Each day on our Italian sojourn, we enjoyed (or endured, depending on the mood of the little Bacchae) an archeological adventure. Our neighborhood site was Paestum; our agritourism rooms looked out over the plains upon which Paestum (one of the great cities of Magna Graecia) was founded. The massive temples were especially stunning set against the gunmetal skies of early spring, with an icy wind blowing hard from every direction at once, it seemed. Nevertheless, the old stones were surrounded by profusions of green--and the kids frolicked among the first flowers of the year and rolled around in the grass when they were not tight-roping along the marble refuse. Luckily, there was a great little "enoteca" across the street from the archeological site, where we could retreat to reheat ourselves after our ramble. On Easter Sunday, we roamed the ruins of Velia, a smaller Greek (then Roman, then etc.) site in a specatcular setting, with its series of Medieval towers and walls propped high up on a breezy acropolis overlooking the Greek and Roman layers beneath. The site was very beautifully labelled, with nice bridges yawning across mosaic floors and lots of spots for thrilling toddler gymnastics. Monday we stopped in at Pompeii for a look around. Obviously, there's not a single day of the year when the place isn't crawling with tourists, but the place is so massive that it hardly matters. Alas, it had just hailed and then rained, so the kids (very, very cranky after several days of travel) were as interested as jumping into every pool of muddy water between the Roman cobblestones as they were gazing upon what is in essence a beautifully intact Roman city. About a half an hour and several tantrums into our visit, the kids' Chuck Taylors entirely saturated in Pompeiian mud (don't people pay for such treatment at spas across New England?), we'd all had enough, so we beat a quick retreat into Naples in search of pizza. Photographic evidence of our little pagan bambini above... Ciao, Christopher
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