Pompeii

Jill and I took a day trip to Pompeii from Rome. When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be an archeologist. Ancient cultures still fascinate me and I didn't want to miss this opportunity.

We took a bus down with Fabio, an archeology student, as a guide. Really, that's his name. And, no, he didn't have bulging muscles and flowing hair, more's the pity.

He gave us some background on Pompeii as we drove down, but we were on our own in Pompeii. Based on several recommendations we bought the self-guided audio tour.

Someone, somewhere in the bowls of some governmental building, cackles every time a foreign tourist rents one. They are incredibly difficult to follow, providing loose directions to the location discussed in each segment. Then they describe what was rather than what is and I can assure you that the was and is are very different. In Pompeii, the deviants went a step further and had three different numbering systems for each landmark. One in the book that went with the audio tour, and two represented by plaques on the landmarks, none of them correlating in even a small way!

Must be the same folks in charge of auto and superstrade signs.