Our excursion in Naples was slightly later (8:15 AM rather than 7:45 AM) than the previous day’s but we still set our wakeup call for the same time. Mickey called promptly at 6 AM and Lisa rolled over to tell me to set another one for 6:20 as she wanted to sleep in more. I told her that hitting the snooze bar 17 times before she gets up might fly at home, but here where every precious minute counts she better get up the first time or else.

We had decided to go with a room service breakfast because Topsiders’ breakfast has been consistently disappointing this trip and we really don’t need two pounds of bacon in our stomachs for 9 hours of walking. Room service has been substantially bulked up on the lunch/dinner side of things, with full meals available 24 hours a day. Unfortunately the breakfast remains continental, with traditional breakfast offerings unavailable in favor of breads and fruit. The convenience factor of not having to worry about missing breakfast makes it worth ordering regardless of whether or not you actually intend to go to the buffet/sit down places. You can always eat less if you still want to go. We ended up eating only the room service food and it carried us through to midmorning, when we both became suddenly starving. This worked to our advantage, though, as we were on our own in Sorrento at the time, and hungry in Italy is a good thing to be. More on that later.

I think they were either a little overwhelmed by the amount of people booking Timeless Pompeii and the Flavor of Sorrento or there was another excursion even bigger than ours since we were spilling out the sides of the normally spacious Rockin’ Bar D. There were six buses waiting for all of us downstairs and we made our way to Bus 27.

Our tour guide for today was Giuseppe, a good looking Italian man with an open shirt and the kind of accent that makes you keep an eye on your wife. He had the charming affectation our previous guide, a Sicilian woman, had, which was to end every sentence with “ah?”, as in “The view is very nice, ah?” Giuseppe introduced himself and then introduced us to our driver…Giuseppe. A different one. This would become a theme throughout the day as it seems every man (and surprisingly, some of the women) in Naples is named Giuseppe.

Our waiter at Palo the other night, Mladen, had warned us that Naples is an ugly city, especially in comparison to Palermo. While I can’t totally agree, I can see what he meant: the port is very industrial and covered in soot from a source unknown. The city is a mish-mash of old and new, with the new making no apparent attempt to blend in with the old as in Barcelona. I found this charming and a bit more honest, for the first thing we saw when we got off the boat was a modern-style and slightly dilapidated terraced apartment building next to a grand, imposing castle. The rest of the city was full of such contrasting sights, with slums built around a huge cathedral, complete with duomo.

Mladen was right that Palermo was more beautiful than Naples, though, as there was nothing to really look at for most of the drive with the exception of Mount Vesuvius that looms over the entire region, massive and foreboding. It’s so close and its effects so tangible (the highway we were on was carved into the volcanic rock, its porous and craggy surface lining our path) that you wonder why they’re not taking it seriously. It’s as if they’re daring it to erupt again.

Once we had gotten out of Naples proper and on to the Sorrento/Amalfi drive, the scenery became much better. The Bay of Naples was beautiful, with crystal clear waters lapping at the shore, inviting the swimmers that dotted the shore. As we ascended, what was once industrial and dull became magical and majestic and the cameras came out to snap photographs at the things we were barely paying attention to when we were up close. The view got so beautiful that our driver made a stop at an overlook so we could all get out and take pictures. Not a single person stayed on the bus.

We didn’t get the full Amalfi Coast experience, but we got some, and it wasn’t as death-defying as you’d been led to believe. I’m sure on the actual Amalfi Coast tour they play it up for all it’s worth, but on this drive it was apparent that they have it down to science. During the blind curves, our bus driver would honk before taking the sharp turns and there was always a clear path for him when he did. The real nail-biting moments came not from sheer cliffsides but going through the narrow streets of Sorrento and the surrounding towns, where pedestrians clung to the wall to avoid being plowed down by passing cars missing them by only a few inches, much like in the medieval town of Erice. Unlike Erice, traffic volume is high and every driver believes that they have the right of way. Thankfully we were on a bus and bigger always won, but there were a few moments where you weren’t sure if other people were going to make a sane decision.

