17th - 18th July 2018

 We had a beautiful chilled out day at two amazingly gorgeous villages called Castellabate and Santa Maria di Castellabate - I cannot explain how fabulous these villages are - so unspoilt and quiet - if you like to be away from it all then the Cilento Coast is the place to go.  But the highlight of today was eating at Casale Giancesare - Antonino and Jonny cooked for us and it was absolutely fantastic - all home grown vegetables, Buffalo Mozzarella  was out of this world - and it was lots of tasters of different local dishes - I wish I had taken photos of the food - it not only tasted amazing but it looked amazing too - if they had been cooking every night we would have eaten there every night - it was soooo good.  If you ever want to go to Southern Italy and stay on the Cilento Coast then I can highly recommend Casale Giancesare - get in touch with Antonino - he is absolutely a fantastic host and cannot do enough for you - he will tell you fabulous places to eat and the best places to visit and he, his father Enzo and Jonny all make you feel very much at home - can't sing their praises enough.

 Next day we went to Pompeii - it's huge and amazing and unbelievable and if you're in Italy you have to go see it - my words could not do it justice so I'll just put some pictures on - there's so much to see so you need at least 2-3 hours, plenty of water, sunscreen and comfy shoes.  We were going to have the audio guide but at the entrance we went in they didn't do it (they have 3 entrances) - I think it would have been better to have a guide or the audio guide.  It was a very short queue and I think it cost about 10 euros (but it's free on the first sunday of the month).

 The Amphitheatre looked amazing but it was all fenced off when we went so we couldn't go inside which was disappointing

 You really don't get a sense of how big and amazing it is from these photos - you need to go see for yourself.

 We then visited Herculaneum, it's a lot smaller than Pompeii but just as fascinating.  I think I enjoyed it more here - we did have the audio guide here which probably made it a bit better - but it was less crowded, no queue to get in here either.  We loved it but I have to admit that we probably only looked around about half of it properly - and by then our feet were aching and we were ready for a drink and something to eat.

 Looking down at Herculaneum with the new city above at the back

 Skeletons found where people had fled to the shore hoping to escape

 Herculaneum is fantastic - a lot of it is still buried under the existing city - we just felt we got more of a sense of what life was like here than we did in Pompeii - however, having said that - Pompeii is absolutely a tick off the bucket list - just go to both.

 We went back to Caffe Centrale tonight - this restaurant is fab - we shared the antipasti and then both had steak - delicious.  Antonino recommended this restaurant to us - so thanks Antonino - you're the best!

Cheers and thanks for looking at my blog ..