Octocer 6, 2016

The sky was full of dark gray clouds with a temperature of 16.  The forecast said cloudy with periods of sun.  We are docked in Salerno, Italy today.   Bonadies Mountain is visible from the ship and we can see Castello di Arechi perched on top, 300 meters above sea level.  It was built in the 600s, when Salerno became the capital the Dukedom  of the Lombard Prince Arechi II.

We met Brendene and Brian who are also taking the Amalfi Coastal Drive and Pompeii tour.

The bus was loaded and winding its way out of the commercial port by 8 a.m.  Our guide, Angelo, gave everyone a map, which had town plans of five major towns along the Amalfi coast.  There also were audio receivers, on the seats, for the Pompeii walking tour.

A Roman town was established near Salerno in 290 BC.  Salerno is located on the Gulf of Salerno. The first medical university in the world was founded in Salerno in the 1500s.  The best Greek ruins are found in southern Italy and Sicily.  When the Germans retreated from the area in 1944 they mined the beaches.  As the Allies approached, they bombed the beaches to clear them for the soldiers to land in Salerno. 

There was a traffic slowdown on the main highway, but after 10 minutes, the turnoff to Pompeii was reached and the traffic was light. When the bus was close to Pompeii, a gentle rain started. Few people were prepared for rain since the forecast predicted clouds.  By the time we had left the bus, the rain was heavier.  There were about ten buses unloading and the vendors in the kiosks, by the ticket office, were doing brisk sales of umbrellas and plastic rain ponchos.  The rain poured for over half an hour but had almost stopped when we entered the Pompeii archaeological site.

First stop, before the tour, was to see an artist at work carving a cameo from a shell.  This is the traditional technique.  There was a nice jewelry store with all kinds of cameos in different background colours and available as pendants, rings, earrings and brooches in many price ranges.

 Then it was time for the over two hours guided tour of the ruins of ancient city of Pompeii .  Pompeii was found intact when discovered in 1748.  It had been buried in 20 meters of volcanic ash and pumice of small rocks and large boulders from the 79 AD Mount Vesuvius eruption.  There had been an earthquake in 62 AD and Pompeii was gradually rebuilding the town.  Original signs naming the politician who sponsored a theater or a bath’s reconstruction are still clearly visible.  About 66% of the site has been excavated.  There is a small white church up high at the edge of the excavations, which is about 200 years old.  Looking at the church, you can see how completely covered by ash the area was before the excavation began as the church was at ground level when it was built.  This is a good taste of the ancient Greek life and compliments the tours to see the ruins in Athens and Ephesus.

The site includes Pompeii’s forum, public baths, temples, and villas richly decorated with frescoes.  One house had its own three room private bath – cold water, tepid water and hot water.  When excavating, archeologists found hollows, which they soon realized were the remains of bodies.  They poured liquid plaster into the cavities and let it harden, then chipped away the debris and found the moulds of people’s bodies. The streets are original.  Black stones lie on the street, some with grooves from the carts.  Regularly there are higher stones laid to accommodate people walking across a street since the road bed was also the sewer.  The road stones have white pebbles or shell embedded in them that reflect the moonlight, for easier navigating the street at night.  We could have spent the rest of the day exploring the town and the villa of the wealthy Pompeii residents.  Angelo gave a great 2 ½ hour tour.  We had walked just over two miles as we wandered through the streets. As we exited the site Angelo directed us along a trellis walkway covered in grapevines that was the shady entrance to Ristorante Lucullus.  The group of 32 stopped there for lunch, where we were served salad, cannelloni, with wine, beer or water.  Dessert was a lemon cake and “American” coffee.

When we walked back to the bus the sky was sunny, a bit of cloud with a little wind and a temperature of 24 C. The afternoon bus trip was a drive along the Amalfi coast of southern western Italy, south of Naples.  We passed many “villages”, probably with populations of at least 10,000 people.  The building hugged the sides of the 400 or 500 meters rocky cliffs.  The roads were two way narrow paths zigzagging up, around, down and through tunnels, one five km long.  There were convex shaped mirrors at a lot of curves.  Buses squeezed past each other many times, sometimes even turning in their side mirrors and leaving only a few centimeters between the vehicles. Passengers on the seaside of the bus looked down steep cliffs at times.  The views where amazing, seeing the water, sailboats and fishing boats as well as a glimpse of a town below or above as the bus twisted and turned for more than three hours.  First town was Castel de la Maré, a picturesque place where Al Capone was born. Views of the bay showed Naples in the distance. The island offshore was Capri, where some of the tours for the ship went today, by boat. We drove through Sorrento and its outlying villages.  It was where Enrico Caruso was born.  We stopped at a factory showroom near Sorrento where Limoncello is produced and had samples of the original liqueur and the cream version.  It was bottled in many different shaped bottles including a cello shape, the Italian map “boot”, and other shapes.  There were also samples of limoncello flavoured chocolate, and limoncello flavoured hard shelled coating of almonds.  There was an oil olive and limoncello line of hand lotions, soaps and shampoo.  As we passed some of the towns, we noticed little flower shops and some had the “FTD” flowers logo.  The drive from Sorrento to Amalfi was 33 km, but took over an hour on the winding narrow roads.  Angelo mentioned that products of the area are chili peppers, lemons, oranges, olive oil and wine.  During the afternoon we passed many orchards and vineyards and olive tree farms planted on narrow terraces up the cliff sides.  The villages had streets that were actually outdoor staircases, going up or down from the road. At Amalfi, the bus pulled into a bus parking lot and the group had 50 minutes to explore the shops or stop at a café or bars.  The church in the main square had 70 or so stairs to climb to get to the doors.  To visit the church was free, but you had to enter through the cloisters, where there was a fee to enter.  Amalfi is built on the cliff side.  The main street is over 1 km long running up the gorge and is lined with cafés, bars, restaurants and shops.  The residents homes are accessed by partly covered outdoor staircases, going up or down from the main road.  There are interconnecting “hallways” at different levels as you climb up or down.  We bought gelati cones at one of the cafés.  The pasta is Italy is highly recommended, so we bought some dry pasta to take home and a rice mixture to make risotto.  In the harbor was anchored the Silversea’s Silver Cloud ship that carries 258 passengers and 222 crew.  There also were boats giving rides from Amalfi to Sorrento or Salerno or Naples to see the Amalfi coast from the water.  The sky had darkened as we explored Amalfi and it looked like rain.  The bus ride from Amalfi back to the ship was about one hour over the same narrow road. 

There was time to freshen up for supper.  Pat and Frank had taken a boat ride from the dock near the ship to Amalfi and back.  They had experienced some rain on the way there. For appetizers we chose Grilled Asparagus Salad, Caprese and garden salad.  The main course was Braised Lamb wrapped in phyllo pastry and vegetables or Rigatoni with mushrooms, prosciutto, arugula and peas in a cream sauce.  With our coffee we had Tiramisu. 

Tonight’s show featured Jane Cho from Australia.  She is a violinist who performed classical and rock music.  She is engaged to last night’s entertainer, singer, Michael Falzon.  We stopped at Café al Bacio for cold Frappés before going back to the stateroom.

Today’s walking was only 4.75 miles.