The Great European Adventure, Day 13: Naples, Capri, Sorrento + Pompeiifeatured

After 11 days and five countries, our time onboard the Vision of the Seas was drawing to a close, but before we finished this chapter of our adventure, we still had one more port to go: Naples.

Naples was a big one because it was the stop that connected to Pompeii, Capri, Sorrento, Positano and the Amalfi Coast. If we thought seeing Rome in one day was going to be difficult, trying to get in the Amalfi Coast in one was just about impossible – it’s not about taking in the landmarks on the Amalfi Coast, but rather about visiting the towns that make the region so distinctive. We had two musts on our list: Capri and Pompeii. Anything else would be a bonus, but on this first visit, those were our priorities. We booked the Capri, Sorrento & Pompeii excursion through Royal Caribbean, a ten hour tour that seemed to fit that bill:

Enjoy breathtaking seaside scenery as you visit two gems, Sorrento and the idyllic isle of Capri, before scouring the archeological ruins of Pompeii. Enjoy a scenic jetfoil ride across turquoise waters to Capri, then stroll La Piazzetta square. Savor a tasty lunch in Sorrento, complete with champagne and tales of local sirens. View recovered artifacts once buried in Pompeii, an ancient Roman city destroyed in 79 AD by a Mount Vesuvius eruption.

It was a lot to take on in one day, but we were up bright and early at 5:45 am to take the day on. I’d have complained about the early wakeup, but we gained an hour with the time change, and after spending most of the previous two days doing nothing but napping and sunbathing, I was rested and ready to explore something other than the pool deck.

We’d experienced near idyllic weather throughout our voyage, and our final day in Naples was no exception to that. We had a quick breakfast al fresco as the ship pulled into port and the sun started its ascent into the sky.

The ship docked in Salerno, one of the most active ports on the Tyrrhenian Sea (nearly a half million passengers and ten million tons of cargo pass through a year!). It was immediately clear the topography of this region of Italy was much different than our days in Florence and Rome – much more mountainous and richly green, with brightly colored structures clashing across the coastlines.

Our meeting time was 7:00 am in the Masquerade, and by this point, most cruisers understood the process and many crowded outside the theater and in the stairwells so they could be the first to board their respective busses. Our tour was tour #1, and we were led to deck one to disembark, where we met our tour guide, Vincenzo. Vincenzo carried an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Bean and had a dorky, fun quality to him. His quick wit and offhand knowledge of the region made for the perfect companion for our tour.

Coasting to Capri

We boarded a tour bus at the pier for a (literal) five minute drive to another dock, where we boarded a jetfoil to Capri for the first part of our tour. We were the first tour (and first bus of our tour) to get to the jetfoil, so we had our choice of seats. This was key because every single tour going to Capri took this one boat and it got very crowded, and being the first group to board allowed us to snag some primo seats on the upper deck. And no worries if you don’t find time to catch breakfast before meeting your excursion – they sell croissants and coffee onboard.

The ride to Capri was over an hour, but so incredibly scenic. Those upper deck seats on the jetfoil are prime real estate because the views on the ride from Salerno to Capri of these green hills rising majestically up towards the bluest of skies through low-laying clouds, the seaside towns so perfectly lining the coastlines…it was like riding past a live postcard.

I was mesmerized with this region of Italy before we even stepped foot off the jetfoil, and it only got better from there. We debarked in Marina Grande and were handed tickets for the funicular that would take us up to Capri and instructions on where to wait for Vincenzo, who would ride up with the last people in our group.

The funicular is steps away from the dock at Marina Grande and serves as the central means of transport up towards the heart of the island. The ride only takes about three minutes, but since it only runs every six minutes (the three minute ride up and then the three minute ride down to return), quite the line forms in both directions. It’s a smooth passage up, mainly because the funicular is a train, not a sky ride.

We were in the first group up on the funicular from our tour group, so we had some time to wait in our meeting spot at Piazza Umberto (the main square in Capri), but with views like the ones afforded here, no one minded waiting for the rest of the group. I was beyond transfixed – the views from Capri were amongst the most stunning we’d seen during this entire trip.

Once our tour group had all arrived, Vincenzo took us on a walking tour. There are no cars in the main area of Capri – just golf carts driving around the luggage of newly arriving guests. It’s a small town, but it’s glamorous in the truest sense, evocative of Cannes and Beverly Hills in that respect. High end boutiques line the narrow streets, alternating with cafes and five star hotels. There are fresh flowers everywhere, tinging the air and brightening landscape. This was my kind of island.

