Back in Italy, today we’re docked in Naples.
Out on the walking track this morning I got a text from Jen suggesting that I check out all the church domes. I counted 27 visible from the top deck of the ship.
The port of Naples is right downtown and easy to find because of its landmark; New Fort
The kids took an early excursion to Pompeii while Cheryl and I had a later (and longer) one to the Pausilypon Acrhaeological Park.
It was an interesting event from the start.
Our first hint was when we couldn’t find the bus. Our guide phoned the driver and they quickly got sorted about which end of the building was which. And we (all 12 of us, plus the guide makes 13 – another omen) boarded and were on our way.
The drive to a site is normally when the guide fills our heads with general information and references to what we’re seeing along the way. This time Alex explained that he wasn’t actually a guide. He’s on the staff of the tour company the Royal Caribbean contracts with to run this tour. His job is to get us to the site and translate for the Italian guide employed by the site. Are we confused yet?
We got there, only to find out that there is no Italian guide for us. Instead we are to participate in an Italian language tour – that leaves in 45 minutes. So Alix huddled us up and gave us options. We could hang around the parking area looking at the views of the ocean below.
Or he knew of a bar not far away (in this case the distance was more vertical than horizontal) where we could get a cup of coffee or a Coke or a pastry.
We voted to go down to the bar. We spend some time getting to know our tour companions – a family from Toronto; Husband and wife, son and daughter along with their wife and husband, and four grandchildren aged 5 – 17. Nice friendly people.
Following some time there and a walk down the road to the beach
— along the way Alex pointed out many of the passing vehicles had taken measures to obliterate their rear license plate. (We saw several mopeds where the passenger draped her purse behind her to do this.) The deal is that parking in this area is restrected to local residents with significant fines for violators but without a view of the rear plate the cameras can’t record who is coming or going. Smart!
Back to the Archaeological Park. We joined the Italian tour. Entrance to the area begins with a half-mile long tunnel.
Max did his best to translate her very fast Italian, but though he is fluent in both Italian and English he is not a translator and could do no more than tell us what she was talking about.
In its origin the tunnel was constructed to transport goods from the port below to the extensive hilltop villa of an important Roman official. In subsequent years it has been used for other purposes. In World War II it served as a bomb shelter.
Exiting the tunnel we found ourselves in the Archaeological park itself. The site is so expansive that we didn’t see any active digging but we did see some ruins that speak to the opulence of the villa.
At this point the Italian guide had taken her charges on a survey of each of the areas while our group had generally lost interest. We read the informational signs scattered around and spent a little time getting photos and then we headed back thru the tunnel to the start.
Back on the bus we returned to the downtown area.
Our next stop was a local restaurant to sample a slice of genuine Neapolitan pizza.
The port is quite close to the downtown area so we walked back to the ship, crossing under the main streets in a new (to us) underground passageway. Technically it’s a subway station but it has convenient entrances on the dock and in a downtown plaza.
Exiting the tunnel on the port side we noticed that there is excavation work going on adjacent to the walkway. It’s hard to dig a hole around here without uncovering someting significant.
Back on board i left Cheryl napping and went to…
– express my displeasure to the excursions office about the tour
– visit the ship’s soft-serve ice cream pusher (vendor).
My first stop was brief – The guy there wasn’t the right guy, but he listened to my complaint and promised to pass the information along to the right people. (Later this evening I got a message telling me that they had refunded our fees for the excursion.)
My second stop included running into Jen who told me that they were putting together a family climb on the climbing wall. That sounded fun so I headed up there to take some photos. The whole fam never did get on the wall at the same time, but I was able to get some shots of Jen on (her avowed) only climb up the wall.
I sat and watched various Hunts climb for a bit…
I have to say that rappelling is a lot more fun than a rock wall.
With my feet back on the ground it was back to the ice cream stand for a reward, then on to the stateroom to do a bit of blogging before dinner.
Back in the room we packed (suitcases in the hall by 10:00) and read until time for one last sleep on the Odyssey of the Seas.
Tomorrow we will be at Civitavecchia (The port for Rome) to disembark.
Till then,
R