​Time to hit the road, or the rails rather, and head to Rome. Leaving Naples wasn’t difficult; I honestly didn’t care for it much at all. It was loud, busy, and incredibly dirty. There was graffiti on almost every surface possible and it was not easy to get around in. The presepi were certainly a fun, accidental find but an evening strolling there would more than suffice. The bottom line: If I was to do the planning and traveling all over again, I’d use Sorrento as a “homebase” for both Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast, add Herculaneum, and skip Naples altogether. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.

So! Onward to Rome!

But first a pastry! And Naples specialty is the sfogliatelle- light, crispy, amazing:

But travel days are important, and that’s how we spent the day. Another train ride through the beautiful Italian countryside. Goodbye Vesuvius, rest quietly.

This train trip had us passing through some lovely, craggy mountains to add a new twist to the scenery:

I always got a kick out of how they can accurately estimate your arrival to the stops down to the minute and give real-time info on the speed of your train. They are fast, hence the blur in so many of my photos.

Every little bit, we’d see another hillside village of whitewashed homes resembling a Lego set creation. I wished we’d had time to hop off the train and explore each one.

Each station was home to a few train cars meant for other purposes, which gave me constant amusement. They are a bit reminiscent of something out of a Richard Scarry children’s book, and I giggled at that a bit.

Soon we arrived at the train station, and it was already lunch time. There just wasn’t time to find a taxi, get to our Airbnb, and then go back out in search of a meal. Besides, we’d both gotten to “that point” in our trip. Anara had a couple of nights before me, but even I was now hankering for some mediocre, but predictable “American” food. Not surprisingly, there’s a Mickey D’s right across the massive Rome Centralia and being fast (and not so cheap) we pigged out on artery-clogging crap-food for lunch. Yes, we both ate our entire burgers, fries, and Coke.

Sated, we hailed a taxi and in no time at all, we were greeted at the front door by our host and his son at this unbelievably PERFECT Airbnb.

I mean it. This was probably my favorite room we stayed in the whole trip, except maybe a couple of them in Tuscany.

Let me show you…

It was small, but SO well done. The color palette screamed Roman terracotta.

With that, we dumped our stuff and rushed off to our first booked tour: St. Peter’s Cathedral and the Vatican Museum. It was a good half hour walk or more, so off we went.

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite shots from my day in the Heart of Appalachia. I’m so blessed to live where I do with wide open spaces and natural beauty all around me!