European Cruise Day 11: Naples, Italy
Disclaimer: These are all unedited and uncensored. They are raw emotion, intellect and information. I hope you enjoy my experiences.
*Miranda and Alyssa are my sisters and Thomas is my soon to be brother in law.*
I woke about 10 minutes before my alarm from my dad stirring around. I’m feeling pretty darn fresh for about 5 and a half hours of sleep. I’ve got some 5 hr energy to help when it catches up with me. He taped my knees preventative because I danced so hard last night.
I’m glad I woke up just a little earlier today because I had just the amount of time I needed to relax while getting ready. I had a quick breakfast, half with dad and half with mom, before filling the camelbak and and heading to the meeting spot. We’ve got a 9 hr excursion today. I’m really excited for Napoli! I’m also excited for many gorgeous Italian women.
I’m learning some interesting facts about the politics of Italy. In 1861 they were unified and became a monarchy. They unified the country but stole all the money from the south. A lot of southern Italians left and immigrated to the US, Canada, Australia, and Argentina.
Napoli was the first to build a ship to cross the Atlantic. It’s the 3rd largest city in Italy.
Vesuvius is a magnificent looking volcano. The crater is huge in the middle. It’s the only volcano in the world that will pop like a champagne bottle. The blast will go up 30 km in the air. Once Pompeii was destroyed, they returned quirky because it was such a commercial center. They believed it was the gods from Mt Olympus damning Pompeii because they were running a large slavery trade there. The Romans used slaves for most of their hard work. There are so many facts being spouted at me right now. I’m trying to grab as many as I can.
The greens are gorgeous and very vast here. There is a Mediterranean pine tree that blossoms only at the top. A scientist used that to describe the eruption of Mt Vesuvius. It’s beautiful watching the countryside go by as Vesuvius passes on my left. There are a lot of beautiful mountains that Naples Has created its city around. It’s still early here on aSunday morning. It’s very quiet on the streets.
We’re on our way to Sorrento right now to try locally made olive oil, cheese and wine. He says were on our way to have liquid jello. 32% alcohol. He said that’s why he gave us membership cards - in case we can’t find our way back to the bus…
The advertisements I’m seeing here are all very sexual. I think Europeans know how to appreciate sexuality better than Americans.
We’re driving on a high coastal road right now. There is a huge drop just below us opening into the bay of Naples. The city is stunning from this view. I’m not on the right side of the bus to take good pictures but I’m taking in the splendor. We round another corner and all of a sudden we’re in Sorrento. It’s magnificent. Wait until you see these pictures.
Our guide keeps referring to our bathroom trip as the pee pee stop. He says he can’t organize it well and that we’ll have to wait til the end of the wine and cheese tasting. He says just keep your knees together and you’ll be good. He’s really funny.
There is a local law that says you can not pick the oranges off the trees because it disturbs the color ambiance of the landscape. We’re approaching the first farm we’re visiting. They have guard geese! My mom just got bit by one! It left a blood blister very quickly. She said she learned a lesson.
They just talked to us about making olive oil. The room that they presented in was old and had so much character. See pictures. Then they brought us to a mozzarella making presentation. Maria made it right in front of our face. And now they are feeding us tomatoes and cheese with some salami and spiced olive oil. Oh yeah, and red wine at 9:30 am on a Sunday. I hope all my friends back home enjoy their Sunday funday as much as I am today! They gave us samples of lemon chello. Two different varieties. One was more straight forward lemon liquor and one with a cream base. I bought a bottle of the more straight forward to show my friends. Lick the hair of the dog that bit you! ;)
Now to have a quick inlaid woodwork demonstration. It was just that. So fast! So informative. Miranda described it was a “tweet sell.” My dad fell in love with a wonderful lazy Susan piece. It’s artsy and gorgeous.
We’re walking to the pier and found a beautiful little grotto. Wait til you see the picture. Words are hard to describe what I’m feeling and seeing right now. It’s magic. I must live in Europe. It’s clear to me now. This culture is too much to take in even in a month’s time.
We look down over a bridge as we walk over it to view what my dad described as the biblical place if Eden. It’s so pristine. There is a brick structure down there that was once a place someone called home. Most likely hundreds of years ago. Nature has now claimed it as it’s own as birds fly in and out of the windows. Grass and other plant life grows on the roof. There’s a small creek that runs by it. No trash. No tracks. Just nature reclaiming what what once its.