Vincenzo offered an optional walking tour down to the gardens, but we opted to go off on our own in our limited time on the island, spending our hour of free time in search of Italian cappuccinos. The island was still waking up when we arrived and not all of the shops were open for the day, but we picked up some souvenirs as we roamed the streets.

The first café we stopped in didn’t have a working cappuccino machine, so we hopped across the street to the next one, which not only had a functioning cappuccino machine, but free wi-fi and a gorgeous terrace. We settled in with a plate of chocolate croissants and a round of cappuccinos while we watched the square fill in as the island woke up.

We met back up with Vincenzo at our meeting spot in Piazza Umberto and he handed us funicular tickets for the ride back down, instructing us on a meeting place and time. We headed straight back down since we didn’t know what the crowds would be like and if we thought the crowds at the Vatican were bad, they had nothing on the crowd of people waiting to go up to Capri once we got to the bottom. Our tour had orchestrated the perfect timing in getting us into and out of Capri before the hoards of tourists filled the streets of the tiny town.

We had about a half hour of additional free time once we got off the funicular while we waited for the rest of our group. There were plenty of shops and cafes to explore while the rest of our tour made their way down to our meeting place.

Strolling Through Sorrento

When everyone had made it down from the top of Capri, Vincenzo handed us each a ferry ticket and led us towards an intimidatingly long line. We weren’t taking a chartered boat like we did on the way to Capri – we were taking the public ferry to Sorrento.

The ferry was quite large and despite being a bit further line, we easily found seats on the lower level of the boat and sailed off towards Sorrento.

The ride didn’t take longer than 20 minutes and before we knew it, we were docking in Sorrento. Much like Capri, the heart of Sorrento is hidden away a bit inside some impressive cliffs, overlooking the Bay of Naples.

Taxis line up outside of the ferry station, making the trip from Capri into Sorrento pretty easy for locals and tourists exploring the area without the aide of a tour guide. There were two mini busses waiting to take our group from the launch up into the center of Sorrento. As we drove up into the city, it was interesting to see how different Capri and Sorrento had been from Florence and Rome. Despite roots that date back to the Roman era in 600 BC, Sorrento is surprisingly modern – a contemporary metropolitan area. The buildings have bright, well-maintained facades. Shops and cafes line busy streets filled with cars and scooters. There’s a hint of small(er) town charm here, too, especially when you walk towards the outer perimeter, but it’s really a unique area – one that we really enjoyed exploring.

We knew our time in Sorrento would be short, and that most of which would be spent enjoying an Italian lunch, but as the bus pulled up to La Fenice (a local restaurant), I kept my fingers crossed for any free time to walk around.

The restaurant was prepared for our arrival, with a large section of their dining room set for us, complete with chilled bottles of wine waiting on the tables. It’s not an authentic Italian meal without wine, after all!

Lunch was served prix fixe and served in courses, starting with a pasta course (spinach and cheese cannelloni that were beyond sublime) followed by a chicken dish and assorted cakes for dessert.

One of the servers noticed me taking pictures on my phone and slipped me a small piece of paper with a wink. He knew what was up. I hooked into their wifi and Facebook’ed my Italian lunch (in Italy!!!!) while sipping on my (Italian) coffee. Does it get any better? Does it?

The food at La Fenice was so, so good, and the restaurant was so warm and welcoming. It felt like we were eating a big family meal.

Sidenote – we were urged to use the restrooms here because our next stop would be Pompeii and the restrooms wouldn’t be as accessible. Stephanie went down to the ladies room and came back to drag me down there, telling me to bring Euro coins with me. In the restroom, they had a coin machine that vended these small pods that had a mini toothbrush, a mini tube of toothpaste and a breath mint. They were teeny tiny, which made them endearingly adorable and made for a nice little momento from our lunch for €1.

As lunch was winding down, Vincenzo announced we’d have a bit of free time before our drive to Pompeii to explore Sorrento. He’d take us on a walk to our meeting point and then hold an optional tour to watch a demo of inlaid woodwork, but we had just over a half hour to do whatever we wanted.

We opted out of the optional tour and demo and headed off to do what we do best: shop. Shopping prices were much better in Sorrento than in Capri. You can get pashminas and scarves for as low as €3, so we stocked up on those. We also hit a perfumerie, a souvenir market to pick up some magnets and postcards and stopped into a few salumerias to check out the limoncello options (it is the local liquor!).

