Naples

Naples (Pompeii, Sorrento, Positano), Italy -- February 24, 2015

We have arranged for a private driver to take us on a 9-hour tour of Pompeii, Sorrento, and Positano today. This was done through Nicola, our driver/guide in Livorno, ahead of time. We were to meet Tony at 8:00 this morning at the port terminal but we had a little problem locating Mrs. Yik who was to join us for the day. Fortunately she made it in time before we left the pier in Tony's black Mercedes van. Unlike Nicola's van, this one did not have Wifi but still new, clean, and comfortable. He said Wifi would be available during busy season and the company did not want to pay for it when business is slow.

My breakfast at Cagney's--Fruits de mer in brioche.

Pompeii--

We soon discovered that Tony is a funny and active person as he was taking us on the 25-minute drive from port to Pompeii. He is a native and very knowledgeable about the area. We were dropped off at the entrance to the site with a bottle of water from Tony and set our meeting time back at the same spot. We were told to leave our bags in the van because they are not allowed inside the site. We later saw many people having their backpacks/bags with them with no problems. It was good that we did not have our bags with us though, just so we could enjoy our walks better.

It was very quiet that early in the morning and we were one of the first ones there in this vast site. It was like having the whole place to ourselves. 

Ticketing area

DC as our guide

Everything was well-kept.

ChC found the Alexander Mosaic that he had studied in many of his history classes.

One of the residences that was opened.

We spent approximately 2 1/2 hours here before meeting Tony back at the parking lot. Our feelings were that we could easily spend a couple more hours here because we did not see everything we wanted to. It got a little crowded at the end and it looked like that it would rain soon. Before leaving the parking lot Tony took us to the store nearby to have a taste of lemocello which was too alcoholic for my taste.

On our way to Sorrento we had to go through a couple of long tunnels.

The beautiful view of Sorrento on a rainy day!

Driving along the coast on the cliffs.

It rained really hard when we got off in Sorrento. There were a lot of tourists in town and we almost got separated by a huge group of Korean tourists. As we were trying to stay away from the crowds, we did not go to the main area of town. Instead we were looking for a place for lunch in the quieter part of the city.

As the young men checking online for restaurant recommendations, I noticed this interesting sight.

 We ended up here at this restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful lunch of pizzas and pastas.

The seafood pizza was a little too fishy but the Vesuvius pizza was excellent! It had a little kick to it and very tasty.

After lunch, it was almost time for us to meet Tony again, so I just quickly snapped a few pictures in the rain just to proof that we had been in Sorrento!

On our way to Positano, in the rain.

Tony drove all the way down to a parking lot near the bottom of the town. It would have been a beautiful walk if it wasn't for the rain. It was difficult to walk on the wet stone street so ET stopped at some point and checked out the stores nearby while waiting for us.

We continued down the path to the cathedral.

ChC went all the way down to the beach and got some amazing pictures of the beach and the cliffs. We missed it just by a little because we figured that it was time to head back and didn't go all the way. 

We need to come back in better weather.

We were a little wet to say the least and getting back into the van sounded like a good idea so we called it a day and had Tony take us back to port.

Tony was really entertaining and funny all the way back even though we were all very tired and sleepy. By 4:30 we were back at the port terminal where we said our 'Goodbyes'. We had a wonderful day, minus the rain.

There was a long long line for security check so we kind of shopped around until the line eased up.

As our ship leaving Naples...

we saw a passenger being left behind. Really felt sorry for him, but at least we were not at a faraway island. It must have been a rotten way to end a vacation though.

DC's group had to pack for disembarkation the next day, so we set dinner at 7:30 that evening. Here is a sample of the dinner menu.

We would be on the second half of our back-to-back cruise and DC, MC, DD, and ET would leave for Isantabul and L.A. So this would be our last dinner together on board the Jade. We had so much fun traveling together in the last 15 days. It will be so different without them around tomorrow!

Probably because of the disembarkation, there was no towel animals that night.