Southern Italy - love and hate

- *Loved Pompeii, and Herculeam. In some places you can see the remains of doors, floors, shop shelves and even a wooden laundry press. Reading Robert Harris's Pompeii while there was pretty cool even if the book is crap

* My Italian is coming on well. In a bar I thought I had asked for a glass of beer. The waitress looked confused and asked if I wanted wine like Marilyn. I said no and repeated my request. She shrugged and bought back a glass of wine for Marilyn and a empty glass for me

* The beauty of the Isle of Capri overcame the mass of tourists, but Sorrento was very ordinary

* Litter and rubbish everywhere. Suppose this is what happens if you outsource your country's waste disposal to the Mafia. Our apartment overlooked a beautiful beach and bay but the rubbish that covered the beach every day blew in the sea. It was like swimming in a municipal tip

* Fell in love with the chaos and frenetic activity in Naples: Managed to get a box at the opera but the locals were not impressed by our dress sense. Archeological museum, especially the Secret Rooms full of Roman pornography, and the ornate glass that had somehow survived the centuries

* Amazingly it has been difficult to get anything other than mediocre food, except for the fantastic pizzas in Naples

* Hated the graffetti on everything

* Marilyn learnt that it is best not to wait for the loo to become free if two men are using it at the same time

* Couldn't work out why every night a guy would play the one arm bandit in the local bar putting in 100s of Euros but not taking any of the winnings. The owner would have to empty it a couple of times a night just to keep him supplied. When the machine hit the max it could record in winnings he would call the owner over who would give them back around £700 worth of euros.

* Why when buying a train ticket I buy part of the journey at the train company's ticket office but have to buy the other part at the tobacconist

* In Naples guys sell stolen lap tops, mobile phones, MP3 and cameras openly from the tops of cardboard boxes