It’s time again for another series of posts that start out with a lot of descriptions and get progressively more image heavy.

For this trip, I am headed back to Italy but to regions that are new to me. My trip starts in Pompeii, to visit the ruins, and the heads up to the region of Umbria. You can thank Stanley Tucci for choosing this region, seriously watch his show on Italy.

At this point it has been almost a full day of travel just to get to Pompeii. Two long moderately long car rides and two flights got me to Pompeii in the early afternoon, where Spring has definitely sprung.

All of the trees have leaves on them and flowers are starting to bloom. I think it‘s pretty warm, my sleeves were rolled up as I walked around, but many people had light winter jackets on. I don’t know how they are not dying in those things but I guess they feel it’s cold.

My only real goal today was to get to Pompeii. As that went off without a hitch, I took the opportunity to take a walk around the town itself as I will be touring the ruins tomorrow.

I ended up walking to a piazza just a short distance from the hotel and grabbing a quick but fantastic late lunch that I ate next to a fountain. It’s really rough sometimes.

Lunch was from a really small local place called Na’ Pasta and I cannot recommend it enough! For 6 Euros I was able to get a Coke, an Arancina, and a crocche di patate. The Arancina is a fried ball of rice, peas and ham. The crocche di patate is a fried ball of mashed potatoes, salami and mozzarella. They cook them right away so they are fresh and hot. A fantastic light lunch on the go!

My hotel is just a few hundred feet from one of the entrances to the ruins. After lunch, I took a short nap and woke up to the surprise of a truly agonizing Charlie horse! Lots of cursing through clenched teeth ensued. I did, eventually, massage it away but I did not go too far for dinner.

Dinner was a quick affair, I was a bit tired. An inexpensive meal of pizza with yellow tomatoes, red tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella(local stuff) and a sweet ham. Both of my meals together totaled a bit over $20 dollars, not too shabby!

I should have quite a few more photos tomorrow and I will try to keep up with all of the food photos along the way.