23 September 2007

Last stop, Naples: Sorrento and Pompeii

Well, Pompeii sucked. No, not Pompeii itself – just our experience. But I’ll get to that.

We got up bright and early to catch our tour to Sorrento peninsula and Pompeii. First, we went to a cameo factory in Herculaneum. Then, we drove on to the peninsula, to a farm where they grow olives and press olive oil, grow lemons, and make mozzarella. We tasted some of the mozzarella made on their farm after a tour of the grounds. Then we drove into Sorrento town and had an hour and a half of free time – which was the highlight of the day. Ryan and I just wandered around the town, stopped for a couple of cappuccinos, watched the ocean for a bit.

Then we drove to Pompeii. And that’s when it really got lame. To begin with, our tour group consisted of one tour guide and forty lemmings. Pompeii was insanely busy – our guide said a typical September day would bring 12,000 to 15,000 visitors. So there were people all over, and we didn’t have the headsets that many tours have in busy places like that, so there were forty of us cramming around this one guy who didn’t talk loud enough (how could he with that many people?) and didn’t have much interesting to say anyway. And to top it all off, we only had about 90 minutes there. Which was just not enough time for us to really see anything. However, it was cool to be there, and see it in person.

Tonight we are packing ourselves up to leave our cruise. It has been an interesting experience, and we’ve had a good time. It will be hard to get back to real life on Wednesday, though. Tomorrow morning, we’ll catch a train back to Rome to stay until our plane leaves on Tuesday morning. After this post, we will “go dark” so we won’t be posting again before we get home. At some point in the week after we get back, we’d like to get a few more pictures online, so check back again. And in the meantime, thanks for joining us on our travels!

sunset over naples, italy

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed reading about your vacation! It reminded me of our cruise in the Carribean so very long ago. I really enjoyed seeing the pictures also. I am looking forward to seeing more as soon as you get them posted! Thank you for such a wonderful time, and I didn't even have to leave home! Carma

Anonymous said...

Hey you guys ! Hope you made it back home in one piece ! Anyway, here's a little video we put together with our photos and videos. Hope it's brings you back some good memories...

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/caroline+mathieu/video/x339r4_caroline-et-mathieu-croisiere-europ

Mathieu and Caroline