Wonderment and awe

Our trip to Pompeii was an organized trip. We spent the whole day following an ageing gentleman called Lorenzo around the city while he held a garishly coloured, folded umbrella above his head so that we could follow him around like a troop of goslings following their mother goose. For a snob like me who hates being a tourist, it was pure torture - rescued by the fact that I managed to transport myself sufficiently far back in time that 'Renzo's presence didn't bother me any more.

We went on from Pompeii to the workshop of the blacksmiths to the Gods. The bus took us most of the way up and we walked the last twenty minutes or so. There was a fella handing out walking sticks - aparently for free but, of course, they weren't. He needed a tip. We took a stick, handed him a few grand and headed up to the caldera. It was unfortunate that it was quite a hazy sort of day so that you could barely see the bay of Naples and you couldn't see much further south than Salerno, if you could see that far.

Having been to Pompeii and Vesuvius, we started to feel adventurous and decided to take on Herculaneum and Paestum. Herculaneum is, in many ways, better than Pompeii. Apart from the fact that all of the ovine tourists go to Pompeii and none of them go to Herculaneum, through an accident of the eruption and the way it landed on the two cities, the woodwork in Herculaneum survived (albeit carbonized) whereas that in Pompeii simply disappeared.

Ercolano was brilliant although I was almost embarrassed to find that none of the photos I took there were any good. Rubbish. Every single one. I shall have to go back and rectify the matter.

Paestum, like Neapolis, Pompeii and Herculaneum (and a lot of the other cities in southern Italy) were Greek cities. Part of the glorious entity that was Magna Grecia. Even though it was nowhere near as well preserved as either of the two Vesuvian cities, it was good enough to impress ... and some. Seriously heavy Greek temples. The sort of stuff you only expect in Athens.

We were guided around the place by an extremely classily dressed young Italian lady (a history student?) who appeared to know her stuff and was happy to call me family when she discovered that my family came from Scala - the town where she was born and bred. I'd like to think that it was my natural Italian good looks that led her to seek the familial connection so readily but it really doesn't matter. This greying 39 year-0ld spent the rest of the tour around the city chatting to her and feeling very privileged as a result.

Apart from anything else, the fact that I could chat to the guide in her own language and even in her own accent (I can't do the dialect but I can do the accent) separated me from the rest of the ovine tourists.