Home!

We landed in Traverse City at 11:10pm and got home at 12:15AM!  It is so nice to be home.  When we boarded the Paris to Detroit flight, I was standing in from the of seat and when I turned the lower part of my leg didn’t turn but the top part did.  Something popped and I immediately had severe pain in my knee.  We were 1 hour late getting out of Paris.  After sitting for 9 hours on the plane, it was almost impossible to to walk.  I was too stubborn to ask for wheelchair assist!  It took me forever to get to US Customs in Detroit and then to our gate.  But I made it and we are home!

Gary and I both decided that leaving the country was not for us.  It was a very enjoyable trip and we met a lot of great people but being in a foreign country in itself is not comfortable for us.  We were so thankful that we were given the opportunity to go to Sorrento, Italy and do not regret going but we do not feel that we will ever go out of the country again :)

Going home!

We found out that there was an earlier flight out of Paris and got the travel agent to change it.  The problem was that although it was through Delta, the flight was Air France.  The Delta web site showed the updated tickets but the Air France did not.  When we went to check in, the agent said there was a problem and that he had to call Air France which he did.  He was finally able to issue the tickets.  We got through security and all the way to our gate and found out that the boarding pass for the Paris to Detroit flight was still at the old time (3:40PM) instead of the new one (10:10AM).  I figured I would change it when we got to Paris.  Well that didn’t work.  Security was an absolute nightmare!  They had one person checking passports and there were probably 500 people in line.  We finally made it through and at that time they were boarding.  We had to go to the Air France desk and he told us that the 10:10AM flight for us was canceled.  He said to go to the gate and see if we could get on using that boarding pass.  Well that didn’t work either!  We made it to the gate in time to board but they would not accept that boarding pass.  I double checked with them to make sure that we were still on the later flight and they said yes.  I can only hope so.  We have another hour before we will start boarding.  Instead of getting home around 6:30PM; we will now get home around 12:30AM.

Mount Vesuvius

We went to Mount Vesuvius today.  Wow, it was a 2.3 mile walk up the side of the mountain.  It was really hard for Gary and I.  We got to the first landing and decided we were not going any further.  There was another gentleman there that was saying he was 72 and had heart problems.  After resting a bit, we decided to go encouraging each other all the way.  We made it to the top! (Well, it was to the south rim of the volcano.)  This volcano erupted in 79 AD and totally buried Pompeii.  The last eruption was in 1944.

 Naples in the background.

 See how small the people look.  We were about half way up at this point.

 Inside the volcano.

 Another picture inside the volcano.

 Naples in the background.

 Taken from the south rim of the volcano.

 There were men in the volcano.  Someone said they were shooting a documentary.

 Naples in the background.

 More pictures of the rim of the volcano.

 

 Looking straight down into the volcano from the rim.

On the island

Winding road on the island