Southern Italy (or, 'The Cheese Binge')

Our second week in Italy, we spent two nights in the southern town of Sorrento, renowned for its pretty cliff-top views of the Bay of Naples, and for its alarming lack of traffic lights.

We spent a day wandering the ruins of resurrected Pompeii, in the shadow of Vesuvius (which is, by the way, still very much active), hopping across the stepping stones in ancient streets that spent more than a millennium and a half suffocated beneath ten metres of ash. Remarkably, some of the frescoes inside the houses survived.

We had two fantastic meals in Sorrento: gnocchi alla Sorrentina at a cute little restaurant, and take-away pizza on the roof of our hotel, from which we could see the whole bay, as well as the volcano's bare slopes.

From Sorrento, we hopped aboard a train to Rome. I'd worried that I would find the Italian capital to be too flashy, too aggressive - maybe it was because we'd rolled in during the off-season, but I was pleased to find it relaxed, a confident seductress.

La famille Hartholt explores the Colosseum

Now, it was time for a history blitz. We roamed the battered Colosseum, its pock-marked shell covered in opportunistic plants. The underground chambers have been excavated and you can see right into the labyrinth of rooms and passages in which animals and people waited out the final moments of their lives.

We wandered the Palatine, where the red-brick remains of Roman palaces are scattered on the hill overlooking the Circus Maximus racetrack.

We spent a day between St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican museums, both of which are dripping with wealth beyond comprehension. St. Peter's, built on the site where Roman Emperor Nero had Saints Peter and Paul crucified around AD 67, is stunning. The pink marble walls are decorated with lavish amounts of gold leaf, stunning frescoes, and masterful sculptures. The place is so large, so enveloping, that the crowds weren't even a hindrance.

Me and St Peter's - for Gran!

The collections in the museums are also astounding. The Vatican owns heaps and heaps of priceless ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, paintings, Renaissance-era sculptures... and that's before you even discuss the frescoes by Renaissance masters like Michelangelo and Raphael, which are in themselves priceless. The sheer volume of the collection rivals the British Museum, and exploring it took the whole afternoon. Obviously the Sistine Chapel, where each new pope is elected, is the star of the show, where Michelangelo's frescoes of muscular men and women show the creation of the universe and of man, but I found Raphael's frescoes to be just as beautiful - maybe more so.

All that said, it's hard to know that a state run by a religious organization that preaches charity has untold masses of wealth hoarded within its walls. How many Greek statues would buy food for a starving village, or a whole country? There are some very poor people out there who need the wealth more than the Vatican needs to store it.

Our remaining days in Rome were spent walking the medieval centre, enjoying the fresh air at the delightfully green Villa Borghese, eating all of the pasta and pizza and cheese I could get my hands on, and of course, enjoying each other's company - because at the airport, we left John and Val for another six months. It was fantastic to spend the two weeks with you two - thank you for everything! We miss you!

And finally, leaving Rome for Malaysia, it was time to find some new adventures.

S.