Day 7 – August 12th, 2006

Today we docked off the coast of Naples, Italy. Walking off the boat, it seemed like there wasn’t a whole lot going on in the city of Naples itself. That image, combined with what we had heard from people about the area, led us to take a shore excursion to Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. We boarded the bus and were on our way.

We headed first to the ancient city of Pompeii. It was very cool! We made our way through the old streets, seeing ruins of houses, temples, and city shops. They have tons of recovered artifacts from the destroyed city. The neatest thing, of course, were the people who were frozen in time in poses they held as the city was coated in lava during the volcano’s eruption.

We headed fro m Pompeii to a coral cameo factory. We saw how the artist made cameos from pieces of shells and how jewelry was made with coral. We had some time to browse and shop if we wanted, but this jewelry wasn’t exactly Amy’s style, much to Seth’s relief when he saw the price tags!

Finally, we made it up to Mt. Vesuvius. The bus ride up the volcano was awesome! We got lucky to get the front seat on the bus. It was a bit scary watching our large tour bus climb up the incredibly curvy, winding, steep road. We were amazed that we made it through some of the turns.

We reached as high as the bus and cars could take us and got out to walk the rest of the way up. Yes - we climbed a volcano! The path was steep and gravel covered, but we made it up. The views were incredible - both looking into the crater of the volcano and out over Naples and the sea.

The walk down was scary. The path was completely covered with volcanic ash and pieces of pumice and you know we aren’t exactly the daintiest people around! We made it down with no problem though, to continue our interesting drive back down the steep, curvy road.

Boarding the bus, we returned to the ship, had some food, and sipped daiquiris in the hot tub. It was fun lying out on the back of the boat. The sun wasn’t too hot and a nice breeze blew across the ship.

We went to the dining room later to find a French dinner awaiting us - this could be interesting. We had been pretty adventurous and daring with our meals earlier in the honeymoon, but neither of us were willing to try out the frog legs. Eventually we found things we’d eat, and definitely enjoyed the ice cream sundaes for dessert!

After that it was back to the casino once again where we ended up a little bit ahead (very little bit – but at least it was ahead), then journeyed around the ship for a while. Then it was off to bed! We’re looking forward to the day at sea tomorrow. All this vacationing sure can be tiring!