Naples, Italy....ah..........Pompeii

Nov. 20...........Naples, Italy
Ah, Naples! I have found another city I love...guess I will just have to come back to Italy and stay for a month or more so I can see everything I want to.

Yesterday was a day at sea. It started out as a very ROUGH day at sea...lots of wrockin' and wrollin'. However, by noon it seemed to calm down. Suzi and I decided to go play Bingo. Now, I never win at Bingo, but yesterday I broke my record and won the big jackpot of $300! Of course someone else won as well, a lady from Scottsdale, Az so we split the pot...but I won!!! Suzi had done well at the slots the night before, so we were feeling pretty cocky! Yesterday afternoon we went back to Bingo...let's just say I left some money there. Suzi entered the Slots tournament and left her share of money there...our good luck streak was over apparently. Also yesterday was the Susan G Komen Walk for the Cure at Sea...I registered and donated, but didn't walk as my right knee is giving me some real problems and I wanted to save it for our tour today. Last night was our last formal night....and lobster night. I probably wouldn't have gone to the formal night if the lure of lobster hadn't been there!

Today we toured Naples (Napoli) and Pompeii. Al stayed on board again as his ankles were swelling again and since we have a long day ahead tomorrow with a LONG flight he decided to stay and keep his legs up all day.

Ah....Naples. Oh, I said that didn't I? Ah...Napoli! What a city. We started out on the bus going to Pompeii. How interesting can it be? Pompeii just boggled our minds. On the way we saw Mt. Vesuvius as well. Pompeii dates back to 7th century BC.....uh huh...BC. It's still hard for me to understand how old things are. Anyway, Pompeii was pretty much destroyed by an earthquake in 62 AD and reconstruction began immediately afterwards. However, Mt. Vesuvius had other ideas and on Aug 24, 79 (that would be 79AD, Not 1979) Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii under ash and rock. It was rediscovered in the 16th century, but exploration did no begin until 1748 and continued into the 19th century. It truly is an ancient city and very fascinating. We toured the shops/homes/red light district/theater and of course the temples. The streets are cobblestone, and you can still see chariot ruts in the roads.

From Pompeii we went to a Cameo factory. Did you know cameo's were made from sea shells...mostly conch! I learned that today...I also learned I couldn't afford to buy any of the cameo's! OUCH.

From there we went to lunch. We ate a at true Italian Pizza place and it was heavenly. Salad, pizza, wine (not for me, but Jack and Suzi had some) dessert and coffee! Oh, the coffee...WOW..it about knocked my socks off...all three of us will probably be awake for days. Coffee here isn't like coffee in the USA. It comes in a tiny cup and there isn't enough sugar to make it sweet enough...yeow!

From lunch we went on a city tour of Napoli. I did fall in love with this city. It is so beautiful. It was built originally by the Greeks, and as our tour guide said, most of Italy was originally Greek. Then we headed for the Royal Palace and the Galleria. The Galleria is an enclosed shopping mall...but not like any you have every seen. Yes, it is old, but it is absolutely beautiful. It has a glass dome over the center of it...and the ceilings and walls are all decorated as well. The Royal Palace is now a museum and very luxurious. The ceilings in most of the rooms had paintings on them and I spent most of my time looking up!

Traffic here is another story altogether. Holy smokes! Yeow! First of all, we can't complain about our gas prices...gas here is around $6.00 a gallon. Of course, if ours keeps going up we will be paying that soon. The traffic here is almost unexplainable. There are tons of motorcycles, which the drivers apparently don't value their lives as they cut in front of big buses (Ours) or between big buses (Ours) and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the traffic patterns...cars are going any which way and one way streets don't seem to mean much to them, nor does the traffic dividers! And crossing a street on foot (which we did) is like taking your life in your hands! Aye! I was sitting in the front of the bus today and I know more than once I thought we would run over someone or someone would run over us! And their cars here are small....I saw a lot of the SMART cars (which I like) and I understand they are very sturdy, however, they are so small I think one would be crushed at home in an accident. However, here usually an accident in town is minor since you can't go very fast! And I thought Seattle had traffic problems!

So now our cruise is down to the last day. Tonight we sail for Rome, tomorrow we have to be up at 4:30 a.m. to get ready to disembark at 6:00 a.m. and then transfer from the ship to the airport in Rome which is about an hour and half from the port. From there we will board American Airlines and head for Chicago; then to Phoenix. All of us are concerned about the nightmare at O'Hare the day/night before Thanksgiving. Also, we only have 2 hours between flights at O'Hare and we are thinking we may not have enough time if we have to clear Customs there, so we are hoping we can pre-clear US Customs in Rome (Bob Stone where are you??) and then just have to clear immigrations in Chicago.

So until we are home..........arrviderci from Italy...the Wroamin' Wraspirs and Waddicks.