Naples, 19 June

On Tuesday, our port was Napoli and I again woke up on my own, this time about 5:30 am, on our way to port. When we were back home, looking at the choice of excursions and trying to plan what excursions, if any, we would take, lil Z said she wanted to hike Mt. Vesuvius and all three of us definitely wanted to see Pompei; we never did book the excursion - a good thing. With the Mediterranean heat and higher humidity than we're used to, Zman and I didn't think we could make the hike and lil Z admitted she didn't want to do a hike either. Monday night we decided on the Amalfi Coast and Pompei tour. We drove past Mt. Vesuvius on the A3 to the Amalfi Drive (which our guide Gino said had been called the "163" before its name was changed to Amalfi Drive). The Amalfi Coast was beautiful but not for the faint of heart; imagine a large tour bus which occasionally must take up the entire road with dropping cliffs on one side and add a few tight turns to that. We drove through Sorrento, stopped at an inlaid wood factory, drove through Positano, stopped and had lunch in Amalfi, and then drove to Pompei, where we stopped at a coral and cameo factory which was right outside Pompei. I was surprised to see that Pompei is within Napoli and surrounded by modern construction; I had pictured it in a rural area, outside city limits.
Dinner was at Parrot Cay again. There were only five of us, since Jeff and Susan had dinner reservations at Palo (the adults only restaurant) and Katie apparently had dinner on her own. The rest of us wanted to see the second presentation of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which began at 9:30; since our dinner is at 8:30 pm each night, we had to get through dinner. We did it! However, on the way to the theater, we saw the characters of Alice in Wonderland and the White Rabbit on their way to the Atrium and I wanted to have my picture taken with Alice in Wonderland - how could I not since we share the same name? So, that made Zman and I a few minutes late for Pirates. Without spoiling the ending for those of you who haven't seen it yet, I will only say that I wasn't pleased with the ending.