Day 39

Day 39. Sat 8th May.

With a song in our hearts, if not exactly on our lips we travelled the second leg of our southbound escape rout to Pompeii.
Impressive scenery on the way down. The clouds thinned as the possibility of dying out beckoned.
Until the satnav turned into the demon bitch from hell.
15km from our destination she instructed us the leave the motorway. I still don’t know why we blindly obeyed? having already worked out the site was only 2km from the autostrada. Obey we did.
“Turn left”, we were in the back streets on Naples (they sound nice in the Peter Sarstead song) on a very gnarly, narrow road that was two way traffic and no road markings. Bouncing and lurching, after several very near misses my nerves were beginning to fray and the road was deteriorating before our eyes, bumpier and narrower by the meter with taller and taller slums looming overhead. Motorised lunatics swerving in front, (they NEVER let you through). We hit several blockages caused by oncoming cars trying to get by and simply having nowhere to go. Further road narrowing then we were hit by the lunchtime rush to get home for food and a kip.
The situation had become impossible.
It was then the mental cow said, “now turn right”? An impassably narrow right hand turn, we would have struggled to do it in the car but with the wang was a no no. We had no choice but to disobey (at last) and keep straight on.
Straight up a one-way street, coming the other way.
A school had just turned out, so a plague of gurning spawn swarmed round us while the stream of oncoming vehicles blasted us with abuse. We sat mesmerised by fear with nothing to do but wait for the stampede to abate.
After about 10 minuets, during which I didn’t breath once, a gap in the traffic appeared and I shot forward the 20 meters to a right turn I could manage. More bumpy narrow streets and the satnav going bonkers, we didn’t do a thing she suggested, and somehow found our way back to the autostrada. Followed the directions in the camping guide and in no time at all were set up in a pretty, deeply shaded spot in Camping Zeus, 20m from the entrance to Pompeii.
OMG.
But at last the sun was shining.