Day 105 - Wednesday April 12

Naples/Herculaneum photos
position at 7:30am: N37 05.55 latitude E15 45.15 longitude
(Sorrento, Italy)
position at 9am: N40 50.13 latitude E14 15.36 longitude
(Naples, Italy)
temperature: 53F, 66% humidity, partly cloudy with some breeze
distance since FLL: 33,868 miles
Clay skipped walking this morning. But it was windy and bouncing all night long.You could hear the thuds of heavy things falling in other cabins. Bob fell off his shelf in our cabin, but that was all. Clay woke about 2:30am thinking that Debbie was somewhere in the cabin crying. Debbie woke at the same time and thought that Clay needs to recover from the sunburned nose he got in the Suez Canal so he can resume his nightly use of BreatheRight strips to stop his snoring. Debbie got up and went to the bathroom and the weird crooning/wailing noise was as loud in there as in the bed. What the heck? The noise was actually kind of spooky and it seemed to be coming from everywhere. Debbie asked Clay what it was. It turned out that that it was the wind coming through the cracks around the balcony door. Clay fiddled with the door until the noise was minimized and we got back to sleep. We got to Sorrento around 7am. There were swells and the Captain had a tender down checking out whether we would be able to tender ashore at Sorrento. About 7:30am the decision was made to scrap Sorrento and dock across the harbor in Naples. Capt. Dag announced that if anyone had their hearts set on Sorrento to get out and deck and get your photos because we were leaving. Clay was up early and Capt. Dag did take Voyager between Capri and the Sorrento peninsula early this morning on the way to the harbor at Sorrento. We did not get to have our much advertised close encounter with the Blue Grotto of Capri with Voyager though. Too bad because it sounded amazing. It is 8:15am now and we have not docked yet. Roger was just on the loudspeakers giving out new tour departure times. The earliest were 9am now. In a surprisingly generous gesture, Roger announced that people who really wanted to spend time in Sorrento on their own could get there and back by jetfoil ferry. He announced the time and place for them to gather one-time only for a RSSC rep to meet them and walk them to the jetfoil dock and provide them with tickets to go to Sorrento. Since we aren't doing this we did not understand if they would get complimentary transport on the return. Clay was in the Main Atrium a little later and heard people at the Tour Desk complaining that people had to pay their own way to get to Sorrento and back and RSSC was just providing a guide to show them where to go and help with the language barrier of purchasing tickets. So, at this point we are sure what exactly was being provided to people inconvenienced by the change in ports. For our part, we had been to Sorrento before and had not purchased a tour and planned loosely to take the train to Herculaneum. This puts us closer to it. Debbie had tracked on Cruise Critic last spring and early summer and found that fewer than half the ships planning to use Sorrento as a port were able to do so. That being the case with rough swells in the Bay of Naples this time of year, she had brought a lot of extra research and we had many backup plans here. Coming into Naples, if we were really delayed, we would look forward to finally visiting the archaeological museum in Naples. Since it is 8:30am and we still are not docked, we still don't know what we will do here today. Fortunately, we still have 2 good backup plans and both should be practical in whatever time we get here. Yesterday, the extended our departure because of the delayed arrival but they did not announce it shipwide. We did not find out until we got to the gangway. If the same thing happens here then we will have still left the ship with a shorter term plan in effect. So, we will have to wait and see what happens. Either way, we will see something new here. We also got a free early morning look at Capri for those up in time and some shots of Sorrento and Vesuvius from the bay.
Breakfast was served 30 minutes early today in LaVeranda. Debbie got 2 chocolate croissants and some strawberries from her berry man! Clay ate a bacon and tomato sandwich with some melon slices. It is only in the low 50s this morning with a stiff breeze. The forecast high for the day in Sorrento was 61 degrees Fahrenheit. So, it was nippy out on Deck 12 but we spent the morning running from place to place to see what we could see. Capt. Dag is right now doing his signature spin so he can dock for a quick getaway nose out, so we must be close to docking now. It looks like we should be docked by 9am and hopefully clearance will not take long and all the tour people will be able to get going. We will probably just cool our jets and let them have at it and leave after the crush.
