melted smoosh

photo credit: Rebecca! ( Naples, day 1 here ) the next day started bright and early with fresh cornetti and fruit dropped off by our AirBnB host, so we could enjoy breakfast on the balcony. pretty incredible weather for late October!  unfortunately, the next part of the morning was not quite as idyllic. we planned to take the regional train to Pompeii ... and so had pretty much the entire population of Naples. we crammed on the train, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, with sweaty strangers, trying to keep hands on the stroller and wearing our backpacks on the front to discourage pickpockets. with various delays and inexplicable stops along the line, it took over an hour for us to arrive. finally, we arrived at our stop and tumbled out, grateful to be breathing the fresh air!  fueling up before getting slathered in sunscreen the entrance to the excavation site Greta stealing a page from the other tourists' playbook last year, we had visited the ancient ruins of Ostia Antica near R

in October, Rebecca flew across the pond again to join us in more Italian adventures (as well as branching off on several solo trips)! somehow she was not too traumatized by the experiences of her previous visit in October 2018, which included but were not limited to  missing connections due to lack of cell service, torrential rainstorms , too many bus snafus to count, and the most infamous calamity of all when we missed our special guided tour of the Colosseum. doesn't Italy sound like fun?!  this second trip was a bit of vindication, however. we knew our way around the city better and we also had fewer moving parts to our planned itinerary for her visit! as it happened, we didn't spend much time in Rome at all. on her first night with us, we strolled down to Piazza Navona to get gelato and then just relaxed at the apartment.  patiently waiting at the porter's office for Aunt Becca's taxi to arrive from the airport reunited at last! first order of business: scratchi