daughter Jordan for the drive down to Amalfi. The first part was fine but my god the Sunday traffic around those windy Amalfi coast bends are absolutely insane. I wouldn’t say that the roads are designed for even 2 normal cars to pass but of course you would just have tourist coaches passing each other everywhere and cutting off every corner they could, oh and the parked cars on each side didn’t make life easy either. I swear stuart aged 5 years in front of my eyes from that drive.

So far in Amalfi we have done the following which I will try to update properly soon: Paper Museum, Positano, Ravello, Amalfi Duomo, Pompeii and tomorrow we plan to head to Vesuvius to climb to the top.

Anyway I have to run, ciao Matt

P.S. Archaeologists suck for closing all the really interesting things in Pompeii and making me not see the cool stuff, therefore they all suck ( hi Jimbob ).