In other bad news overnight, our evil eye was stolen. We had purchased a couple of small glass evil eye magnets in Kusadasi and gave one to Mishiel, our cabin stewardess, and put the other one on our door over our name plate. After we went to bed after viewing Stromboli late last night someone took it from the door. That is just too sad. One can only hope that the evil eye does its juju to whoever the evil spirit was that would remove it from its protective post. We have a lot of theft in our neighborhood back at home and a lot of street crime and we are very security conscious, but we have had evil eyes hanging over both the front and back doors outside our home since 1999 and they have never been touched.
Jamie is making loudspeaker announcements into the cabin right now that people should be "streetwise" here in Naples and leave all their jewelry onboard. Keep anything onboard locked in your cabin as well! It is quarter to nine and he says that we have not been cleared yet. Since they are still tying the ropes up, that is not too surprising. We'll keep you posted. We are docked on the port side, with a nice view of Vesuvius to the right and a view of some castles to the left and view of the 2nd story of the terminal building directly in front of our balcony.
At 9am the Captain announced that we were cleared and the stay had been extended one hour to sail at 6pm and all aboard at 5:30pm. It is too bad that no one had prepped everyone aboard that Sorrento was always only a slim possibility. Expectations are just everything. we are not at all upset and would have been pleasantly surprised if we tendered to Sorrento. But, there is a lobby full of PO passengers this morning instead because they are shocked and surprised. Too bad. Jamie is still making announcements about street crime here and to leave anything of value onboard. Also, that the elevators in the terminal building are not working so they are having trouble with the tours departing yet. We will probably go ahead and go down and see what we can find regarding the easiest way, bus or train, to Ercolano and get going. Ciao!
So, we walked right off the ship and into the Stazione Maritima building. There was a tourist information desk right in front of us, so we got in line. They had several free maps that were better than what we had brought or gotten on the ship so we took a couple. When our turn came we asked which was closest bus or train to Ercolano. Bus 157 and we could buy tickets right across the street from the port entrance. Easy enough. We crossed the street and the kiosk on the corner in front of the cross walk had signs in English that they sold bus and train tickets and spoke English. OK. We walked up and asked the man for 2 tickets return for Ercolano. He handed us 2 all day passes for trains, metro and buses at 3.50 Euros each. We asked him where to catch the bus. He pointed to the median in the center of the street. There were 2 so we were confused and he pointed that we needed the 2nd median from him going to his left. OK. We got out on the median and walked to the left facing the water until we reached the 157 bus sign. The bus came within 15 minutes or so. We were riding the bus at 10:10am. Traffic was heavy and we also got caught behind an Italian funeral procession like you see in the movies with the widow clinging to the back of the hearse. Very sad, but very scenic and it probably delayed the bus by 30 minutes. Debbie got concerned at some point because we thought the bus ride to Ercolano Scavi should have taken only about 30 minutes and with the delay we weren't sure how much further. She asked a woman standing near her if she spoke English, she did not but offered to help. Debbie asked her how far to Ercolano. She pointed ahead. She stayed on the bus until she told us to get off and then walked with us until we could see the arched entry that had Herculaneum written across it. How nice! Part of our concern also was that there were Aviso signs regarding bus 157 and some part of Ercolano being closed. It did turn out that the street that runs directly in front of the Herculaneum gate was shut down. So, the bus was rerouted and the woman had gotten us off at the closest point. We hope that she did not go too far out of our way for us! We walked about 2.5 blocks downhill and got in the ticket line. (The bus 157 drove past the Circumvesuviana train station twice while we were on it. The bus stop where we got off turned out to be about 2.5 blocks past where the Circumvesuviana train station was. (But, the closest Circumvesuviana train station to the Stazione Maritima was about a mile and a half! So, we had figured that even though the train is faster than the bus, the walk would equal out the total travel time. We were not counting on the funeral!) Anyway, we got in line for tickets at about 11:30am. There must have been 200 people in line. At a couple of points the gates would swing shut and we did not know if they would reopen. Now, a reason for choosing Herculaneum is that everyone says it is so much better preserved than Pompei, more compact and easier to tour and that you have the place to yourself unlike the teeming hoards at Pompei. Um, maybe except for Easter week. There must have been 5 busloads and 4 trainloads of school-age kids there! They kept closing the gates until people came out and mostly only large groups came out. We did see a few families traveling with children come out but not any solo adults like we were. It was family time and they all had bag lunches! We decided we would stay on line until noon and if we did not get in we would turn around and catch the bus back. We got in before noon. Tickets were 10 Euros each. It was crowded inside. One can only assume though that Pompei would have been worse. We did really enjoy Herculaneum and maybe more than Pompei just because of the small scale and better preservation. We thought we needed to leave the site by 2:30pm or so to be sure to get back to the ship on time. So, we ate 2 packs of Debbie's Nabs as we toured. We drank a bottle of water and had a couple of hard candies each. No leisurely lunch today for us! Glad we got it yesterday and that it was so delicious. We headed back up the street and stood at the