Italy: Napoli

Well, we're right in the heart of our Italian adventure now - two of our three big cities are behind us and it's onto the homeward stretch.

After the Amalfi Coast we headed up the road a bit to Napoli. Despite lots of good things going for it, such as being the birthplace of pizza, it was the dirtiest city we have ever seen. It's the ongoing aftermath of some pretty major tension over rubbish collection (see here for a bit of backstory), but it doesn't seem as if it's too different from the normal cleanliness situation to tell you the truth...

Napoli was our base to do a bit of day-tripping. First stop was Pompeii which was actually way bigger than expected and it was pretty mind blowing that so much of it survived the eruption. The plaster casts of bodies (they poured plaster into the caveties left by the decomposition of the bodies) were interesting to see, that being my (Amelia) main recollection of what I studied at school. It was also great to be there at the end of the day after the tour groups all left and we were free to wander around in comparative isolation.

The next day brought on Capri-dahling! It's an island off the coast of the bay of Naples and well worth a visit if you're ever in the neighbourhood. I felt underdressed just walking around outside some of the shops in the main town (think big fashion label central), but once we'd hoed into our panne cotta and watermelon gelato, all the cares of the world melted away... The absolute highlight of Capri though is the Grotta Azzura, or Blue Grotto. It's something to do with the refraction of light as it bounces off the bottom of the cave, but whatever it is, it made the water inside this sea grotto absolutely luminous blue - kind of like there were big neon bulbs underneath the water even! The water was so clear you could see right down to the bottom of the cave, and so clean there was even coral growing on the sides. It seemed as if it may have been kind of cheesy because there were so many tour groups selling you to go there, but it was one of those things that actually surpasses expectations. Our night finished with pizza at 'Da Michele', the most famous of all Napoli's pizzerias - who knew tomato sauce and bread could taste so good.

Next stop: Roma!