Tuesday 18th April

Having spent the night on the public car park in Tivoli we awoke to rain.

It had been our intention to explore Villa D’Este today, but given that the Villa’s main attraction was its gardens we decided a rainy day would not show them at their best, so we decided to move on to the Naples area and specifically the ancient village of Casertavecchia. It was a shame because the original owner of the villa was the grandson of Pope Alexander VI through his mother, Lucrezia Borgia and that would have given me license to write about celebate Popes having children!

Casertavecchia is a village dating back to the Etruscans 2,500 years ago, who had built their town high up in the mountains. This meant Basil had to haul carcass up some atrocious narrow, hairpin strewn roads only to find that the road SatNav had chosen was closed! Not to be defeated we found an alternative route to the village, which involved descending the same awful roads and the ascending some different but equally difficult Italian excuses for roads.

We arrived to be greeted by the horny handed owner of one of only two overnight spots. He spoke no English but we understood his establishment to be €15. We knew that there was a parking area which allowed motorhomes to park for €5, so we were noncommittal.

The parking area, which was a large, pleasant grassy area, was only 40 or 50 metres further on and the entrance was open with a sign, saying €2 for parking. The owner of the car park did not seem to be present, so we set off to investigate Casertavecchia.

Casertavecchia turned out to be a present, if not remarkable, village with a 11th century Romanesque cathedral and a 12th century tower adjacent to it. Other than that it consisted of a series of very narrow streets, and alleys, lined with extremely old, but very well maintained, terraced buildings. We wandered the length and breath of the community, but it was so small that it only took an hour at most.

On the way back down to Basil we found a ninth century castle, all except one tower in ruins, which was originally built by the Lombards.

When we got back to the parking area, the owner was present. I asked him how much it was to stay overnight on the simple grass car park and he said he wanted €15. Our Park4Night app, made it clear that previously he had been charging €5, but we suspected that he had put his rates up to €15 to avoid problems with the other stopping place in the village, which has showers, toilets, and other facilities.

We refused his kind offer and paid him €2 for parking. That meant another journey down the twisty mountain roads to a large free parking area in the city of Caserta, where we spent a quiet night with some 20 other vans, including a converted, beautifully decorated bus from Morocco. The parking place just happened to be next to yet another Roman remain, in this case, a fairly complete amphitheatre.

Wednesday 19th April

We lingered on our parking spot in Caserta as we debated what to do next. One option was to push much further south and the other was to try to see the area around Sorrento, Pompeii and Herculaneum. We have visited all of these more than once before, but thought that another look, at least at Herculaneum might be worthwhile.

We picked Camping Zeus (40.750351, 14.479992) and arrived shortly after lunch. I had another dispute at reception regarding ACSI rates. The ACSI rate advertised in their book for camping Zeus is €23, and the man at reception wanted to add on €4 euros tax, which was fair enough. But he then said that from the third night onwards we would have to pay €35 a night because it was high season. A long discussion ensued, where I showed him that ACSIi made it clear that all the dates we wish to stay were at the lower rate but he refused to accept it. However finally he did concede us staying on the site for €27 a night.

The site is right next to one of the Pompeii entrances, and once you pass outside the camping gates, you are swallowed by throngs of people visiting Pompeii. The site itself is rather nice and quiet. It is very shady although the number of trees makes it quite difficult to find a suitable location for the big boy. We did finally manage it and are now firmly ensconced.

Sarah took Skye for a wander, and then I did the same. The Pompeii website says that only dogs below 40 cm in height and less than 10 kg are now allowed into Pompeii, which is ironic given that the previous times we have visited, the whole excavation was full of strays. In fact on our first visit, Sarah’s sister rescued a stray from Pompeii, and then proceeded to pay about £2,000 to have the dog quarantined and transported to London, where it promptly became ill and died within a couple of years!

I therefore took Skye down to the entrance gate of Pompeii, and the guard at the final entrance, where you have to show your tickets, said Skye would be fine. We have not yet, however, decided whether to go to to visit Pompeii or not.

I took Skye down into the main part of Pompeii town looking for somewhere we might be able to eat tonight. I finally found a nice looking restaurant/pizzeria, which was going to be open this evening, unlike virtually all the other restaurants and booked us a table for 7.30.

We had a lovely Neapolitan pizza each and Skye enjoyed her fair share of the crusts. She is beginning to enjoy Italian restaurants!