Ah, most jealous, I had a wee sojourn around part of Italy in 2004, and enjoyed it muchly.
I started off in Rome, a few days there, then headed up the Amalfi coast, finishing up in Naples, from where I flew back. In between, I managed Pompeii, Sorrento, Salerno, Amalfi, and Positano.
Rome is great, but much more touristy than I expected, something that may not be quite so bad at the time of year you're visiting. The crowds and endless ice-cream and souvenir stalls are a bit annoying after a while, but then I guess as tourists ourselves, we've a bit of a cheek complaining...
I only had about three days in Rome, so did the easy thing and took an open top bus tour from the bus terminal right outside the main railway station, Stazione Termini. Plug in your headphones for a taped English commentary, and enjoy the fact that you aren't the one doing the driving through the chaotic Roman traffic - it really is a free-for-all, almost every car is bashed and scooters continually dart out of nowhere! If you've more time, then it's a great city to walk in, you'll stumble across loads of markets and interesting stuff by accident, although watch yourself around the main station, it can be a bit dodgy like any major city at night.
Think I did most of the major sites, Colosseum, the Forum, Palatine Hill, Circus Maximus, the Vatican, etc. The first three are all adjacent and fairly easy to do in a day, the Vatican perhaps needs at least half a day to take everything in, you'll wander through miles of corridors and exquisitely painted rooms before you get to the Sistine Chapel!
The Amalfi coast is stunning, I got the train to Salerno then the bus to Positano, a rather terrifying drive along precipitous and winding clifftop roads, with unbelievably vertical lemon groves populating the slopes down to the Med below. You really have to wonder what anyone was thinking when they saw these places and though it would be a good idea to build towns and roads along such cliffs!
Pompeii - if you really think you'll be interested in Pompeii, then allow pretty much a full day for this, it's absolutely enormous. Think I got there about 11am, and by 6pm had only managed a cursory wander around 3/4 of it. Fascinating stuff, the level of preservation in some places is stunning - right down to street signs, shop counters and domestic wall decoration.
Finally, I hit Naples, not through any particular desire to be there, more that it was the easiest place to get to for a cheap Easyjet flight home! It's a curious place, Naples, certainly not a pretty city by any stretch of the imagination. The journey there by train took us through some hideous industrial blight, I remember thinking looking at it and thinking that I'd never consider Glasgow to be an ugly city again....
The city centre has a tang to it, a bit edgy and grubby and smelly but probably all the more interesting because of it, in this day of carefully manicured tourist traps. I ended up in a hotel next to a porn cinema of the same name (Casanova!) and above some sort of noisy workshop!
Anyways, here are a few pics from my travels there to give you a flavour...
OK, starting off in Rome, in the bus station outside the railway terminal. An excellent destination if I do say so myself, was almost tempted to hop aboard there and then!
The Trevi Fountain, and an idea of just how busy it can be in Rome, even on a dreich day such as this was.
Probably much prettier by night, I'd say, but the crowds are still there, just out of sight in this shot!
The Colosseum - don't think I'd been prepared for just quite how ruinous it was inside!
The main road to the Colosseum, the via dei Fori Imperiali, was apparently carved through the Roman ruins by Mussolini. To either side of the road is an impressive array of ruins of forums and the Palatine, such as this, the Fori Imperiali itself.
At the bottom of the via dei Fori Imperiali is the monument to Vittorio Emanuele, the first king of unified Italy. Despite it's classical looks, it's only around 110 years old.
The Castel Sant'Angelo, originally built as Hadrian's mausoleum in the 2nd century AD, but since used as pretty much everything in between - fortress, prison, papal residence, museum....
A random free church visit which turned out to be this sumptuous interior, I think this was the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore.
Viewed from the ruins of Palatine Hill, the long grassy remains of the Circus Maximus, the largest of Rome's chariot-racing venues - not to mention the odd execution and wild animal fight!
Right next door to the Colosseum, the wealth of remains that make up the Forum - this is the Basilica of Maxentius, started around AD306. This is what is stunning about looking around these places, in AD306, us Scots were all still living in mud huts and drystone hillforts and the like, whilst in Rome they were knocking out stuff whose scale is still impressive today!
A closer shot with random bloke to show just what the scale of these 1,700 year old buildings were!
Looking to the right of the Basilica of Maxentius, the Colosseum is in the background, with the Arch of Titus just in front of it - this was built in AD81 to celebrate the sacking of Jerusalem.
The Pantheon, originally built around AD 119-128. Despite much abuse and re-use over the years, after becoming a Christian church in the 7th century, it's still a formidable sight, especially when the rain is pelting in the 30ft hole in the middle of the dome, as it was on the day I visited!
The 16th century dome of St Peter's in the Vatican City, as designed by Michelangelo. I read much about queues to get into the Vatican, but walked in without delay myself, don't know if that was common or not though!
The Sistine Chapel. Takes hours of walking through the not uninteresting other parts of the Vatican before you get here. Photography is not permitted. Oops!
Heading along the Amalfi coast, I think this is Amalfi itself, where we were llucky enough to catch a wedding in the main church! Pity about the scaffolding!
Positano, possibly the prettiest of the Amalfi towns. The effect was somewhat spoiled, though, when I passed a small shop with a rack of newspapers outside, one of which was the Daily Record. Is there no escape...?
Although I got the bus there, it's worthwhile getting the boat back for the fantastic sea views of the towns. Again, this is leaving Positano.
On to Pompeii. The area outside the main entrance is a tacky tourist minefield of souvenir stalls and stray dogs. This is the Forum, with Vesuvius in the background.
Typical street scene. With this level of preservation, it's fascinatingly easy to imagine how it might have looked in its heyday, and on the fateful day in AD79 when the volcano erupted.
More of the same.
It's really diffficult to get across the scale of the site, but it really is a full town, of which this is only a tiny fraction.
And its astonishing to find that even shop signs and graffiti still survive, albeit behind faded, scratched perspex. Funding the preservation and display of the ruins is a bit of a headache for the Italian authorites...
Especially interesting is wandering around many of the houses and finding things such as wall decoration perfectly intact. Unfortunately, the nature of the site means that there aren't much in the way of facilities, so many of the quiter rooms and houses you'll find get used as toilets...
The infamous body casts, although there aren't as many of these as you might think.
This being HG, I can't not stick up some of the paintings from the brothel....!
And some more...
And again....!
Anyways, fantastic country, hope you have a good trip!
Gary