Sorrento Italy & Pompeii

Beverly and I headed different ways again today at our port call in Sorrento, Italy. While she left very early to explore the ancient city of Pompeii, I stayed around to tour downtown Sorrento on foot. Sorrento is a charming seaside resort, but most everything is shopping and more shopping. After taking the tender to the downtown port I could not for the life of me find the shuttle to uptown, so I decided to walk it – up, up and more up, and they don’t know what sidewalks are in Italy. The streets belong to the cars and you literally take your life in your hands to walk around here. I did find the beach resort, and guess what – no beach. They built gigantic breakwaters, paved them and then put up chaise lounges (for the peasants) and cabanas (for the rich folks).

This afternoon I escorted a tour along the Sorrento coast, followed by a wine tasting at the world famous Michelin Restaurant Quattro Passi in Marina Del Cantone Bay. I give the excursion both very high and very low marks. Our tour guide was inexperienced and boring, the bus was cramped and hot, and the public address system didn’t work. I received many complaints from the guests. On the other hand, the restaurant was world class, the wine cellar was amazing and the wines, the cheeses/meats and the bruschettas were superb. The coast is beautiful and you pass by countless lemon/orange orchards, olive orchards and vineyards, the area’s three major industries. We also drove close to the Isle of Capri and Mount Vesuvius. The road down to the water from the main highway, probably a 1,500 foot drop, was about the most twisting I have ever seen, and the occasions of passing other vehicles seemed to involve big time gasps.



This is Beverly, announcing to the world that I am officially tired – tired of ruins and just plain tired. I am here so I want to see everything. Who knows if I will ever get back to some of the places we have visited so far.

Today I escorted a tour to Pompeii, the ancient city that was buried under seven meters of volcanic pumice and ash spewed from Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. The last eruption of the volcano was in 1944. I don’t know how big the city was, but it was HUGE. We saw well preserved buildings and artifacts, including bodies that had been frozen in time as they died. This complex was massive and quite advanced for a medieval city.
They have been excavating the site for over 300 years and have about ¾ of it uncovered. At the end of the two hour walking tour, over boulders and rocks and walls, we were treated to real Italian pizza, which was YUMMY.

The road to Pompeii from Sorrento was winding, curvy, unbelievably narrow and on a cliff edge. It was quite something to experience a big huge bus making some of the turns and curves. The buildings are built right up to the street, there are no sidewalks, and the bus is inches from the awnings that hang over shop doors. It was negligent on the part of the ancients to build such narrow streets so they could barely accommodate the big tour buses. Tsk tsk

We had an interesting farewell dinner tonight as one couple leaves for home. We discussed how the captain would make an announcement every morning at 9 am giving us ship location and weather information – which by the way, was always wrong! In the bathroom, the stewardesses leave all kinds of goodies including a sewing kit. One lady couldn’t get over the fact that there was a pre-threaded needle for each thread color. I announced that there was nail polish remover in a round plastic container with a spongy thing inside. Oh, the ladies were excited that there was polish remover, until the guys told me it was for cleaning shoes. Me culpa.

Tomorrow we go to Rome for the day, and then to Florence where I get to escort an all day medieval Tuscany tour. For the rest of the cruise, we only have five sea days, the rest are port days. I am thinking it will be time for a vacation when we get home.