Early morning musings

This morning I woke up at 4:30am in too much pain to sleep. My joints were killing me and I was freezing cold – despite my heavy blanket. After tossing and turning for an hour, I got up and put on my flannel shirt and tried settling in to try to sleep – to no avail. I finally got up at 6:30 to head down for breakfast so I could take a pill. The dining room was packed! Apparently there are other budget conscious “old” people like me who couldn’t sleep! Every head in the place was gray!

Well, the buffet is surprisingly good. Unlimited lattes, juice, eggs, quiche, Italian pastries, cheese and meat, fruit, cereal and yogurt: so I have loaded my plate and settled in to watch the sun rise over the nearby mountain top.

The scenery here is really quite stunning(pictures coming). Rugged mountains covered by olive and lemon groves. Mist is hanging in the valley below, where the town of Sorrento drops off dramatically into the sea. The cliff wall is sheer, and there is actually an elevator that takes you from the pier up to the town. Yesterday, as the boat approached the pier, you could see, carved into the cliff, ancient bricks – diamond shaped – suggesting they were placed during the early Roman Empire. You could see the outline of a tremendous fort that must have stood here; and on top of that, you could see more buildings built on top. Like in Naples, there are remnants of eras past everywhere! In Naples, we went into a house where an old lady had once lived. When she died, people went in, and when they removed the plaster of her walls, they found the telltale diamond bricks…so they began excavating, and were able to access a part of an old Roman theatre. And today, while some of it is exposed and available for people to see, in one place we stood, right above us you could hear people moving around in their kitchen. Buildings on top of buildings are the order of the day here. Even on top of 2000 year old ruins!

I have finished my hard boiled egg, three lattes, two yogurts, some muesli, have stuffed an apple and orange in my knapsack, and am now starting on a croissant and some cheese. I am not normally a breakfast eater, but heck, when it comes free with the room…..well, you know me!
From where I am sitting, I can see across the Bay of Naples to the city of Naples, and of course, Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii. Pompeii lies right at the base of the volcano, and it is not hard to imagine the town being swallowed by ash. It makes me wonder why anyone ever thought to rebuild the city up the side of an active volcano.

I have had some issues with resizing and uploading pictures from my phone (I am now sorry I left my good camera at home as southern Italy is incredibly scenic), so I will attempt to upload more photos imminently. Internet here is not the best, and the hotel automatically cuts you off every hour, so that you have to go back to the front desk, and get another code, for another hour. I suspect this saves the hotel some money, but if I were them, I would limit the lattes – not the internet….I am on number 4!