Our first stop was the town of Sorrento, a popular seaside resort town popular for its many delicacies, including Mozzarella (Buffalo and Cow), olives, oranges, and giant lemons which they use to make their famous Limoncello.  We were dropped off in front of, of course, a place that was trying to sell us something, the Lucky Store in the Piazza Antiche Mura. It was a furniture store known for its intricate inlaid designs placed on everything from tables and grandfather clocks to music and jewelry boxes. The proprietor…Giuseppe…escorted us downstairs where we watched a demonstration of their process and were then invited to purchase anything we wanted at a 20% discount. Unfortunately, everything was insanely nice but also insanely expensive, with the furniture costing several thousand and even the smallest of jewelry boxes were over a hundred dollars. We were then given an hour and a half free time in the town to wander where we pleased. Giuseppe (the tour guide, not the driver or the furniture store owner) mentioned that there were maps available inside, but we assumed, like everything else, that they would be way too expensive.

We wandered up the street we had just driven down, somehow forgetting that there wasn’t much up there to look at. There was, however, the first ATM we had seen since we landed in Barcelona. Rick Steves and numerous other guidebooks recommended not bothering to exchange your cash in the States and to avoid doing it over in Europe, but instead to just withdraw money from the nearest ATM, where you’re guaranteed the best rate and exactly the currency you’ll need at that time. I’m sure this is fine if you’re touring Europe on your own, but none of the stops we’ve made thus far, including the Hotel AC Barcelona, had an ATM. In fact, the entire mall at Diagonal Mar didn’t have one. None of the port authorities have had one either. If it weren’t for this free time, I’d still be walking around with one last large bill in my pocket.

We wandered onto the first side street we could find and immediately became instantly familiar with pedestrian life in Sorrento (and probably most of Italy). The sidewalk was only as big as it needed to be (if you were a wide person, you’d probably have to scuttle sideways) and the cars are relentless in driving past you at full speed. This particular road had a stop sign at the end of it so traffic had lined up and we were walking past it, our shoulders barely an inch away from the hot vehicles, hoping our hips wouldn’t be shattered by the sideview mirror of an overeager Italian. We experienced our first street crossing, which we hesitated over until an elderly couple moving like glaciers made it across the street in one piece. The view that waited across the street from us was amazing and unexpected. Alongside the narrow and otherwise unremarkable street ran a deep gorge with the crumbling ruins of a building, overgrown with flora and next to a babbling brook, making for something wonderfully picturesque tucked away where you wouldn’t expect to find it.

We had no idea where we were going, so we followed wherever the traffic was headed. We encountered our first stray dog here, with the exception of the lonely dog outside Diagonal Mar. We’d see a ton in Naples, far more than I’d ever seen at home, and this one was particularly adept at living on the street, ducking and weaving out of the unpredictable traffic with the guile of a seasoned veteran. Judging by his jaunty gait, we figured he must lead a pretty good life.

The traffic was headed to the Corso Italia, coincidentally our intended destination, and the street opened up to the Piazza Tasso, the main square of Sorrento. The streets were alive with people here, so many that even the insane Italian drivers were wary as they passed through the area. It was here that Lisa and my stomachs called out to us in need of sustenance. We were in the right place, as the street was full of cafes and gelato shops. We opted for the latter, which took us to a shop that was the Baskins and Robbins of gelato, with so many flavors we were overwhelmed. I went with Bailey’s and Lisa went with Nutella, and we both stood outside (the sidewalks were too narrow for true seating) to eat it and people watch. Gelato has always been described to me as like Ice Cream but creamier and that’s pretty accurate. More specifically, it’s like the first few bites of ice cream, where it’s creamy and your mouth hasn’t frozen the texture away yet, but carried over the entire course of consuming the dessert. It was tasty, but we bought far too much and had to throw the rest away.

