Meditteranean Cruise!! Day 7, 8, and 9 - Naples, Italy

Our last stop was in Naples, Italy. This was our 5th port in a row so we were getting pretty tired, but with so much to see you can't let exhaustion slow you down. We knew we wanted to be alone and do our own thing for this day so when anyone asked us what we were going to do in Naples, we would just tell them we didn't know yet. But really, we did know. We wanted to rent a car and venture out for ourselves. The drivers in Italy are pretty aggressive so everyone we knew kept saying they would never want to drive there, but Anthon knew he could handle it. We tried renting a car online before porting that day, but we couldn't really tell how far away the rental places were and the prices we were seeing online seemed high. Luckily we found 2 rental car places within walking distance of the port. We walked to the closest one first but it wasn't open yet so we walked to the next one. We had to wait about 15 minutes for them to open. The price they gave us seemed high (I think it was about 120 euros for the day) so we walked back to the first place, which was now open. Their price was 80 euros for the day and that was the best we'd found so we took it. We got a cute little car with a lot of scratches and dents on it.

We knew we wanted to go to Pompeii first, but there are no street signs and the directions that people give are not clear...but how could they be with no street signs. We tried using GPS, but it didn't always work and again, no signs so it was pretty tricky. We did eventually make our way through the crazy traffic and find the ramp to the freeway.

It's really weird that amongst all the modern living, there are ancient ruins right next to and certainly under everything that are thousands of years old. I knew a little about Pompeii before arriving there, but seeing it in real life is a whole different experience. I didn't realize that it is a whole city that was completely buried and preserved for almost 2000 years. A volcano erupted in 79 AD and covered the entire city in volcanic ash. The ash suffocated anyone who was still in the city (the volcano had been smoking for a while so they knew something was going on and some people left the city before it erupted) and neatly preserved all the buildings, statues, and roads of the city.There is no way you can see the whole city of Pompeii in a day because it is huge. Also as the day wore on, it got hotter and hotter. (Our taxi driver in Rome told us he doesn't know why anyone goes to visit Italy in August because it gets up to 100 degrees so you can't stand being outside for very long.) It was only May so it wasn't too hot, but the vast amount of walking and the sun beating down on us did make us tired.

We spent about 2 hours walking, looking, learning and trying to take it all in. Probably the most famous part of Pompeii are the casts of the humans that were buried in the ash. When they were discovered the 1700s, archaeologists were able to pour plaster into the voids that were left after the bodies decomposed. When the plaster hardened, they were able to see the position the bodies were in when they were buried.

They have uncovered a lot of the city, but are still working on unearthing more. We saw people digging while we were there. It is amazing to see how much technology the Romans had. They had running water. Each home had a pool in the middle of the main room that was used to collect rain water. All the roofs had a hole directly above the pool to allow the rain to funnel into that one point. There were also drinking fountains outside and pipes that were in the structure of the houses.

Drinking fountain

There are still mosaic tiles on the floors and mural on the walls.

We walked down streets that people made over 2000 years ago! (Pompeii was originally started in 600 BC.)

We saw the remains of the church.

The main forum for the city.

The city had become a pretty corrupt, hedonistic and vile place so it was probably time for it to come to an end. We didn't have a tour guide so we didn't know where to go or what all there was to see so we missed out on a few things that we found out about later, but what we did see was really impressive.

After Pompeii we needed to eat at the restaurant where we parked our car because they told us we could either pay $10 for parking there or eat there and park for free. We were happy to eat there because we wanted some authentic Italian food. It was so yummy! I got some pasta and Anthon got a fresh mozzarella cheese stuffed bread thing with meat and basil on top.

After our delicious lunch, we headed out to our next adventure: the Amalfi Coast. This was the main reason we want to rent a car. We wanted to drive along the coast and take our time. The drive to get there was on a small, winding road. There was 20 minute stretch through a tunnel too. But when we came out of the tunnel and came around a turn, we saw a beautiful sight.

All along the coast line, for miles, there are houses and hotels built right on the cliff and into the mountain. There is only one main road that follows the coast line and only a couple of small roads that lead up to the various houses. Everyone who lives there has to walk hundreds of stairs every day to get where they want to go. In the picture below you can see a sign that says "Hotel" but that is really all you can see of the hotel because the rest of it goes down the side of the cliff.

The main road on only big enough for 2 cars and there are some sections of road the have cars parked along one side so there is only room for one direction of cars to drive on it at a time.

When the big tour buses would come around corners I thought for sure they would either scrape the side of the cliff or a car they were passing. The bus drivers were all really experienced and I never saw them hit anything, but they did ALL have scrapes and dents along the sides of their buses.

You could only drive about 20 miles per hour on the road so it took a couple hours to drive along the whole coast line, but it was a beautiful drive and we were just in awe of how they built all those structures on the side of the cliffs and some of them were even built into the mountain itself.

Eventually there was a road that cut through the mountains and brought us back to the freeway that lead back to Naples. It was a little bit of a dicey drive because the road was very small and windey and the other drivers, and buses, were just buzzing past us. We felt like we were driving fast, but we couldn't keep up to how fast they were going.

We had a little time before we needed to bring back our car so when we got back into Naples, we parked somewhere and walked around a little bit. I still needed to get some souvenirs, but we didn't really find any good spot that was selling anything. We got back in the car and started driving to find a gas station so we could fill up the car before we dropped it off. There was only one main road near the cruise port and it was bumper to bumper traffic. The gas stations are just two little pumps that sit on the shoulder of certain spots in the road, but when we pulled over to one, it wasn't working. We eventually found another one, but again, the pumps didn't work. At this point, we had been in traffic for so long that we needed to hurry and get the car dropped off and get back to the ship. After weaving through the horribly frustrating amount of cars everywhere, we finally found a gas station that had an old man at it. We pulled over and he got ready to pump our gas, but he would only take Euros in cash. We had never gotten any Euros, so we couldn't even get gas! We had to return the car without being filled up, which cost us quite a bit of money later.

We only needed to travel about 2 miles to get from where we had stopped to try and find souvenirs to the rental car place, but we were in traffic for over an hour. It was miserable and I would never want to go back to Naples because of it. The other places we went that day were great, but Naples is just a kind of dirty, trashy city with horrible traffic.

We dropped off the car and ran to the cruise terminal. There were some guys standing right outside the terminal selling some stuff and willing to take American money so we were able to grab some souvenirs for our kids and my parents and make it back just in time to get on the ship.

That night we had a surf 'n turf dinner (I didn't eat the surf part) and another show. We went to an ice skating show that was really fun. There are some times on our trips that I wish our kids were with us because we do something that they would love...but mostly we are happy to be alone together as a couple.

We usually get a few desserts after dinner.

Huge chair

The next day was Saturday and it was a sea day. We had a nice time just relaxing and hanging out on the boat and in the hot tub.

That's about as long as his beard has ever been.

Sunday we got off the boat, headed to the airport and took our 10 hour flight home. It's always nice flying west because you get places faster than when you fly east because of the time difference. We got home Sunday night and were happy to see our kids again. And they were happy to get their souvenirs.