Its now the end of two very long days. Yesterday we took our first package tour to Pompeii. This was a little bit of hell, from the terrible english spoken by our first guide to the lack of any exploration time in this massive city. You could easily spend three days in Pompeii and not see it all. Amazing place. We did meet two great Aussies however. Cattle Ranchers on a three MONTH vacation. Great people.

Today was a visit to the Appian Way, the mother road in and out of ancient Roma. This is actually a picture perfect countyside. I would love to live in such an area. (The Appian Road was also where all the slaves in Sparticus rebellion were cucified, they went on for many miles) We visited the Catacombs where some 500,000 early christians were buried. A nice Scotsman took us about, my only gribe is that the tour was too short, there are something like 5 kilometers of tunnels running all about and in every direction. Super cool and creepy.

Then we hopped the lido train out of town to the old port city of Ostia. This is another huge city, nit as well preserved as Pompeii but everybit as facinating by the fact that trees and vines grow over about half of the ruins. One can (and we did) get lost among the hundreds of tiny roads, allys, baths, temples and apartment complexes. We even poken around in a few places we werent supposed to but Ostia isnt the hotspot that Pompeii or Herkulaenium is.

TOmorrow is (da da dummmm) the Vatican. It is f£cking huge so we will only be able to se a part of it. We also hope to view an armory nearby. I must go now, I am tired from the Appian way and must find pizza of Chinese food to sustain me. Tuesday is our return. Bummer.