We continued down the Corso Italia and it was around this time that Sorrento started to lose its magic. Nearly everyone we passed were tourists, not a small amount from our very own cruise, but also a lot of other cruises and, I assume, regular tourists. My initial discomfort with not being able to speak the language gave way to being upset that I wasn’t immersed in it. So few people were speaking Italian that I wondered if there was a real Sorrentine in the whole town. As a result, we became disenchanted with the place fairly quickly. The only real moment (besides our interactions in the gelato shop) came when we made our way into a grocery. There was an elderly man behind a deli counter working out the details of a large order with an even older woman. The tone was light and familial but there was clearly some bargaining going on, making for something melodious that kept my attention despite my not knowing what was going on. Lisa coveted the incredible-looking selection of meats and cheeses behind the glass but the man seemed unconcerned with the tourists ducking in and out of his shop, his attention focused on the little old lady. She chickened out instead of asking for samples.

We accidentally found our way back to the bus after much arguing as to what the right direction was (my random approach proved the correct one, thankfully). Giuseppe and Giuseppe (the tour guide and the furniture shop owner) were waiting for us, but instead of Giuseppe the bus driver, we had…Giuseppe the bus driver. A different one with a much smaller bus that was only a shuttle to the farm where we would see how Mozzarella is made in Naples as well as have lunch.

The farm was gigantic, taking up an entire hillside with many, many buildings tucked away in corners of lush and overflowing crops of lemons, oranges, grapes and olives, as well as a few geese and a herd of cows that produce the milk for the Mozzarella. It was an immense and beautiful space and all of it was owned by a single family that has run it for generations. We strolled down a seemingly unending path, flanked on both sides by produce. The region is dry for most of the year but when it rains it is torrential, which is no good for the lemons, oranges and olives. They’re shielded year round by thick netting that lets the water through in moderation instead of flooding it all at once. The grapes, however, need sunlight, which does not filter through the netting as much as required, so the vineyard is actually built above the existing crops of oranges, lemons and olives, on a second level built on top of the netting. The family (and most farmers who use the same technique in this area) must use ladders to maintain and harvest the crop.

We met Maria, a family representative who spoke perfect English that would explain to us what Rosa, the matriarch who did not speak English (we’re not sure of their relation as we missed the first few seconds of the presentation taking pictures of the immense lemons), was doing while she demonstrated the Mozzarella-making process. Maria was flamboyant, playing to the audience the whole time while we lapped it up. Rosa was quiet and unassuming, in fact she spoke only a single word the entire time. She did, however, have a commanding presence and she was clearly the boss, as at one point she made a motion toward the crowd that silenced Maria midspeech until she figured out what she wanted. An elderly couple who couldn’t move as fast as the young’ns were standing at the back of the crowd, unable to see very well. Rosa motioned for the crowd to part and to let them through and it was only when she got her way did everything continue and we learned how to make Mozzarella.

This is all from memory, so forgive me if I screw it up. The first step is to boil the milk for two hours, separating the curds and whey. The whey is skimmed off the top and made into Ricotta cheese while the curds are removed from the water and placed into a separate bowl. The cheese is now pliable, but needs to be constantly washed with the hot water. Rosa would plunge her hands into the boiling water to knead the cheese as if it were lukewarm tap water. It was as if we were watching a magic trick without the buildup or the pomp, just the amazing feat. Maria said they don’t sell the Mozzarella in the balled up form you see in supermarkets because it makes the food seem more bland than it should. Instead, Rosa shapes it two ways: braided and in a knotted pouch. The idea is to have it look as appetizing as it tastes. They also make two kinds of the Mozzarella: the fresh kind that we would eat with the farm’s own olive oil and a mozzarella that’s left out to dry so that a rind forms and the cheese inside forms a much different texture but retains the same taste. Rosa both shaped the Mozzarella into a braid and a pouch for us and then posed smiling with each. It was here that she broke out her one word of English: “Cheese!”. It’s nice when something touristy like that comes off as charming instead of forced.

