We woke up in Naples, met our final tour guide and started our final bus tour. Today was a two part tour - first up was a morning spent on the Amalfi coast with a stop in Amalfi. We took a boat tour of the coast to get there and it was spectacular. Steep cliffs with lined with lemon groves, small quaint beach towns that looked carved out of the side of the mountains, and gorgeous beaches and waters.
Biggest lemons I have ever seen...
Back on the boat...
We got to walk around the little town of Amalfi for a while...we actually found another water color here but it didn't make it home with us. Pretty sure it (along with our French Open poster) was left in the Barcelona airport...we were rather forgetful while in paradise.
After our boat tour, we hopped back on the bus that took us to our afternoon destination - Pompei.
Lunch was part of this package, so we were herded to a local family restaurant that served us a pre-fixed menu. Of course, wine came along with lunch...today's sampling was "vino"...house table wine.
Birthday Prosecco toast
I had already eaten half of my lunch before I remembered to document it...spinach manicotti with fresh pasta...yum...
After lunch, we had a 'forced' tour of the cameo factory (the downside of being on a cruise sponsored tour) but it was actually interesting to watch this 80+ yr old man carving a cameo out of a shell.
Then it was time for the main event. We entered the preserved ancient city of Pompei...
Mount Vesuvius in the background...
The city was literally frozen in time from 79 AD. It is really unbelievable...the pictures just look like ruins but walking through a town whose entire population was wiped out (yet preserved) in one day is rather remarkable. More of an experience that the pictures can capture.
This was a restaurant counter where food would be kept in these vats.
The city was much larger than I was expecting. We only were able to cover a portion in the hours we were there. The streets were really interesting...Michael is standing on the stepping stones which were throughout the city - used for crossing when the streets flooded (and also because they threw waste out in the streets in those days for the water to carry away). You can still see the grooves in the streets from the wheels of chariots.
It is obvious that most of the goods from Pompei are on display in various other locations but the walls are still so colorful in places and detail who lived in different spaces. This was the "House of the Tragic Poet".
The craziest thing to see there are the preserved bodies - frozen in their final poses. The ash covered the people and hardened, once their bodies disintegrated it left basically a open shell within the ash that they were able to pour plaster into to recreate them. This one in particular still had his skull and teeth in tact.
After a long day of sight seeing, we took our final bus ride back to the ship. That night, we had our best, and most memorable, dinner of the trip in the ship's steak house to celebrate Michael's big milestone.
The next day was our only day at sea...it was the first time in nearly 2 weeks where we didn't wake up early (in a foreign time zone) and have somewhere to be. So, we slept in...had breakfast brought to the room...and then slept some more. Apparently we had been really fortunate to have such amazing weather all week - the cruise before us had rain every day - but this was the one day we did have grey rainy weather. So, our hopes of laying by the pool all day were dashed...so we watched the French finals indoors instead and took advantage of our last day of "all you can eat". Not terribly exciting but it was still nice to have a down day. One more day to go....
2 comments:
Happy 40th Michael! What a way to celebrate.
Happy 40th to Michael, is right---great way to celebrate! LOVE this post...the Amalfi coast...my friends are getting married there next month---so jealous! This trip looks AMAZING, so glad all of you had so much fun!
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