Day 9: Western Mediterranean Cruise
Royal Caribbean | Wonder of the Seas
Our last port of the journey is Naples. We spent the day exploring the Amalfi Coast and enjoying the most breathtaking views.
The day began with disembarking the ship at 8am and meeting our guide/driver for the day, Dominic. On our way to the first destination we learned about the area and a little bit about Pompeii.
First stop, was a small local park with magnificent views of the Golfo di Napoli. We jumped out of the van and immediately my son started chasing birds. LOL. We admired the view while my son admired the birds and dogs.
Next, up a Limoncello factory with wonderful things. It was 9:45am when we arrived at the factory and we were offered samples of Limoncello which were delicious. We then moved to chocolate samples, and then finished it off with wine samples. There was also a small cafe that served coffee, pastries, and limoncello drinks. Between the four of us we had two Limoncello spritzers, one slice of lemon-almond cake, and a pineapple juice. I’ll let you guess who had what! The lady’s face was priceless when we ordered the drinks and all I could think of was the Dirty Heads lyrics, “A-a-aye, I’m on vacation. Every single day cause I love my occupation.” Everything was phenomenal and we enjoyed our break looking out at the sea. There was also a little car there which my son loved. The worker helped him “fix it up” and also give it a car wash. It was really cute.
Sorrento’s city center reminded me of the gothic area in Barcelona near our hotel. There were lots of little shops and small narrow roads. The shops here were an upgrade in my opinion. Dominic dropped us off in the city center and we walked down one of the roads for some window shopping which turned into actual shopping. We then headed to the coast to take in the views and before we knew it, it was time to go.
The last leg of our journey out was to Positano. The town is basically in the side of a mountain. If you showed me this mountain before it was an establish town, I would have told you there is no way you can build houses or roads here; it’s too steep! Well, I would have been proved wrong. We pulled off into a parking lot. I knew we were stopping for lunch, but this nondescript building didn’t really seem like the place to eat. I knew we were going somewhere with a view and from the outside, it didn’t look like this place had one. We walked upstairs and inside and I was astonished by the view! I wouldn’t have guessed that from the outside! Absolutely breathtaking and pictures don’t do it justice. Here we ordered pizza! We ordered three pizzas thinking they would be personal size pizzas. They were basically large maybe even extra large and was way too much food for us. We did our best to eat everything because it was sooo good, but we couldn’t do it. Pizza tastes much different here. The sauce is sweeter with a pinkish hue to it and the mozzarella cheese is extra stretchy and yummy. We also ordered some juice for my son. The juice options were peach or pear which I found unusual. My son went with the peach and it was quite tasty!
We headed back towards Naples with one more stop before the end of the tour: Pompei. The story of Pompei has fascinated me since I was a child and first learned about it. I remember visiting Busch Gardens in 1995 when the ride Escape from Pompei opened. It was basically Snake River Falls from Cedar Point, but when you’re up at the top, you’re in Pompeii as the volcano explodes. You then escape Pompei and shoot down the waterslide to get drenched. Anyway, I was pretty excited to finally see the real thing.
Pompei is much larger than I was thinking. Archaeologists have excavated a huge amount of the ancient town. We learned about gladiators and how they were basically slaves that were picked up at the market. We also learned about society at that time. Sewage was thrown in the road and the roads were built to drain towards the sea. It must have been one stinky place! It really is amazing what was uncovered here. There is also a woman made of stone. Her shape was preserved somehow by the volcanic ash and it shows great detail. She’s on her knees with her head down we a cloth on top of her head. You can also see she was pregnant. The volcano erupted at 1pm and by 1:20pm 16,000 people died.
We hurried for dinner when we returned back to the ship and closed the night with the show playing at the Aquatheatre.
Adventures by Amaris Blog 