We made our way over to the seating area overlooking the farm where we were served an an antipasto consisting entirely of food made on the farm: mozzarella cheese with olive oil, prosciuto, salami, pickled eggplant and green olives. Everything was delicious but the cheese and the meat were certainly the highlights, miles better than the antipasto we had yesterday and we thought that was great. Our main course was rigatoni with tomato sauce and ricotta cheese. It’s the second pasta dish with a tomato sauce that I’ve loved on this trip and I still choose to believe it’s of much higher quality here than it’s just that I’ve been a stubborn prick about it for this long. Dessert was a ricotta cheesecake with two candies made from the two marmalades they make on the farm. Everything was supremely delicious and definitely made up for the disappointment of Sorrento. We finished with a one-two punch of a shot of espresso and two shots of limoncello (with cream and without), the local liquor made with local lemons, sugar and straight up, hard-ass alcohol. Both were like rocket fuel and, surprisingly, the limoncello more so. Rosa kept offering me sample shots of Limoncello, and each time I would take both and promptly drink the cream-based one first, even though it’s far milder than the straight-up limoncello, which is EXTREMELY strong. I was sure that the coffee and alcohol would be fighting for domination for the rest of the day.

The limoncello won in the end, because I slept through most of the bus ride to Pompeii. There wasn’t much talk from Giuseppe anyway, he probably assumed (correctly) that everyone would be passed out after such a wonderful meal. It was about a half an hour ride to Pompeii, back where we had come from.

I was immediately caught off guard upon reaching Pompeii because it’s located in the middle of a busy, modern city. Only the ruins of Pompeii stand still in time, the rest of the world has moved on and has encircled it so that it feels as if you’re visiting a botanical gardens or a zoo and not an archeological site. Segesta, the archeological site we had visited the day before, was remote and so the only tourist traps were the souvenir shop and the intrepid merchant who had driven his van to the gates to hock some jewelry. Pompeii on the other hand was located behind a labyrinth of cheap souvenir stands, with dozens of merchants holding out books and DVDs and motioning proudly to their collections of replica Pompeiian penis statues. There was a hotel right alongside it as well as several restaurants and a bathroom you needed to pay 50 cents to get in (we did). My enthusiasm wavered: was this yet another roadside attraction?

It was not. Pompeii was so fascinating that the two hours we spent there barely scratched the surface, so much so that most of us regretted leaving despite the insanely hot weather.

Pompeii was considered a seaside resort for the wealthy in ancient Rome, with a population of 20,000 living in relative luxury in a city with 40 bakeries, 30 brothels and 130 bars, restaurants and hotel. On 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted, smothering half the town’s residents with poisonous gases and then burying the entire town in 60 feet of ash. The ash preserved everything (with the exception of the roofs, which collapsed under the weight of the ash, and wood and other flammable materials, which combusted) so perfectly at the moment of burial that its discovery and excavation have provided nearly everything we know about daily life in a Roman town.

We entered into the Porta Marina, walking alongside the walls surrounding the city. As the name implies, the Porta Marina was on the edge of the water before the eruption of Vesuvius but now Pompeii lies inland, with at least several thousand feet of land lies between it and the sea. It was here that they believe the other half of the population that did not die in the eruption got away: in boats, the only safe way out. Supporting this theory was the fact that no boats were ever found, but since the boats were made of wood and would have burned anyway, it’s still up in the air as to what happened to them.

There were two entrances to the city: a smaller one for pedestrians and a larger one for chariots. We entered into the reception area for the two theaters of Pompeii. This was the place where the audience mingled before and after performances but it also doubled as the barracks for the gladiators. The gladiator arena was several miles away but it was here that they trained, sparring in the large grassy area open to the air.

Our next stop was the smaller of the two theaters. It was mostly intact and we were able to walk up its steep staircases to take in the gorgeous view of Pompeii from above. The theater was set up like a typical Roman theater, with larger seats for the wealthy men at the front, smaller seats for the middle class men in the middle and the cheap seats for women and children in the back. The acoustics here were pitch perfect as they were in Segesta, which is amazing considering the toll both time and misfortune has taken on it. Even more surprising was the perfectly preserved marble floors, smooth to the touch, an idea of what the entire place looked like before the artifice eroded away.

We were led over to the larger theater, where performances are apparently still held to this day as revealed by the modern seating and the inability to get as closed as we’d have liked. This theater took advantage of the natural slope of the hill and was built into it. The second story structures were preserved here, allowing us to see the places from which a silken tarp was suspended above the theater to allow performances no matter what the weather.

