Mid trip we arranged to be picked up by car and driven to the historic site of Pompeii, something I had missed on my first swing through the area decades earlier. We couldn't have asked for a better day - the sky was blue, and the air was still. It was neither hot nor cold - a perfect day that lends itself to the thrill of exploration. Pompeii, a UNESCO world heritage site, sits at the base of the almighty Vesuvius volcano, about 20 minutes outside of Naples. This Greco-Ro

Four years ago Pablo and I embarked on our inaugural European vacation together. To compound that even further, it was our first trip since the start of the pandemic. We, like much of the world, had been sitting in our house for a year and half. That alone made it epic. The world suddenly felt huge. Those were strange times. Pablo was jet-lagged on our arrival in Rome and I hadn't felt the wind in his sails on the train to Naples. Would he love Italy the way I do? We emer