Capua Amphitheatre

See how much better I am doing with these posts? I got my second wind! Hopefully during this last year for us, I can get all our old trips posted here. So today we are coming to you from Capua Amphitheatre. The second largest amphitheatre in Italy. The Coliseum in Rome being the largest.

This place was pretty cool. It was super cheap to get into, we were the only people there, and the kids got to run and climb on everything. You get way more for your money here compared to the Coliseum.

The Arena! At one time, Capua boasted the best gladiator schools that trained both slaves and freemen. Spartacus, the leader who led the slave revolt in 73 B.C. against Rome, first distinguished himself as a gladiator in the Capua amphitheater.

The underground tunnels

It was cool to be able to go into the underground tunnels and see where the machinery and animals were kept. And where those less fortunate gladiators waited to ascend to their demise.

 

So many artifacts still very well preserved.

Another successful day trip!

Vino

Another visit from my sister allowed me to scratch something else off my Italy to-do list....wine tasting! Catina del Vesuvio is a winery at the base of Mt. Vesuvius that offers tasting and lunch.

We were taken around the grounds as our guide gave us some information about how the grapes are grown and cared for. The soil there is very rich in minerals due to the volcanic rock.

The volcanic rock is very porous which eliminates the need for them to water the grape vines. The rocks soak up the rain water!

They plant roses around the vines as a warning system. If there is any type of fungus or something harmful to the plants, it will attack the roses first. Then they can determine what cause of action to take for the grapes.

They let other flowers and weeds grow freely. They really never mow the grass.

Vesuvius looms in the background

 


Time to eat! Everything was delicioso!

Positano

My sister was able to come and visit for 2 weeks in December. Yes December. Yes December 2012. I am such a slacker on this blogging thing! So sorry! Anyway, we were able to hit a few places that I hadn't been to yet like Positano. I'd never even heard of Positano before we moved here so I had no idea of the beauty and peace I would experience. We found a small lot to park in and then started walking down the windy road.

We found some stairs here and headed down to the beach.

                                                     

Finding a cafe at the beach was an added bonus!

This is probably the view most people are familiar with when talking about Positano. It is such a beautiful and peaceful seaside town with such a picturesque city on the hill. Since we have been in Italy I have developed a list of cities I could retire in, this is one of them.

Ciao Ciao!! Until next time....hopefully less than a year from now...

Rome......Finally

Getting to Rome from here is a pretty easy 2 hour drive. I found a cottage outside the city for us to stay in that had an area for the kids to play and a kitchen. The Metro wasn't far from there so we could spend 3 days exploring Rome as a family! Dante was excited to go to the zoo and see the Coloseum. It seemed like a simple, quick trip to get away from here for a bit. However, our trip did not start off as planned. As we were heading out of town (in our Naples beater) about to get on the freeway, 2nd and 5th gear went out on our car. We were able to get home and get into our other Naples beater and make it about 45 minutes from home when our trip came to a screeching halt.

This one overheated and left us stuck on the side of the Autostrada.

At least we had a decent view.

The kids were entertained for a while throwing rocks.

And then jumping the ditch.

We were stuck there for several hours but I was still able to get them to smile.

We did finally make it up to Rome the next day and tried to make the best of our rough start. The cottage was great!

There were good times on the Metro

 

Trevi Fountain

 

The Colosseum stop on the metro.

 

 

 

And other than seeing a vulture sitting down with its head turned all the way around, the zoo was just the zoo.

 

 

I really would have loved that extra day but it was a successful trip nonetheless. Until next time...

 

 

Randomness

There are so many little day to day things I've experienced since being here that really don't have enough pictures or information to have their own post, so I thought I would combine several of them together. These are the random, cool, and strange things I see and experience on a regular basis.


The sidewalks in our area are few and far between. And I have yet to see a bike lane anywhere. So quite often the drivers here are forced to share the road with people walking or riding bikes casually in the middle of the road.

The escalators in the malls don't have steps! I love this! You can take your cart or stroller up or down without having to find the elevator.

Naples also isn't known for their adherence to basic traffic laws. It's pretty much a free for all. As long as you don't hit someone, anything goes! As seen here with a family of four on a moped. This is a very common occurence.

The Italian ice cream man! Selling "granite" which is similar to a slushy.

Dryers are a luxury item here so laundry gets hung out to dry daily.




Bucket full of snails being sold at a local open air market. I'm still not sure what they are used for here.

We live in a somewhat rural part of town. There are a couple of different flocks of sheep that graze in our area so I have gotten stuck in sheep traffic many times.

While all of these things are somewhat strange to us Americans, this is the norm to the people of Naples!