Ok, so we really didn't spend much time in Naples on our 6th day, but it was our port of call. When we got off the ship we headed straight for the train station. We needed to cross the street, but traffic never stops and even if you are in a cross walk you still have to watch out because a scooter may come along and run you over. They do not obey traffic laws and will ride up on the sidewalks and breeze right through red lights. It was a little dicey at first crossing the streets.
When we got to the train station we bought a one way ticket to Sorrento. We hopped off the train early though, in Pompeii. We spent a couple of hours walking around Pompeii, which you could spend all day at. It is quite expansive and I am pretty sure we didn't get to see everything, but we wanted to have time to go to Sorrento.
We got back on the train and took it to Sorrento. There were some shops in Sorrento so I ducked in one and finally found a white tank top. I told you it was a harder task than you would think, but at least I finally found one and three of my tops were back in the fold! We wandered the streets for a little bit and had a little taste of limoncello at a store. We also bought some limoncello for ourselves and some more as presents. Apparently Sorrento is the home of limoncello, which I did not know.
Sorrento also has a bunch of little cafés where you can sit outside and enjoy a pizza, in it's founding city. So of course Ando and I sat at a café and had a pizza and some beers. The pizza was tasty, but I don't know if that is what it was supposed to taste like or not. I guess we should have gone to two places and compared the pizzas to make sure we were getting an authentic pizza.
To get back to Naples Ando and I decided to take a hydrofoil. Why not explore with different modes of transportation right? The hydrofoil went straight from Sorrento to Naples. It only took about a half hour as well. So when we got back to Naples we had a little bit of time to do some more wandering through the crazy streets. We just looked at a castle and then headed back to our ship.
On the way back to our ship we got the witness some fighting between some, I think Americans, and an Italian about money. I am not totally sure what was going on, but I think the Italian guy was trying to get $100 from the Americans for a taxi or something and the Americans were not paying. They just walked away and would not pay the guy. And mind you this whole time the Italian is on a scooter and we are all just walking on the sidewalk. He would keep trying to nudge the guys with his scooter and get up on them and the whole time we are walking behind the guys. I just wanted to get away from the situation, but we really couldn't. I think eventually the Italian lowered the price to $50, but they still didn't want to pay. I am not sure how it all turned out because we finally had an opening and walked away.
Naples just rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like everyone was just trying to scam as many tourists as possible and all of the traffic was a bit much as well.
We left the port of Naples, which is the third busiest port in the world, around 7:00pm. As we left port you could see Mount Vesuvius clearly. I wouldn't mind going back and climbing Mount Vesuvius some other time.
Not much else happened on the ship except for the fact that Ando and I finally figured out to hit up the buffet before dinner for appetizers. We took the appetizers on the back deck and had cocktail hour before dinner. We aren't sure why it took us so long to figure this one out, but at least we finally got it. Oh, and we didn't get a towel animal this night. I think we showered too early so there was no need for an animal, but we still had our guesses; I said mouse while Ando went with camel.
Ando and I had a pizza in the founding city; there is not little "pizza" in my oven.
Again we headed for the train station since Rome is not on the port and we had to head inland. Our first stop off the train was Vatican City. You get off before hitting the main station in Rome. Vatican City is huge and very crowded; or it was when we were there at least. I think it was about a three hour wait to get into the Sistine Chapel. That would have been our whole day so we opted to just look around before heading to Rome. Plus we missed the pope by a day so it was already a wash. He does mass on Wednesday's and of course we were there on a Thursday. And we ended up missing Obama as well; he came in on Friday.
We then decided to make our way to the main city and stopped off at the Piazza Navona. It is a small little piazza with some vendors and of course a fountain. We took the opportunity to sit on a bench and find out which direction we were heading in and what to see next.
Ando and I ended up at the Pantheon, which is now used as a church. The light coming through the dome was pretty cool inside. After the Pantheon we headed to the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain was much bigger and more impressive than I thought it would be. There were a lot of people around it so I wasn't sure we would get a good picture, but we managed to find a good little spot where we could throw our coins in. And in case you can't get it that hand is mine throwing a coin in. Just use your imagination as to what the rest of my body looks like.
It was then onto the tomb of the unknown soldier on our way to the Colosseum. We really just did a quick little stop off since it was on the way. We also saw some more ruins/part of the city that they are still excavating.
We finally made it to the Colosseum and Ando wasn't sure he wanted to go in. Needless to say I won the argument and we paid to go in. You never know if you are going to have the opportunity to see this again and why wouldn't you go inside? We were afraid the line was going to be a little long, but it ended up not so bad and moved pretty quickly. The inside was impressive as well. I'm glad we paid the money to go inside, It was neat to see how there were a bunch of halls and rooms under the stage area; I didn't realize it was like that. Very large and grand especially when you think about how old it is and how they built such a structure.
When we were finished with the Colosseum we realized that we should probably head back to the main train station to get pack to port. We weren't sure what time the trains ran and we didn't want to miss the boat so we figured we should give ourselves more time than we thought necessary. When we were sitting on our train, which came 15 minutes late there was an announcement in Italian and a bunch of people got up and left. Ando and I were a little scared, but we thought we heard enough to figure out that the train was still going to Civitavecchia, the port city. It turned out that the early train we thought we were catching turned into the later train after all. Since the first train was late they just made that train to the later one without a stop or two at the end of the line. Basically it was a service change.
We made it back to the boat in time and didn't get stranded, even though some people thought they may waiting in line for the shuttle to take you back to the ship. You aren't allowed to walk from your ship out from the docks so you have to take a shuttle outside the port area. And apparently some people thought they were going to be left behind and were trying to muscle their way onto the shuttles. Of course they didn't leave anyone behind and we all made it just fine.
When we were back on the cruise ship we got back into our daily routine of hitting up the buffet for some appetizers and drinks. We didn't stay out very late because waters were a bit rough. I don't do well on rough waters and thought it best to just hit the hay as to minimize sea sickness. Oh, and our daily towel animal was......a seal. Ando and I were both wrong with our guesses. We didn't take a picture, sorry.
Rome was crazy hectic; I am not pregnant so I can always have a crazy hectic day.
