Venere Salerno

From Matera we headed 3 hours west to the coast and the town of Maratea (not to be confused with Matera). Maratea refers to a 15 mile stretch of coastline that Basilicata has on Italy’s west coast. We had heard good things about the area and were interested to see it.

Unfortunately, we arrived at the peak of the Italian vacation season (mid August) and the area was extremely packed. The beaches, which we mentioned before did not ...

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The drive down to Naples was tough, it seems the Italians only camp near a beach, from the east coast to the west across seven hundred miles we didn't see another camp site, it did get quite stressful looking Dad doesn't like to travel to much as he has a bad leg and it quickly seemed like a bad idea to go so far. We eventually ended up all sleeping in the van that night after giving up looking around 10pm, at a truckers service station near Perugia, I was worried at first as ...

... around the town a bit and we actually ended up walking into some sort of street festival where groups of people from around Europe were dancing and singing. It was awesome to stumble upon it. Yet another thing that only a few of us got to see while on our study abroad. We were able to see about 4 groups dance and sing for about 30 minutes and then we took a stroll back to the hotel to hang out at the beach for a bit before our cooking lesson at 5 pm. It ...

... one of the people who died. We could still see where the shore originally was. There most people were found who tried to escape to the sea. Herculeneum was a fishing village in between sea and Vesuvius.People protected the village against the water and forgot the lava!

... choice castle. Bear in mind we landed there four hours after we left Stabia... but whatever. The back up castle was nice and we liked it. Yesterday was class day and so is tomorrow, but today we took an hour and a half long bus ride through the Italian cliffes and countryside to Paestum, Italy. It was an amazing site of Greek ruins, an entire partially preserved city with three temples and even fully ...

... we want some clear air. We found some for a few precious hours at Paestum. The site was really deep in weeds. The grass was beautiful and the flowers were out of this world. What a wonderful vision. We visited the museum, looked into the 5th century paleo-Christian church and walked the ruins. We ...

By the light of day, after food and a good night's sleep things look better and we set out to discover Sorrento. Of course, as we are not right in Sorrento this involves buying a bus ticket (not as simple as it might seem), finding the bus stop and getting on the right bus. Mission accomplished, we arrive in beautiful Sorrento. It is a perfect day, sunny and warm and we head for the water to check out the ...

(Note : All entries from now until Perth in November are way
shorter than they should be, as all out text got stolen, together with
our laptop, all our valuables, and almost our whole campervan, when it
was broken into and trashed in Rome at the end of October. Have a look
at that entry if you want to have a look at the damage the *******s
did. The next month or so´s text is written 6 ...

... of sea glass and some pottery instead. I went up to my room and showered before I had to run into town for AA batteries. When I got back, we readied and left for dinner early to avoid the threat of rain from the dark clouds. It never actually rained, so we hung out with many other members of our group outside the restaurant. We got in a 7:30 and were fed quickly and efficiently ...

... getting up and leaving early to study, sleep, or to play spider solitaire and download music. So we left the table, both on the verge of exploding from such a meal. (Italians really know food). I slipped on my pajama pants and danced for ten minutes outside the bathroom door. You know when little kids have the I-need-to-go-potty dance. Five people in a one bathroom apartment makes that old dance new again. So right before I gave in and ran down three flights of stairs into the ...