This city is like one that you would see recreate in a movie with walls partly chipped off and cobblestone roads. The small streets are alley way size in the states and there are mostly scooters. It’s so mystical and the magic is filling my entire being with light. I’m so happy right now. I want to live here. I may need to start planning this. I may need to make this happen.
As we enter a courtyard with a small restaurant overlooking the bay, the smell of coffee fills my nose and life seems simple. Only for a moment though. As soon as we arrive, time is fleeting and we must go to the next destination. It’s all going by so fast. I want to make time slow for just a moment.
We enter another small alleyway with shops lining it. It opens to a courtyard and we see a magnificent painting within a the society of opera … Old men in group are all hanging and enjoying some conversation with each other.
As we walk down the street we find that it’s noon. Not by looking at our watches but by hearing the church bells begin to ring. It’s so loud and echoes through the small streets. I got some video of the bells ringing. All of a sudden I look around and can’t see my family. They’ve gone somewhere that I obviously didn’t catch. Everyone has their own agenda. Luckily I had the walkie talkie and contacted Alyssa and Thomas. I hooked up with them and we walked back to the bus together. We stopped only to get a few snacks (some candy and biscuits). My dad got a pizza for us to share. It was a small pizza but I had a couple satisfying pieces of the salami and spinach. Mmmmmm. Now we’re on our way to Pompeii. They say it will take about an hour.
I fell asleep to wake as we arrived.
The red brick is a symbol of Pompeii. The blue was expensive shell from the middle east that the Romans put at the entrance to impress the people coming in. The entire ruins were underground and took over 100 years to excavate. The area in the middle as you walk in was a major commercial center during the roman empire. In the year 79AD there was a terrible earthquake that shatter much of Pompeii. They had to reconstruct it very quickly because of the city’s importance. They made it Tula stones in between the red brick to make it more sturdy. We found later that they were right and it is more sturdy, but the Romans never found out because of the Vesuvius erupt that buried the city.
Interestingly they faked people out by using a stucko type substance instead of marble because it took too much work to get the marble from northern Rome.
We’re about to see the “petrified bodies” which aren’t actually petrified at all. The people in the tragedy were covered in ash, suffocating them. Their bodies decomposed underneath the ask leaving a perfect cast which was then filled with plaster to reveal their dying moment. Their skeletons are almost completely intact. There is a new type of plaster that is more of a fiberglass substance to reveal the entire remaining skeleton.
The aristocrats houses would have large cisterns for water. There would be no ceiling for rain water to fall into it. There were eels in the cisterns to eat the bugs that gathered, they would then boil the water to kill the germs.
When the volcano blew they saw the eruption and had 7 hours to escape their fate.
We’re waiting for the entrance to the brothel. There are a lot of people that want to see it! Our guide is super relaxed and being kind to everyone around him. I like him. He’s also a very sexy Italian man. I caught my mom taking pictures of him. She told him he looks like a more attractive John Travolta. In the brothel, there are pictures of white clothed people (woman) and darker clothed people (men) showing different options that the ladies could give. The women would wear anklets on their right ankle to show that they were prostitutes. You’ll see phallic symbols on the walls as you walk through that were symbols of good luck and prosperity.
We saw the theatre and I learned that ‘amphi’ means two so an amphitheater is a 360 degree theatre with seats all around the stage.
After checking out the store where they gave us more free lemon chello, we headed on back to the ship. That was our last port of call! But it was a phenomenal day. Absolutely amazing way to end the cruise part of our journey.
We came back home to eat our last dinner with Marius. Sad day! Thomas and I were total fat kids and went a little crazy. We each ordered an entree and then ordered another TWO to share! There were so many things we wanted to eat. I know I’m going back to peanut butter and banana sandwiches so I figured what the hell?
Miranda, Alyssa, Thomas and I then went to the hot tub for about an hour and talked about Miranda’s life. It was good for Alyssa to learn a bit more about her life. They needed the time to catch up. We all headed up an showered and now I’m at karaoke!
They let me sing Baby and that was a lot of fun. Then Miranda and I sang Beat It. She lost her karaoke virginity! She was very tired so she headed to bed. I signed up for one last song - Hotel California. Let’s see how that goes. I invited this drunk guy up to sing with me and it was ridiculous and awesome. I finished the night with one more shot of tequila before saying goodbye to Caleb and Ed, taking a picture of a really cool piece of artwork and heading to bed.
