Our first port of call on the cruise was Naples and it was a FULL day. At the last minute, once we were already on the boat, we decided to do an excursion with the ship because they had one that did exactly what we wanted to do and it wasn't crazy expensive, like most of them were.
We got up early that morning and it was just as hot in Naples as it was everywhere else we'd been in Europe. Everywhere we went the locals were telling us how unusually hot it was--that they were having a major heat wave!
Anyway, headed off on our tour busses around 8am towards Pomeii. They city was buried by Mount Vesuvius' eruption and then later uncovered and found to be very well preserved. I wasn't sure what it would be like, but it really was one of the coolest things we saw on the trip. I would highly recommend going with a tour guide if you ever go though, because its the stories about what life was like back then and the descriptions of what you're seeing and how bright and colorful everything would have been back when the town was thriving and what the different buildings were used for, that really made the city come alive. We saw their marketplace and their bathhouses and houses and places where they cooked food and so much more. And our tour guide was really good about helping us imagine we were walking through a real town, not just some ruins.
After our tour of the town we went to a little pizza place for lunch and got a DELICIOUS margarita pizza--it was made with fresh mozzarella and tomatoes and basil and so, so good.
Then, it was time to burn off some of those calories. :) We jumped back on the tour bus and drove over to Mount Vesuvius. The bus drove us about 3/4 of the way up the volcano and then we got out and climbed up the last 1000 feet or so. They gave us walking sticks (and Landon taught me how to use them, because I was doing it ALL wrong, haha!) and it was a little bit of a hike up to the top. It was fun though--it felt good to get outside and get some exercise, for sure. And the view all the way up, but especially at the We met up with a couple from Canada at the top and then hiked back down with them, which was almost more treacherous, because I kept slipping on the rocks!
When we got back into Naples, where our boat was actually docked, we had a few hours left until we had to be back on the ship. Morgan and Blake decided to do a tour of a cool looking castle that was right beside our ship and Landon and I decided to walk around Naples for a bit, in search of pizza (since pizza originated in Naples), pasta, some presents and a feel for the city. Right when we set off, as we were crossing the street, a man pulled up beside us in his car and asked us if we wanted him to take out picture, and then held his hand out the window, as if I were going to take the camera off from around my neck and actually hand it to him. Crazy! We said "ummm, no thanks", kept walked and then had a good laugh about it. And the sad part is that he probably does get some cameras that way! We had heard going into Naples that it was a dangerous part of town, and while it was a little rougher than some other places we'd been to, it really didn't seem that bad.
After not giving our camera away to the strange man in the car, we walked for a while and eventually got out of the touristy area. The streets were really narrow and lined with little shops and food stands and there were a bunch of people hanging out on their balconies and out in the streets. And, there were a lot of cars driving down those little narrow streets, which was kinda crazy to me. After a little while, we headed back into the more touristy part of town, stopping a long the way to buy a couple of presents for my family and then some traditional Naples pizza (or at least what all the pizza we saw looked like, which was a little different than in America--they were almost all cheese with some basil on them, and a lot less cheese) and some pasta. And, the best part about the little shop we stopped at was that they had cannolis! We'd recently tried our hand at making them at home and were really wanting to try one in Italy. And, it did not disappoint--the pizza was good, and fun for me because I'd been really wanting pizza in Naples, the pasta was good too, but MAN--the cannoli was one of the best things we ate on the whole trip. The filling inside was to die for.
We ordered all our food and then sat on a little stoop outside, spread out our feast and just enjoyed being in Italy eating delicious Italian food. We're definitely food people and this was one of my favorite memories from the trip.
Once we were back on the ship we went out to the front deck to watch it pull away, which was pretty crazy because the ship is totally run by computers. There were people in there, but they were just hanging out, chit chatting with one another as the computers steered our massive ship out through a relatively small area. Impressive.
And, after another night filled with good food and a lot of laughs, and a few rounds of shuffleboard, we called it a night, ready to hit Rome the next day!
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