Honeymoon Day Two- Naples

Again, same format... Nick's post is first, followed by Katie's.....

Naples Day 2
Naples was a blast. We started off the day with a hearty breakfast in the dining room, knowing that it was going to be a busy day. We then hoofed it through Naples to catch the train to Pompeii. Walking the streets of Naples was pretty intense, as red lights and crosswalks are considered “decorations”. After about 35 minutes, we reached the Circumesuviana train station. Although I’ve read and heard about the trains here being especially dangerous, we had a pleasant ride with minimal hassle.

Departing to Pompeii. Graffiti decorations are prevalent on the trains and along the stops.
After about a 40 min. train ride, we reached the entry of the Pompeii site. Pompeii was an ancient Roman village that was buried in volcanic lava in 79. (that’s 79, not 1979). It was discovered in 1748 and excavations continued until the 19th century. It was amazing to see the layout of how civilization was back then. It’s interesting to note that despite how much progress has been made, people back then still congregated, went to the market, ate, and drank much like we do today.
The starting point is the Forum, the main town square.

The Forum, with Mt. Vesuvius in the background

Another picture of the Forum

Katie shopping at the market

The eruption was so sudden, people were preserved in the exact state they were in when it hit

Wealthy people had statues in their entryways

… and really intricate tile work on their floors

Lots of buildings had intricate artwork on the walls

The brothel had erotic artwork, presumably to display a menu of their offerings

The main amphitheater is where gladiators fought to entertain the masses. It seated about 20,000 people.

Our walk came full circle back to the Forum, and that really tied everything together in my mind after seeing so many aspects of Roman life. Although we spent about 3.5 hours touring the site, we still didn’t even come close to seeing everything. Next time I come I’ll be doing a lot more homework in advance.
From there we began our journey back to Naples and the cruise ship. Although I had the best of intentions to do the Naples Walk as described by Rick Steves, we were a bit tired from being on our feet all day so we took a more direct path back to the Port. We did stop at the end to check out a few of the sights however.

Castel Nouvo – We didn’t have time to justify exploring the castle, but got some good pics around the entryway

S. Fran Diapola Square

Galleria Umberto I – House of Iron and Glass
The Galleria Umberto was a really cool little place to do some window shopping. Luckily the stores were mostly closed. It was an open air shopping area, kind of like University Village in Seattle except with really cool architecture.
Exhausted, we finally made our way back on board the ship. We got a quick snack, then napped before heading off to dinner to eat even more food. Our chosen entrees were duck and enchiladas, and then we had an amazing tiramisu for dessert. Once again, I magically had exactly enough room to finish the last bite.
We decided to go to the Jazz Lounge and enjoy a cigar and some music in a comfy chair before heading to the welcome show. My main objective was to stay off my feet as much as possible after such a long day.


Since we were enjoying ourselves at the Jazz Club, we waited until the last minute to grab a seat for the show. It was standing room only, so we finally grabbed a seat in the nosebleeds off to the side. Unfortunately we couldn’t see much of the stage, but we did have a view of what appeared to be an empty table in the front row. I rushed down and grabbed the table, then waived Katie down to join me. Right after we sat down, we were interviewed by the Noorje, the cruise director who was asking about newlyweds and others on board celebrating special occasions. We then got invited to participate in a game of Family Feud in front of the audience. In a hard-fought contest, the girls team came from behind and scored the victory. I wasn’t disappointed to lose because we both received a little trophy and more importantly, a bottle of champagne. Those will certainly be nice to have with dinner one night during the cruise!

When we entered our room to crash for the night, we found the signature animal towel on our bed. It was a cute little surprise and a fun way to cap off the evening.

Goose or Cobra?

Day Two
Naples
Naples…what chaos! When we got off the ship, we decided to walk to the train station rather than pay to take the shuttle. We had a map, so we figured we would find it easily. It took about 40 minutes to find the train station, which wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was crossing the street. There are crosswalks, but cars don’t like to stop. There are red lights, but again, no stoppage of cars. You have to run to cross the streets….run for your life! I figured out that if you just walk aggressively across the street in front of vespa’s (they can maneuver around you) rather than the cars, you have a better chance of surviving. Walking in front of buses is suicide. So, for all you Seattleites who know better than to jaywalk? Throw that out the window in Naples.
We found the train station and arrived in Pompeii…jaw dropping. Incredible. Unimaginable. We took hundreds of pictures, but honestly they don’t do any justice. One thing that I found interesting was all the dogs that were wondering around Pompeii. I took some pictures of them and it made me miss Bella, but I got a little bit of a dog fix!




Here is an Ancient Doggie Door (or so I think)...

Pompeii was surreal. I really enjoyed checking out the ancient clay pots that were scattered around.

Anyways, it was a ton of walking and exploring. Nick has more details on this portion of the trip. I am finding it really hard to concentrate on this post right now because the man in the table next to me is wearing a Speedo and he is about 150 pounds too big for it. And his wife (or mistress, I can’t tell) is feeding him grapes. I think I may move over to the kid’s end of the deck. I am starting to feel a little sick. Yuck! I won’t take a picture so you will be spared. But just remember the sacrifice I am making by being on this honeymoon. You can thank me later!
For now I leave you with a picture of perfection….trophies, champagne, and a Goose.