Categories
pictures

Capri, Sorrento & Pompeii + Return to Rome (2011 Trip)

I was appalled to discover that I had stopped posting pictures from my Mediterranean Cruise.  WTF?  I left everyone hanging with my pictures at Mykonos.  How do you know I even got home?  What if I’ve been writing from some Greek island this entire time?  All my stories are just that….STORIES!?!  Anyway, the new way I can display galleries of pictures makes it really easy to post things, so I’ll do that here.  And since I know very few people actually check my site out anymore, consider this post like a DVD’s special features.  🙂

As for the pictures shown here, this was basically the last port we went to before returning to Rome/Civitivecchia.  After Mykonos, we had a day at sea, and the sea was rough.  It was a nice break in the action and I even signed up to get a massage to see if that would help ease the pain in my lower back, ass and leg.  Obviously, I learned later that massage wasn’t going to cut it as it was a sciatic problem, not a muscle problem.  But the massage itself was pretty nice.  Here are pics from that Day at Sea after Mykonos:

Day at Sea, Sept 7, 2011

September 8, 2011 – Our Last Port of Call

So the next day was a doozie.  We knew from when we booked the excursions before the cruise that this day was a long one, as the excursion was high intensity and lasted 10 hours.  OY.  It started early as we disembarked in Salerno and immediately boarded a huge ferry bound for the Isle of Capri.  Not the casino in Biloxi, but the actual place in Italy!  It’s a gorgeous, GORGEOUS island and the weather was wonderful for such a visit.  Unfortunately, it’s MOBBED with tourists.  And in Capri, you arrive at the port but the truly scenic stuff is up on the top of the island, and you basically have to take a funicular.  It’s a bottleneck, to put it nicely.  It’s a fucking nightmare, to put it bluntly.  I’m still in pain and now I’m a little tired (as vacationing can be tiring) but waiting in long, barely-moving lines is a quick way to Rage Town for me.  Anyway, we finally get up there and our tour is pretty awesome.  It helps when the place is jaw-droppingly gorgeous.  You can see in the pictures below, especially when you see the crystal blue-green waters.  Wonderful.

The Isle of Capri

After some time up top gawking at the scenery (natural and masculine) as well as getting some gelato, it was time to head back.  That line was just as fun as the one up.  Then at the bottom, after waiting so our tour group could re-group, it was time to wait in another long line for another ferry off the island.  Waiting in that line created an annex to Rage Town.  Regardless, we got off the island eventually and about 45 minutes later, the ferry got us to the coastal town of Sorrento.  Amazing place.  Fantastic food.  Lots of touristy beautiful alleys through charming buildings, much like in Trastevere in Rome.  After food there was time to browse and shop.  Yay for shopping.

Our First Time in Sorrento

The final stop after this was Pompeii, the famous city that got pummeled by Mt Vesuvius 2000 years ago.  We boarded a coachbus that drove us along the beautiful coastline to Naples/Pompeii.  This was a nice drive.  Pompeii is also great, but I was pretty much exhausted by this point.  I regrettably became irritable.  Sorry, Larry. The most I can say is Pompeii is awesome, but to do an hour-long tour does not do that site justice.  It would be worth it to go back, I believe.  After that visit (and I know I’m doing it a disservice here, as I’m not writing much, but we didn’t get to really experience it that much and it was massively crowded.  It is a phenomenal site though), it was an hour and a half drive back to the ship, which I was soooo happy to see.

The Ruins of Pompeii

We had one last dinner there and a final night to hang out with our ship-pal Amy at the “karaoke” night which only 10 people showed up to,  it seemed.

Last Night at Sea

September 9, 2011 – Back to Civitavecchia and the End of the Cruise

Everyone was most likely packing and resting, as of course, the next day was disembarkation and the cruise line basically tells you, “get the fuck off our ship.”  It’s slightly politer than that, but I can’t say it was much more than that.  Your bags are taken off the ship over night and you can find them in a big hangar once you leave.  My sciatic pain was really bothering me at this point too, and while I had initially intended to reverse our route and take the trains back to Rome, I said “fuck it” and paid for a taxi.  We ended up sharing a van taxi with three older Australian women who had just finished a 27-day cruise.  27 days!!!!  That was most definitely the smartest use of money at that point, although we ended up getting to the airport like 5 hours early, so our flight wasn’t even on the boards yet.  Eventually, we got back…..but that was a long ass day of traveling home.  OY.

Enough of that recap – here are some pics.  Plus I also realized that while I posted on Facebook and have all these pics on Picasa, I actually never posted or wrote about all the time before Day 2 of Istanbul either….such as our three days in Rome before the cruise and the ports before Istanbul, including Santorini, Athens and Day 1 in Istanbul.  For shame!

2011 Mediterranean Trip Pics Index

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.