Eastern European Vacation Day 15

Thursday November 11th, 2010.
Our final day on the ship, sigh, and today we docked in Naples – which is the only port stop where we don’t have plans to explore the city; I was here 30 years ago and it was rough, everything we’ve heard has not changed that opinion. Instead we have booked an all-day shore excursion to Sorrento and the ruins of Pompeii.

We left the port on a nice coach – it was actually the bus used by the Naples football team, complete with team colors and logo; apparently they rent out the bus when they don’t need it. Leaving Naples the sky became very ominous looking – dense black clouds and it started to rain. Naples is a bit of a dump – at least the bit we drove through, I may be doing it a bit of an injustice but I’m only describing what we saw.

The ride to Sorrento took about an hour and along the way our guide described various important points… “here the road is 2 lanes…here the road is 3 lanes” – it was gripping stuff! Mount Vesuvius dominates the landscape and was shrouded in heavy clouds for most of the trip to Sorrento. About half and hour in, the sky just exploded with extremely heavy rain as everyone on the bus rushed to check they had brought some form of protection. The commentary got better as we went along; we passed the birthplace of Al Capone and learned all about olive harvesting.

Passing through a series of long tunnels we emerged to bright sunshine – a miracle – and a beautiful coastal landscape. The bus hugged the cliff-side road as it meandered (do you know there is actually a river called Meander in Turkey?) south through several small towns to Sorrento. Just before reaching the town the bus pulled over at a point where we could get some great pictures looking down at Sorrento – quite spectacular.

The bus made its way to the center of town and deposited us, conveniently, outside a shop specializing in in-layded wood furniture; this kind of unpublished stop is a feature of cruise line shore excursions and they just drive us crazy – really we did not come on this trip to listen to sales pitches for things we have no interest in. So Sandra and I went around the corner and found a great coffee shop. The deal in Sorrento was for us to have an hour of free time then meet back up with the guide who would take us for lunch.

We found Sorrento to be very pleasant; main streets with very high end shops and lots of narrow back streets with market stalls and other shops selling local goods. We strolled and created the obligatory digital records for future reference. We made our way back to the designated meeting point, rejoined the group and headed to lunch. The guide took us back to the narrow street area and we all trooped into a small restaurant and enjoyed a quite nice classic Italian lunch – wine included!

Back on the bus we headed for Pompeii – about an hour away, just enough time to recharge for the task ahead. On arrival we were yet again diverted into a sales pitch – this time on cameos – ahhh! At the ruins our guide purchased the tickets, gave everyone a map and led us to out first point of interest – the area where the gladiators trained. Based on my recollections from 30 years ago the ruins at Pompeii don’t look so ruined anymore. There has been extensive reconstruction; when I was here before I remember lots of piles of rocks lying around with the occasional partial structure. Now the whole layout of the city is very recognizable and some houses have been almost completely rebuilt. I have to say I have mixed feelings about this – some of the reconstruction obviously used almost all of the original material, but lots of recent concrete work was evident in many of the buildings.

We did see the classic streets with the original cart tracks and the stepping stones that allowed citizens to cross the street without stepping in the crap that flowed down the streets – Pompeii had no sewer system! We also saw the plaster casts of several of the original inhabitants, those last 10% who refused for some reason to flee the city. These poor folks were suffocated then covered in tons of volcanic ash. Eventually the bodies decomposed leaving only the bones in a hollow cavity. The excavators figured out that by tapping on the ground they could find these cavities and, by drilling holes and pouring in plaster, they could create a very accurate statue of the original person – complete with bones and teeth. The facial expressions on some of these “statues” were quite horrific.

Back on the bus we headed “home”. Along the way it became obvious that the area around Naples had suffered some very heavy rain during the day – amazingly we had escaped it all. However as we got closer to the city the roads became flooded and the traffic ground to a standstill. There were actually 3 bussed on our itinerary and we all arrived back at the ship 30 minutes after the published sailing time – thankfully the ship had waited for us! We rushed back to our cabins and I managed to throw on a jacket (god forbid I broke protocol) and made it to the dining room just in time for dinner.