As we made our way out onto the main road, Giuseppe pointed out some two thousand year old graffiti. We stared blankly as he pointed out what he said were two gladiators sparring on the wall, unable to see what he was talking about. We stood there, squinting, trying to make something out. It was only until someone in the group realized that of course the graffiti would be scratched into the walls and not spray-painted that the pictures became visible. In addition to the gladiators there were boats and horses as well as writing, and the crudeness of the etchings immediately brought to mind the mischievous youth that must have carved them into the wall who must also have died suddenly amongst their family and friends. Everywhere you turned was ruined beauty that was in itself beautiful, the remnants of a lost world.

The corridor opened up the main road, which was far larger than I had imagined it would be. The whole of Pompeii was much larger than I’d thought, a true city, and this street reflected that. Immediately in front of us was the first of many bars/restaurants that we would see throughout the city. The counters had several holes in them and, depending on the type of establishment, would hold either the pots of food or, much deeper to keep them cold, the wine. The street runs on a slope with raised sidewalks on either side to allow for pedestrian traffic. During rainstorms the streets would become rivers, so every so often a crosswalk of three raised stones allowed pedestrians to cross without getting their feet wet. The three stones were divided to allow chariots’ wheels and the animals pulling them (oxen, mules or horses if you were fancy) to pass between. There was only one type of chariot allowed in the streets of Pompeii as most others weren’t built to take advantage of this unique layout. One way streets were marked by a single stone (only two wheels can pass, see?) And there were a surprising number of sidestreets leading off the main one. The soft stone meant that the wheels of chariots had worn through them over time and you could see in the most heavily trafficked areas, the small passages between the crossing stones, the ruts left almost two millenia earlier.

Our next stop along Main street was one of the bakeries where the oven and millstones still stood. An animal would circle away around the millstone, slowly grinding the grain within until it was suitable for the bread that would be baked in the oven at the back of the shop. The death of Pompeii was so sudden that bread was found in the ovens when they were excavated.

Running alongside the streets was something that caught everyone besides, something that a few people scoffed at as being fake: plumbing. A water tank at the edge of town fed the lead piping leading to the baths, the private homes and the public fountains, which were shut off in that order in case of a water shortage. Don’t feel too good for the common man’s victory in that scenario: fountains were shared indiscriminately by both humans and animals.

We turned onto one of the one-way sidestreets and made our way to the house of Cornelium, a politician who was advertising his campaign on the outside of his gorgeous estate (look how rich I am, I must be doing something right! Vote for me!). The grand doorway was intact and accompanied by a plaster cast of the door that once stood there, huge and well-secured with a giant bolt from the inside. The inside of the house was alive with color in elaborate frescoes of geometric shapes that make you wonder why we ever switched to the one-color-for-four-walls system. The room was lit from above with an open-air sunroof and the problem of rain coming through was dealt with ingeniously underneath with a lowered section of floor with two drains. It was tiled so as to appear beautiful whether dry or wet. The floor all around was inlaid every so often with tiny, reflective white tiles called cat’s eyes that would reflect the light of a candle in the dark making navigating around the house at night easier. These were found throughout the city, outdoors as well as indoors, and were one of the many things that I’d never thought of but seemed obvious when confronted with.

All of the rooms off the main room had frescoes and the dining room had a mosaic tile floor, all perfectly preserved by the ash. The colors had barely faded, giving you an idea of how incredibly luscious they must have been when new. The most spectacular fresco of the house was in the back, dedicated to the hunt, a room full of beasts chasing and attacking other beasts, caught in a continuous struggle, the action and motion still coming across all these centuries later.

Every step of the way on the tour so far, Lisa and I had been trailing behind, getting those last few pictures in, gawking just a bit more than everyone else. Thankfully, Giuseppe handed out transmitters that would allow us to hear him from a distance, mainly because there were so many tour groups that everyone shouting over each other would lead to a most unpleasant cacophony (this did not, however, stop some of the Italian tour guides, who yelled at the top of their lungs anyway). The transmitters gave off a loud hum whenever Giuseppe wasn’t speaking, and you had to keep it in your ear because he could begin talking at anytime, so by the end of the day I was relying on my left ear only since the right ear was deaf and gone.

