Today we checked out early from Caserta and continued on our journey, this time toward Sicily. On the way, we are stopping off at Pompeii for our guided tour booked for 11:00.
We found the recommended Euro Park parking lot, park for 10 euro for the whole day, and had plenty of time to kill (coffee of course) before meeting for our tour.
Our guide for the next two hours was Rossella who was most informative, taking us to all the best places in Pompeii and giving a comprehensive understanding of the history and every day life that occurred at the time. This site is absolutely huge, over 66 hectares in size, and to have someone give a concise tour for 2 hours was great value ! We are sure we would have spent much more time there without a guide and not have gained as much information as we did.
After leaving Pompeii we drove for another 3 hours toward Sicily for an overnight stop in Taverna. Our fuel was getting low and being through the mountains, there were few petrol stations available. When the low petrol light came on we had 80 kilometres to travel and 84 kilometres showing on the dash as distance left for remaining fuel. So we HAD to find a service station, luckily at the 60 kilometre mark one magically appeared (it wasn't showing on Google Maps) and we topped up with enough the make sure we got to our destination. The cost per litre was 2.38 euro, so we only put 20 euro in.
It was a really scenic drive through the high mountains and deep valleys, serviced by numerous bridges and tunnels. Today we drove through 50 tunnels, the longest one being 3.8 km long. Didn't count the bridges, but there were many and some were spanning very deep valleys. Nice drive.
There is something macabre about Pompeii. It certainly sounds like a highly informative guided tour is worthwhile.