We had an amazing day at the Pompeii ruins. There is just so much to take in. We walked for hours and hours and still didn't see everything! Our hotel was just a 5 minute walk from the entrance and if you are looking for a comfortable, hospitable place to stay in Pompeii we can recommend the Dream House Hotel. (They also have off-street parking!). The food in Pompeii was great. We were recommended some less touristy options and enjoyed the Mercato Pompeii and the Machiavelli restaurants.
The next stage of our journey was always going to involve one really long day of travel - from Pompeii to Genoa. According to Google maps this would be about 7.5 hours driving. MoneyPenny chose this day to have her biggest issues to date! After breakfast, Mr F thought he'd check the coolant situation after the previous day's repairs on the radiator hose. She was looking good and was packed and ready to roll....not :( !! She seemed to have fuel starvation issues in the hotel carpark, and we finally got going after Mr F fiddled with the car for 30 minutes or more. We struck LOTS of congestion north of Naples and after about 1.5 hours into the journey MoneyPenny was running HOT, in the red, and we had to pull over into one of the emergency bays on the motorway. There was a lot of steam and smoke. Clearly there was something WRONG!
We limped along from emergency bay to bay at a walking pace on the hard shoulder. Mr F was trying to work out what was wrong and eventually changed the fuel pump relay and MoneyPenny was cured!!! It seems that she had been 'running very lean' due to the fuel pump not working at proper capacity. This caused the engine to overheat. We were on our way again! Until that moment, we both thought we were going to have to get towed to a garage and would end up stranded. Just to add insult to injury, MoneyPenny decided that she would not provide us with air-conditioning for this part of the journey. Despite Mr F trying to re-gas her in one of the motorway service stations, we had to drive with windows down for a VERY hot journey - finally arriving in Genoa at around 8.00pm. The hotel was a welcome site in the historic area of Genoa. This meant we had to park MoneyPenny in a public parking area nearby, so hopefully she is enjoying a well-earned rest after getting us here against the odds. We will certainly sleep well tonight!
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