Back out on the main road my initial reaction was further proven wrong when we were shown the numerous hitching posts that line the streets. Well, posts is a misnomer but I don’t know what else to call them. They’re actually holes in the stone through which the reins were looped through.

Conveniences that I thought were strictly modern abounded in Pompeii, including something that never would have crossed my mind as being ancient until I saw it before my eyes: sliding doors. The grooves of the shop doors remained even after the doors burnt away.

The public fountains were located further up the hill, though I imagine they were kept cleaner despite their indiscretions about sharing their drinking water with mules.

The street past the fountains was much smoother than the rocky and rough terrain on the slope. This was because they were new, but not in the sense you’d expect. Pompeii, in its ridiculous misfortune, was also pretty badly damaged by an earthquake 17 years before the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. These roads were replaced after the quake of 62 AD and therefore had not worn due to the constant traffic yet.

Our next stop were the baths, the Terme del Foro. We entered into the gymnasium, a large courtyard similar to the entrance to the theaters. There was a large grassy area with a pool to one side. The women and the men had separate changing areas but there was also a mingling area for the more enterprising individuals from each group. After a workout here, people would make their way into a hallway that led to one of three rooms: the tepidarium (warm), the caldarium (hot) and the frigidarium (cold). The hallway and the rooms were ornately decorated with the kind of sculptures you usually see in architecture evoking the period but here it was, in its original form, as beautiful as all the reproductions would lead you to believe it would be. The ceilings were particularly beautiful, inlaid with many different designs, each unique. The heat of the tepidarium and the caldarium was accomplished through ingenious design: there are double floors and walls here, covered in tiles to hold the heat, which had air passing through them from a fire just outside the building.

It’s in the waiting area of the baths that we saw our first few bodies. I was unsure what my reactions to them would be up to this point. Our tablemates Andy and Laura had gone to the catacombs in Palermo on their own and were creeped out by the experience, mainly because the bodies were in varying states of decomposition, from full-on skeletons to leathery-faced corpses to perfectly preserved children. These bodies, though, were undoubtedly laid out in a peaceful manner like you would expect. The people of Pompeii died suddenly, so that their bodies are preserved in the last moment before their death: some are running, others holding their child, others screaming, others curled up accepting their fate. There is no disconnect where it looks like they’re just sleeping: these people are dying and they are dying in a horrible, excruciating manner.

These first bodies were behind glass, though and so there was still a small disconnect: it was a museum piece rather than a human being. The bodies had been preserved like this: after being covered in a layer of ash, the bodies rotted away, leaving a cavity in the form of themselves in the hardened ash, much as if someone had poured concrete around them. Countless cavities were probably destroyed during prior excavations to the one that realized what they were. From that point on, when one was discovered (and usually if one were discovered there were dozens if not hundreds more around them, as the people gathered in a panic about what to do) plaster was poured down into the cavity and then excavated, showing the bodies in great detail.

The two bodies here had faces that seemed serene but bodies twisted into positions that led you to believe they were suffering. The wrinkles of their clothes, draped across their bodies made it all the more human, all the more sad. There were others, not in glass cases, to see later on, and these would not seem to be at peace.

We made our way back to the main road again and came upon the red light district. Not all visitors to Pompeii spoke the language (much like us) but they still wanted to get their freak on, so the red light district was denoted by a universal sign in the street: a penis.

The end of the road was marked by three stones placed against each other so no chariot could get through. We were at the forum, the center of the city, the largest area and also the part that suffered the most damage. The sheer size of it was an indication of how grand it once was. It was so massive that I couldn’t photograph all of it at once, I could only catch it from as many angles as possible and hoped it came across. The forum was lined with temples and pedestals where statues once stood (most of the art of Pompeii is elsewhere in museums in Naples) as well as the giant basilica (the house of justice and finances) and the Curia (the house of governance). Everyone stopped to take their pictures in the grand space with Vesuvius looking menacing in the background before we moved past the Temple of Apollo to a set of iron cages where the pottery of Pompeii was stacked on immense shelves. There were ornate carvings all around, but the real reason for the stop was the bodies.

