(2-May) When in Rome...

We enjoyed a casual rise this morning, refining the packing of the cases for our final journey up to Rome. Fabio had our lovely breakfast laid out for us at Studio83, fresh orange juice, caffe Americana, croissant, ham & cheese. Stephani and I were remarking that out of all the great B&B's we stayed in on this trip, Studio83 stands out as the finest. it was extremely reasonable, the three nights we stayed only cost €180 total, which had us checking out our reservation info in Stephani's trip file. Yes, correct, it was much cheaper than Venice and Florence. Fabio was very polite, friendly and even setup the TV for English speaking programming, and his B&B is located very close to town center, so, when you add it all up, it is a terrific value- anyone who may be planning a trip to Pompei should definitely stay at Studio83.

So as I write this, we are pulling away from Naples Central train station aboard a high-speed "bullet" train for a quick 30-minute ride to Rome where tomorrow we will embark on a round of speed sight seeing, with our guided tour, "Niño". We are both very relaxed and rested, despite having walked about 7 miles a day since arriving in Italy. Everyone is getting back to work following a very long weekend, so we are expecting Rome to be quite a fast-paced change from quiet Pompei.

Personally speaking, I am looking forward to getting back to California. I want to see enough of Italy to be left wanting more, if that makes sense. I would love for us to put another trip together in a few years that includes some other parts of Italy and possibly France. I also think our nieces and nephews would love it here. There is something about the pace and frame of mind that says "is no problem, is italia" and that about sums it up for now.

We're off to explore Rome.