7 September Thursday, Naples Italy

I was up very early and in the Lido for early, quick breakfast. We docked in the port while I was up there, and I also watched the Royal Princess slide into the adjoining berth: a massive 4000 passenger floating city that dwarfed everything else. As soon as I was ready, around 7.45, I went to the gangway steps but we all had to wait a while till the ship was cleared. Getting off was nice and quick, with a little walk and no clear directions as to which exit to take. I was conscious that I had to find my tour guide on the outside. I walked out into a circus! Cabbies everywhere wanting to transport you, tour guides everywhere. I had the brochure and pointed to it with a tour guide on hand; he told me and another couple to “wait here”. After 10 minutes, the other couple disappeared; finally he came over and told me to join a group a little further on. Finally I appeared to have the right group (6 from the Princess, a married couple celebrating their 50^th Anniversary and a family of 4 from the Gold Coast) and the 7 of us got into the mini-bus taxi, a 9 seater. 

I had noticed there were over a thousand new cars on the dock, awaiting transport, of course. They were all white, with an occasional dark cover over a door, which was all I could spot. Well when we were moving in the bus, I saw that the "dark door" was actually the colour of the car and all the rest of the car, literally was wrapped in a white seal; so they weren't all white at all, there were lots of colours. As we moved through (a very large area) we came to more cars, possibly a couple of thousand, all different colours, with big groups of like cars parked together. 

To start with, our guide, Mario, said he would take us on a little drive around old Naples (not on the schedule), which was fascinating. He stopped outside a cathedral which suddenly appeared amongst the old buildings and we had 15 minutes to have a look: an incredible work of art, with a side chapel which is obviously a place of worship.

Then we headed towards Pompeii and for the first time in Italy, there was romantic Italian music: Mario stopped talking and started playing Dean Martin’s Italian songs, as well as some popular opera – Nessun Dorma, etc. We stopped at a jewellery factory on the way where they were hand carving exquisite cameos, set into beautiful settings but far too expensive to consider. A cameo being created:

When we reached Pompeii, we didn’t go to the first gate, because Mario pointed out the long, long queues to buy tickets. We went to the other end of the city and walked straight up to the window: ϵ15 to get in. We had 2 hours, but it’s a very complex site and we needed to be able to get back to the starting point to meet Mario, so we all stuck together. What an amazing piece of history! It’s far more complex to describe than will fit here in a few words. Eg, frescoes partly intact were dated 100BC! There is still excavation going on, and we observed a dig site, with their myriad of labels attached to specific artifacts still almost buried. There are long streets of houses where you can see the way the rooms were set up. Also, the recreations of victims, made by casting the perfectly preserved volcanic ash casings which etombed them and hardened.

There was a shower, but we didn’t get too wet;  it was funny to watch the two daughters from Oz telling their Dad how to read the map because they got it right and got us out of the maze successfully.

As we headed for the Amalfi Coast, it started to rain heavily for about 10 minutes, but then cleared. What a beautiful coastline! 

This took us to Sorrento, where we had almost 2 hours to ourselves. The others went to a restaurant but I had snacks from the ship, so I wandered around. I loved Sorrento: it has a really nice feel about it and the shops were reasonably priced. 

A wedding party came out of what I assume was the town hall 

and they took pictures here.

This is what they will see in the background of their photos:

The trip back home was pretty quick until we hit Napoli peak traffic in streets very wet from showers (apparently heavy rain for hours). Mario dropped me a few minutes’ walk from the pier because it would have taken longer to drive through and he was taking the Princess people on a further tour of Naples town. I had thought this tour was going to cost me ϵ89. It turned out to be ϵ70 including his nominated tip of ϵ10! What a blessing!

Reports from the HAL tour participants convinced me I had a fantastic deal: it’s been a day to remember! Three of the HAL official tours were very, very late back because of bad weather and some road flooding and we ended up sailing 40 minutes late. I went to the final Mass and Father Gary was very thankful to the dozen of us who had been there every day: he really enjoyed building a community with us. Then the final dinner where Patsy, Kate and Chris were all very late because they were on the late buses.

 So we all said our goodbyes and now I’m doing final packing. Because I had still some credit on the ship, I ordered a glass of wine and some cheese to finish the last day. This gave me a final shipboard account of $4.38!!