I'd last been to Italy to go to a trade show in 1997, and I had Martin join me in Rome after the show. By this time, it was old hat for him to travel to international airports. I'd booked a modest hotel room just around the corner from the Coliseum subway stop. The walls had cracks, the sink was chipped, but we had a little balcony from which we could watch a protest march (largely comprised of members of the Italian Communist party) go down the boulevard, chanting and pushing and shoving. On this trip we spent extensive time in the Vatican museums, saw all the major sights in Rome and then took the train to Naples with hopes of visiting the town buried by lava flows during the erruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Naples was quite an adventure as, when we got off the train from Rome, the hotel advocates (shills) literally pushed and pulled us to book at their hotels until I stamped my feet, waved my hands and shouted "Go Away! Go Away!" After visiting the mosaics from Pompeii and the Archaeological Musuem in Naples, we tried to go there -- but much of Pompeii was closed for renovation/reconstruction. We diverted to Herculaneum/Ercolano and had a great tour. Naples won't be forgotten for two other highlights of local culture: 1) motorcyclists who diverted to the sidewalks when traffic got bad, and 2) pizza with sunny-side up egg on it.
But this visit in 2004 was different. The occasion was a gathering of the International Map Collectors Society, and the opportunity to visit great and usually-closed palaces and villas was a real draw.
