We had one day at sea before we got back to Italy from Greece. I don’t remember much from that day at sea any more. I’m sure it was filled with naps, trivia games and general chilling out. I believe that night was probably our last formal night as well. Late that night, the kitchen staff arranged all the remaining food on the ship into a giant buffet. It was arranged very beautifully, with ice sculptures being placed on some of the tables. This buffet wasn’t made available until midnight, and thus I hadn’t really wanted to see it. Becca didn’t want to go alone, however, so she woke me up around 11:30 and we went. The food didn’t look all that great when we inspected it more closely, and I was still full from dinner, so we went back to our room and went to sleep.
We arrived in Naples the following morning. There were some interesting looking buildings there (the same could probably be said of most Italian cities, at least, when comparing them to Minnesota or other parts of the U.S.), but most of the city looked pretty run down, especially compared to Rome, where we had started our journey almost two weeks before. As we were driven around town in a bus, our tour guide explained that the problem with Naples wasn’t the lack of money, but rather the fact that the money allocated by the government for public works and restoration of buildings was being skimmed by corrupt politicians and the mafia. Too bad—many of the old buildings in the city have suffered as a result.
Becca, with Naples in the background:
Our first stop of the day was Pompeii, the Roman city that was destroyed by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. The city was buried under lava and ash for hundreds of years, and was discovered again in 1748. Excavations continue to this day. Pompeii was a fascinating place, though for some strange reason, not quite what I was expecting. I think perhaps I was under the impression that it was a much wealthier, more luxurious city than what we saw. In any case, no matter—it’s a place that just about anyone would find interesting.
Mt. Vesuvius:
The walls of the city:
A typical alley:
A typical street (notice the ash on the street—it still smells like ash in the city):
There were tons of tourists there, and thus little hope of getting too many unobstructed photos of buildings and other things:
Becca in what was (I believe) the city’s court:
The city’s forum, with Vesuvius in the background:
Frescoes in the marketplace:
When the city was first excavated, a plaster injection technique was developed so that the forms of people and animals who died during the eruption could be preserved as they were dug up:
Inside the public bath:
A hot food vendor’s stall:
Inside a home:
More of the home. Note the hole for catching rain water. It was here that we learned (I had been wondering about this, actually) that small eels were put into the cisterns to keep the water from getting stagnant. Pretty ingenious, if you ask me:
The kitchen:
The home’s shrine for idols:
Phallic symbol on a brothel:
Fascinating as it was, I don’t know that I would go back to Pompeii. If I did, I certainly wouldn’t go back with a tour guide. By this time in our vacation, I was sick of tour guides and wanted to spend as much or as little time as I deemed necessary at each site. For Pompeii, that meant that I would have raced through some parts and spent much more time at others. That’s probably true for most of our vacation, though.
A short drive down the coast brought us to our next stop, Sorrento. We only spent a couple hours there, but what we saw of it made me feel like it’s a place I would like to see again. It’s a small town with lots of shops and restaurants. The pace of life appeared to be slow, and that would suit me just fine.
One of our first stops in Sorrento was a shop where furniture and boxes made in a native Sorrento style were sold. Pieces of colored wood are inlaid in boxes, tables and other items, and it’s all quite beautiful. We bought Becca a jewelry box and had it shipped back to the U.S. here (it only arrived just a few days ago, actually). Here’s a poorly shot example of a table:
We had lunch at a nearby restaurant. It was cool to walk through the streets of Sorrento. It’s a very picturesque place:
Lunch was quite good. It consisted of (if memory serves) crusty bread, cannelloni, breaded veal, peas and fried potatoes.
I don’t usually like desserts very much, but the lemon cake they served us was incredible. I managed to get an extra piece after I finished the first, which was great.
A bottle of wine was also given to each table. I told the waiter in my rudimentary Italian that it was “prohibited in our religion” since I didn’t know of any other way to explain why we didn’t want it. He gave me a strange look, and then took the bottle away. He came back a few minutes later and asked if we were Muslims. Kind of funny.
We walked from the restaurant about 10 minutes to a ferry pier, and took a hydrofoil from there to the island of Capri. Capri (pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable, not the second) was one of my favorite stops during our vacation. It had the same sort of magical feel that Santorini had. Capri is a small, mountainous island, with home and shops built into the side of the mountain. The main town is actually halfway up the mountain, and it offers incredible views of the ocean and surrounding areas. Capri has long been a playground for the rich, going back to Augustus Caesar and before. The town was full of small high fashion boutiques, with everything from Rolex to Ferragamo to Chanel being available for purchase. Many of the people we saw there looked very wealthy as well. If I had a lot of money and was looking for a low-key, laid back vacation, Capri would certainly be at the top of my list.
A typical street in the main town:
Yours truly, enjoying a frozen lemon drink:
Even on Capri, you can see lame movies if you want to:
Capri’s pier:
A short hydrofoil ride later, we were back in Naples and back on our cruise ship. That was the end of our vacation, really. We were on a bus to the airport early the next morning, and after a stop in Amsterdam and 12 total hours on a plane, we were back in Minneapolis. I wish I could say it’s been good to be back home, but after a vacation like this, who would say that?
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