Trip Teaser

Dear Parents and others,

During the trip I will be keeping a daily 'blog' of our activities, posting photos from the different sites we visit and, I hope, giving you a feel for the adventure we will be experiencing.  We are now just over a month away from our departure, so I thought it would be fun to share a little 'teaser' of what we will be seeing and doing.  This also gives you a chance to make note of the url address of the 'blog' so you can find it more easily once we leave.

We will fly on a 'red eye' overnight to Rome and after we land and gather our stuff, we will set off for our first stop, Ostia Antica.  Ostia was the port city for Ancient Rome.

After Ostia we will drive to Sorrento and spend the night,  The next day is busy.  The boys will climb Mount Vesuvius, then we will visit Pompeii, the town that was famously buried in the volcanic eruption of 79 AD.

After Pompeii we will visit Herculaneum, a less well-known town that was buried in the eruption.  Though less well-known and much less has been excavated, Herculaneum has a unique feel.

 On our third day in Italy we leave Sorrento and travel north.  First we will see the amphitheater in Pozzuoli.

Then we will visit the Cave of the Sibyl in Cumae.

We will finish the day at Hadrian's Villa, a palace complex built by the Emperor Hadrian.

That night we will spend in Rome.  After dinner we will likely be taking the boys to the Spanish Steps and the newly-renovated Trevi Fountain.

The next morning we will see the Colosseum,

the Forum,

and the Capitoline Museum.  After a break for lunch we will visit the Largo di Torre Argentina,

 the Pantheon,

and the Piazza Navona.

Our second day in Rome will begin with a trip to Gladiator School,

followed by visits to the Baths of Caracalla, 

the Circus Maximus, the Temple of Portunus,

the Temple of Hercules,

the Pons Fabricius

 the Theater of Marcellus,

the graves of British poets Keats and Shelley,

 the tomb of Gaius Cestius,

and the Porto San Paolo.  Whew!  Big day.

The next day we will board a high-speed train and spend the day in Florence.

We will return after dinner.  On our last full day in Rome we will visit St. Peter's Basilica,

and then go to see a 6 Nations Rugby match between Italy and France.

I hope you enjoyed this 'teaser' of our trip.  As you can imagine, photographs hardly do justice to many of the places we will visit and the things we will see.  I am looking forward very much to our trip!  Ciao!