Return to Italy!!! SOOOOOOOO excited!!

Greetings, folks!

We are very, very pleased to announce that: They're back!!! The Wandering Brucato's, off to wander some more!

This time we are heading to Rome and the southern part of Italy -- following the Via Appia Antica (Appian Way) all the way from Rome to Brindisi. We are driving over to Los Angeles on Sunday, and doing a stay/park/fly arrangement with the Airport Hilton Hotel -- which gets us three weeks of parking, as well as a room for the night -- this after realizing that our flight leaves LAX at 6 a.m....gulp! So ... from there, our plan is to spend three nights inRoma -- one of my FAVORITE cities -- and then picking up a car and heading out from there. And, as R has made past comments that I ALWAYS want to do the same old things, this time we've arranged for a tour of the Necropolis under St. Peters, and I have a list of small museums that we haven't seen ... which we'll work in around the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, et al. (the usuals...)

From there, we head south out of town -- and basically relying on maps as well as a wonderful book we have called The Appian Way (picked up at the Getty Malibu with the Vaughans a year or so ago...which I'm now wishing was in paperback instead of hard cover, as it's going to be HEAVY to carry!) The Appian Way is one of the world's first real highways -- built by the Romans over 2,100 years ago to transport people/goods to/from and across their empire. It spans Italy from Rome to the Adriatic port city of Brindisi, which was the jumping off point for Greece, Turkey and the middle east. We have walked parts of it south of Rome several times -- a very memorable experience -- but until we found the above mentioned book, had no idea that there was still so much to see along it! Castles, ruins, roads, mile posts, bridges, aquaducts, arenas -- WOW! So, we're going to discover it! (Amazing what those free air miles can get for you, huh?)

From Rome we head to: Sperlonga, Capua, Matera (where we'll be staying in a cave!), Taranto, Brindisi, Lecce, Paestum, Frascati and back to Rome -- this time staying near the airport, which is also VERY close to our favorite Roman ruins, Ostia Antica!

We hope that you enjoy our ramblings and pictures -- I try and write every day, but am really not sure how much wi-fi we'll have in some places, so can't make any promises! So, dear friends and anyone else who cares to tag along, get ready for La Belle Italia!!

Much love,
m