Here were the truly evocative poses: a pregnant woman lying face down, covering her mouth, gasping for breath, as if she had just taken her last step as she ran before falling. Even more hearthwrenching is probably the most famous figure from Pompeii: a man sitting, head in hands, shielding his mouth from the poisonous gases, accepting his fate. You can only stare and wonder, but not for too long before you can’t think about it anymore.

We found our way into the Temple of Apollo. The altar where animal sacrifices were performed still stood. There was also an intact, working sundial that was a gift from a politician fishing for votes. 2000 years and nothing’s changed, they’re still courting the religious right.

It was time to leave Pompeii and the intense heat of the sun. We passed the Temple of Venus, the newest site of excavation and it was then that our exhaustion hit us like a ton of bricks. The cloudless sky had let the beating sun bear down on us hard, and now that we had nothing to distract us we became a moaning, groaning, sweaty mass of sorry humanity. Giuseppe sheepishly informed us of what we already knew: the tour was not over yet, they were going to try to sell us some more stuff. They break your spirit, and then they ask for money.

First, though, was a trip to the Hotel Victoria’s outdoor café, where we had the choice of a beverage or ice cream. A surprising amount of people chose ice cream. Perhaps their pores were sealed shut somehow, but Lisa and I got some Sprites (no water was available and we had stupidly left ours on the bus) and downed them in seconds. The air conditioning was visible but off, so we sat in the café until we couldn’t stand it anymore and then wandered out to the streets and the souvenir stands. Lisa briefly considered some jewelry that, once home, would say “From Europe” in memory only while I stared at their impressive collection of Pompeiian penis statues.

The bus had parked in a gas station about half a mile where Giuseppe had told Giuseppe we were going to be parked, so our walk back consisted of Giuseppe ducking into parking lots and then coming out arms waving in exasperation. We found Giuseppe and there was more arm waving and then we stood outside the bus for 5 minutes while it cooled down. There’s either a law in Italy or they just lied to us that, for the sake of curbing pollution, buses cannot be running when stationary. As a result, any time you got on the bus, it was sweltering hot, hotter than outside, which was an achievement.

We made our way, tired and grumpy, to the Cameo factory. EVERY tour in Naples included a stop at the Cameo factory, so they must have a very good marketing department. Cameos are piece of jewelry crafted out of seashells imported from Africa and the Caribbean where the colorful inner layer is used as a background for the chiseled white outer layer, creating an intricate relief that usually was a portrait but could include scenery or animals or anything the artist dreamt of. All of it was admittedly beautiful, but even the least expensive item was over 60 euros, and those were earrings so small that you would have to tell people what they were, they’d have no idea on their own. The moderately sized ones, the ones I would’ve loved to have given as souvenirs, were well over 100 euros, and I don’t have enough cash at the moment to spread that kind of love.

We returned to the ship and crashed until dinner. Lisa ventured out of the room a few times, but I took a lengthy shower and just sat, letting my body recover.

We joined Andy and Laura for dinner at Lumiere’s. It was a fancier dinner tonight, and I had the Roasted Duck’s Breast with Cabbage and Prune Pie, the Terrine Jardiniere (which I wasn’t crazy about as the vegetables were suspended in some meat-like jello that was more creepy than tasty), the Roasted Beef Tenderloin “Sauce Poivrade” and the Slowly Braised Shank of Lamb with Natural Juices (yes, two main courses). Lisa had the Bouillabaisse Soup and the Roasted Beef Tenderloin “Sauce Poivrade” and the Rigatoni Pasta Provencal. For dessert we had Creme Brulee, Honey and Cinnamon Apple Tart (which was great), the Pain de Genes (which was eh) and the Grand Marnier Souffle. We chased that with some insulin.

We returned to our room, overloaded with food, to collapse. Loren, our cabin steward, had left us a towel dog and some Euro chocolates again, this time in the same denomination, so I couldn’t steal the more delicious one.

The next day was Olbia, Sardinia, a beach day for us. We didn’t know what to expect, but Lisa still set the alarm early because she’s a bastard person.