bus stop across the street from where we had alighted. No buses passed us going that way. We walked across to the other side, understanding that we were near the end of the route before the bus looped back to Napoli. The next bus to arrive was ours, 157, we climbed on and flashed our day passes and Clay asked the driver to confirm that he went to Napoli. He waved us off the bus and told us to wait across the street. Debbie was annoyed because our passes were good for the fare and he was probably going to drive back by us in 15 minutes that we did not need to be standing. After we got off and stood back on the other side, Debbie again pointed out that because of the street closure/rerouting we did not know if the bus would come by here. She was watching up the hill when an orange bus came out of the next side street up the block. She walked up there and the bus stop sign up there did not list our bus, but 2 other buses that were not listed on our stop's sign. There were no temporary Aviso signs there, so she just came back. As she stood there and Clay went down the hill to check the next side street that bus 157 had gone down after we alighted, bus 157 came out of the side street up the hill! That SOB that made us get off and crossthe street! He knew he wasn't coming by there. We had stood there for 30 minutes and not a single bus had come by in our direction, while they all went past the other side and then turned at the next corner because of the main street at the bottom of the hill being closed. (That side street was one-way which was why Debbie was watching the next street up the hill, one-way in the other direction.) So, we started walking to the train station. It was only another couple of blocks uphill and as soon as we arrived on Binario 1 to Napoli, the train arrived. It took only 15 minutes to reach the terminus stop in Napoli, which is the closest one to the waterfront and the Satzione Maritima, still pretty far. We exited the train station onto Corso Garibaldin and walked downhill to the waterfront. We meant to follow the waterfront, but geez, the traffic and cars and motorbikes parked on the sidewalks. We wound up a stree further away at some point. We were in Napoli by 4:15pm and had time to find T-shirts and a pizza if any were nearby. So, we walked on. We did find a couple of pizzerias near the port entrance and went in the one with the most people inside. The name was Sofi. They had a wood-burning oven and had small, half pizzas for 6 Euros. We split one with ricotta, mozzarella, salami, basil and tomato sauce. Clay got a Peroni draft beer and since they only had white wine by the 1/2 bottle as the smallest, Debbie got a Coke. It was really fast from the time the put it in the oven. It must have been very hot. You could see into the kitchen from the tables and from the door by the stairs to the toilets. Debbie sent Clay to get a picture of the tile covered oven and the woodpile. The cook saw his camera and called his buddy over and posed for Clay to take their picture. Clay got embarrassed and came back to the table without photographing the wood oven or the wood pile. Debbie got up with the camera and headed back to the kitchen door. A man in a sports coat walked in front of her first flash photo and directed her into the kitchen, physically! There had been one other pizza order after we entered and the cooks were in there just getting ready for dinner time. They immediately took the camera from Debbie and took a picture of each of themselves with her and then let her take more pictures while they were writing their names and addresses for her to mail them pictures. During this Clay brought in Bob so he would not be left out of the photo frenzy in the Napolipizza kitchen! The brochure they gave Debbie had a website, so she asked if they had email. No! A mime of airmail from America by Debbie's new best friend, Franco Lebro. How about from Roma? OK? No. How about from Monte Carlo? What? How about from Barcelona? They had to find the one English-speaking waiter. They were disappointed that Debbie did not want to mail from the USA. But, would take pictures anyway they could get them. They made Debbie promise 3 times and she did. Clay asked her if she was crazy later. She said it was really hot in the kitchen and she was being hugged by young Italian men! Debbie told Clay that she planned to make them postcards like we have been sending home. He pointed out that the pictures are not great quality and then they are exposed during mailing. Debbie replied that if Grandma's Taj Mahal postcard of us was good enough for Grandma to carry to her aphasia support group for show and tell then it was good enough for a Neapolitan pizza chef. Clay conceded, probably they would still be thrilled to have them. Debbie plans to mail them along the way until all are used. Hopefully, that will make their day as they made our with their goofy friendliness after the terrible bus driver experience. We walked away after lots of farewells and repeated promises and got ourselves each a big gelato cone. As we ate them, we walked away from the port gate looking for T-shirts. We saw a place after a couple of blocks that had flags and shirts hanging out front. Debbie thought it looked like a soccer fan place, but it was the only place we had seen in a couple of miles of walking that looked like it had anything like souvenir shirts. (The gift shop in the terminal building must not have been open when we walked by the first time this morning or we would have just gone there, but we did not know about it. There were no T-shirts for sale in Ercolano either, except in kids' sizes.) So, the guy selling soccer jerseys was very disappointed that we would not buy from him and followed Debbie outside where he melted her heart again and we bought 3, 20-Euro each, polyester soccer jerseys for the Naples soccer team. Mars, number 10 Maradona, these should be collector's items! Oh, also Clay bought a big, pink foil-wrapped chocolate Easter egg for Debbie. We have been seeing these giant eggs since Sicily and lots of people carrying them on the streets and bus. We bought a fairly small and inexpensive one. Some were about a foot tall with painted scenes onthem and cost over 100 Euros!
