Arrivederci

Thank you to everyone for your lovely comments on my posts and photographs from Italy.  It was a wonderful holiday and nice to be able to share a little of it with you. 
Here's an "arty" shot that I took from my laying on the beach in the sun position on Capri -

I was fairly exhausted when we got back, the heat plus the excursions was rather too much but both were also wonderful!  I am now having enforced rest as I managed to fall down the stairs this afternoon and, after three hours in A&E now have a splint on my knee and my very first zimmer frame as I'm not allowed to put any weight on my leg!  There's nothing broken according to the x-ray but a lot of swelling and a lot of pain so it's R&R and then back to the hospital on Tuesday for a scan!  I sure know how to get out of doing the holiday washing and ironing and I'll be able to catch up with the blog posts I've missed while away. :)
Saz and I did a little evaluation of our holiday on the way back and have decided that we love Italy and were impressed with our tour company but wouldn't return to the hotel we stayed in.  We'd love to return to the Campania region and spend more time, maybe at a cooler time of year.  I have quite a lot of quilt inspiration and Saz is very keen to get stitiching.  She used the lovely bag she made all week while we were out and about, it's covered in the dust of Pompeii and Vesuvius, I wonder whether she'll want to wash it.

Vesuvius has got to feature in a quilt, it dominates the whole place, you can see it from wherever you are and it is both benevolent and malevolent, a sleeping dragon.
A lot of the ceramic plaques that are made in the area would translate well into a stained glass window style quilt panel -

Sadly I didn't find a shop selling Aurifil thread and we didn't buy any fabric but there's always next time.  It's time for arrivederci, thank you for joining our trip

OMG my grandson's cute!

La Dolce Vita

Finding time and energy to blog was quite difficult but we are home now and it is pouring with rain and so it's lovely to sit and look through some of these pictures of lovely Italy.  I hope you have been enjoying them too.  We were on holiday with the Riviera company and certainly got good value as far as activities, it's been a constant whirl.  With the heat reaching 38C it was a bit too much for me at times.  On Thursday Saz and Sam went into Naples, I had breakfast and went back to bed! At about 11 a.m. I surfaced and sat on the balcony and sorted out some photos, gosh, it's amazing what we've done and seen! 
Today I'm sharing our visit to the island of Capri.  This is famous as a very glamorous place but since it has become accessible to the ordinary person it has become rather touristy.  We managed to find a lovely quiet cove, however, where we spent the morning swimming and then had a picnic lunch before getting the funicular up to Capri town for the afternoon - very hot and busy!   Back down at the harbourside we found a great ice cream shop and enjoyed lemon ice cream, very tasty and refreshing.  The whole of this area is big on lemons, it is where limoncello is made and they grow massive fruits, amazing.

Herculaneum

Herculaneum.....wow, what a wonderful place, far better than the much more famous Pompeii imho.  While Pompeii was buried under volcanic ash after the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, nearby Herculaneum was sealed in volcanic mud and is much better preserved.  It was a settlement of about 5 000 inhabitants and not so big that it was overwhelming.  We had a guided tour and were able to see all of the town in half a day, another time it would be lovely to spend even longer.  It amazes me that were were able to walk on the mosiac floors and that the site is open to the elements.  I wonder how long it will survive in the blistering heat and winter wet and with the many visitors that it gets.  Again, I'm just going to post a series of pictures, without any more words, they speak for themselves, enjoy....

Picture Tour of the Amalfi Coast

No need for many words today, just a lot of photographs that I took as we explored the Amalfi Coast.  We stopped in Positano, Amalfi and Ravello, all pretty towns.  We were particularly keen on Amalfi and Saz bought some veggie seeds for her garden.  So, here we go, enjoy.....

Ciao

We're having a wonderful time in Italy where we are currently sitting in the shade, sheltering from heat of the day after a great trip to Herculaneum this morning.  More on that later, we'll start with a tour of the small town of Sorrento which is where we are based.  We had a walk round on Saturday and discovered some lovely places and one particular treasure, the cloister of St Francis.  It was cool and tranquil and the plants were wonderful, we sat for quite a while watching the geckos.
It is absolutely amazing to see how Mount Vesuvius dominates the landscape here, it's so close.  No worries about eruptions, it is very carefully monitored these days (so they tell us anyway).
Little Sam has been coping very well with early starts, late dinners and everybody speaking Italian.   He is bellissimo!  He can say "ciao" and amazed DD and me by knowing the word "statue", how?  He was delighted to find that there are baked beans here (although the hotel toaster leaves much to be desired, is that a universal hotel failing?) and has had some delicious gelato.  I have only had one pizza so far!

Yes, these people are sunbathing!  Off to see if it's cool enough to take Sam swimming, more another day.