New City Old Tunnels

 Now that we had decided to leave our temporary home in the bay of Naples we hightailed it north, but not before a stop at Naples itself

Something that really surprised us about Naples was a souvenir that the original inhabitants of the city, the 5th century BC Greeks, left behind which was these enormous tunnels. The Greeks, in order to build their monumental structures, quarried out lots of rock from under the modern city and in doing so created these enormous caverns. Not one to waste an opportunity, the ancient Greeks then decided to fill them with rain water and use them as cisterns for their city, a role which they stayed in until the 19th century when they became infested with cholera. Pictured here on the right is the ledge from which the Greek maintenance workers would pick out anything unhygienic from the cistern. On the right you can even see all the original white waterproof plaster that they left including the red and black water lines they painted on.

Also underground was the Roman Theatre, which funnily enough Nero also performed at, which was built upon from ancient times. This process of building on the theatre was so pronounced that modern archaeologists had lost the theatre until in the early 20th century they, when looking in the right area, happened upon its main stage under this apartments floor. Not ones to waste space, the modern Neapolitans still live above it today!

Back up above ground we were treated to the crazy hustle and bustle of the modern city. This is not an exceptional street but very much the norm, littered with souvenir shops.

A really cool example of Neapolitan art is these Presepi which are models of the late medieval inhabitants of the city living amongst the ancient ruins, much like their modern descendants.

Back on the road again and we say goodbye to our southern most destination of this trip now heading back north. With a quick stopover in Tivoli for the night we are on our 2 and a half week journey back north to Vienna!

On the second day of driving we did our largest stint of the journey, 5 hours from Tivoli up to San Marino. Whilst gruelling and costing just under £100 in tolls and diesel, we were treated to finally crossing the Apennines that we had been travelling down the whole way from Genoa to Pompeii. An impressive mountain range in their own right, however we had been a bit spoilt by the Alps only a few weeks earlier so they weren't quite so novel.

After the stint across the Apennines we drove for a couple of hours up the East coast finally meeting the Adriatic sea and stopped off just outside Rimini to get our washing done in a local laundromat. 

Tomorrow we'll be back at it with San Marino (our 3rd new country of the trip) and possibly also Ravenna!