We were back onboard Voyager about 35 minutes before the all aboard. We sailed on time at 6pm. It was a good day. We made our own way around despite some missteps and other than the outrageous soccer jerseys purchase we had a cheap and successful day. Before we sailed, the doorbell rang. Debbie answered it and there was a waiter there with gift wrapped parcels. It was our replacement bakery cookies from last night's dinner with Captain Dag. Patrick had promised to personally go out shopping today for these and we don't know if he did it personally or not, but someone found a place called Gambrinus on via Chiaia and brought us back giftwrapped cookies from there. Thanks Capt. Dag and Patrick!
We can highly recommend a visit to Herculaneum, or Ercolano Scavi. It is just amazing. There are still such detailed murals and mosiacs and marble work and the really amazing thing is the surviving charred woodwork. Truly amazing. We really could have used more than the 2 1/2 hours we had there. If we had stood in a line of student groups for almost an hour we probably would have been just fine. Something to keep in mind for anyone else thinking about this. Also, the train probably would have been a time saver even with the distance from the pier. The distance from the Herculaneum site itself was insignifacant compared to the distance to the bus for us today, anyway.
Captain Dag just came on the loudspeakers and said that he had promised us a sail by the Blue Grotto on Capri last night and that he had some time in the pocket so he intended to keep his promise and we should see Capri on the port side about 7pm. We may just stay in tonight for the views and have a light meal delivered by room service since we had pizza and gelato after 4pm. More later. Well, true to his word Capt. Dag just about scraped the sheer cliffside of Capri with Voyager. He blew the horn several times beside the cliff face. It was pretty spectacular and special. Just as it was getting dark, we turned and sailed north for Civitavecchia. We have another long, hard day off the ship tomorrow. Since it is Easter week, Debbie booked us on the tour Rome Express - Train Transfer for $69pp. Now you can take the train for a fraction of that price, but Italy being Italy, Debbie figured better safe than sorry. Our tickets tell us to be on the pier at 8:05am and the ship sails tomorrow at 6pm. We have been to Rome before and got an overview and most of the highlights. So, the train is supposed to drop us at St. Peter's Station. We may stay there and get a really good look at the Vatican Museums which we buzzed through last time. Or, we may decide to go out into town and maybe tour inside the Colosseum that we only saw from the outside last time. Time will tell. We did not get a weather forecast for Rome in the Passages which might have helped sway our decision.
Tonight was Country Club Casual but we did not go out to eat. We stayed in for the sailby of Capri. Plus we had just eaten pizza and gelato a few hours earlier. The plan was to eat a light dinner by Room Service, but Clay fell asleep. Well, we have a early morning and a long day tomorrow, followed by a repeat the next day, so better close now.
Tonight is the last night of the Dubai to Rome segment and 290 people are leaving tomorrow. Not sure how many new people are coming aboard for the last segment.
We forgot to mention the full moon over Stromboli last night! Even when there were no exploding flames shooting out the top there was this big, bright moon and its light reflected from Stromboli to Voyager in a river. Beautiful! Of course, we got zero photos. Too bad. Only our memories.
On April 16, Latitudes is starting its Spanish Bodega theme. It will feature international singer Amapola, the guitar music of Frankie Holiday combined with the Flaminco dancing of Aisha.
Naples/Herculaneum photos