Across this trip, I’d bought liquor and honey in Montserrat, perfume in Grasse, leather in Florence, coffee in Greece and ceramics in Turkey, but I still had one purchase I had to find: a wooden music box. Inlaid woodwork is one of the must-buy items on the Amalfi Coast and it seemed like such a special piece to buy. Thankfully, our meeting point was right near a woodwork gallery. We weren’t sure how much was a good price for these, but the €55 price tag (€50 if paying in cash) seemed more than reasonable. I bought one that plays O Sole Mio and Stephanie bought one that plays the Funicular song (appropriate for our morning in Capri!) and both of us agreed that these were amongst the best purchases we made.

We were a couple of minutes late as we were getting rung up, but we were in good company of others also trying to get in one last purchase. We rushed back onto the bus and headed out of Sorrento and began the journey to our last stop for the day: Pompeii.

…But If You Close Your Eyes…

The city of Pompeii is located about an hour away from Sorrento. Vincenzo and Antonio (our driver) played some Italian tunes on the bus ride. Most people dozed off. I looked out the window.

The Italian music was turned off as we drove into the entrance of the Pompeii grounds and Vincenzo played a rooster alarm to wake everyone up. I’ve been to many ruins sites and even more UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but nothing quite like Pompeii. It was almost like an amusement park outside the entrance, with food stands, a vast souvenir market and our first stop at Pompeii: a cameo factory.

The 15-minute tour of the cameo factory was completely optional. I love cameos and always wanted one, so I begged Mom and Stephanie to go in with me, but both of them still had some kind of Turkish PTSD from the rug school. I came out of the factory with two cameos. I blame them for leaving me and my credit card alone in a jewelry store. Pieces ran from €30-€500+, depending on the material and experience level of the artist, but the shopping after the demo was much lower pressure from the carpet fiasco in Kusadasi.

As our group reconvened, Vincenzo mentioned that going into Pompeii was completely optional – it was a steep walk up to get in (but level once inside), so those with limited mobility had the option to hang around outside the gates. Not going in wasn’t an option for us, so we followed Vincenzo through the climb to the entrance gate. He told us to imagine our tour bus was a time machine as we arrived in Pompeii, and it very much felt that way.

And just as we crossed the gates and entered the ruins, my sandal broke. Only me, I swear. This actually happens frequently when we’re touring. The last time was last summer when I was in Los Angeles with my best friend and I broke the strap of my flip flop stepping off a bus in Hollywood. It was easy then – I sat in a Starbucks while Ali ran to the nearest Walgreens to get me some backup flip flops. There wasn’t a nearby Walgreens (or nearby any store that sells shoes) in Pompeii, and sitting this one out wasn’t an option, so I just kind of shuffled along as we toured. No shoe problem is going to keep this girl down.

Pompeii was an ancient Roman city that was frozen in time when nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, killing the 11,000 citizens who lived there and burying the city in almost 20 feet of ash. Much of the city has been excavated and lays open for tourists to explore. I’m used to visiting Mayan ruins in our Caribbean adventures, where the best parts are frequently roped off. At Pompeii, I was surprised by how much of it is open for tourists to walk through, touch and explore and how, even after centuries of excavation, there is still so much they are excavating and studying.

Vincenzo led us from site to site, pointing out these ancient bath houses and kitchens, amphitheaters and aqueducts – the history of an entire civilization that sits frozen in time.

I’ve been on so many of these tours exploring ancient sites. Hearing about the history is one thing. Seeing it is another. But actually interacting with it the way you can in Pompeii is a completely different experience. This is a land…this community…is literally frozen. It’s amazing. There’s so much to see and do in Naples and along the Amalfi Coast. Visiting Pompeii is a must. Find the time to do it. Just once. I promise you won’t regret it.

We exited out the way we came in (and, if you were wondering, walking downhill in a broken sandal is worse than walking uphill in functional footwear). Vincenzo left us with 10 minutes of free time to grab a snack or peruse the souvenir market, and we couldn’t let our last day in Italy pass without some gelato.

We walked, as a group, to the bus depot to meet our tour bus for the drive back to Naples.

As long of a day as we had, I wasn’t ready for our day in Naples to end. The Amalfi Coast is so stunning and we’d barely scratched the surface. We pulled into the dock and bid farewell to Vincenzo and Antonio before heading back onboard the ship.

Barcelona Bound

We sprinted back to the room to drop off our purchases and freshen up for dinner. Our time onboard the Vision was drawing to a close, and it felt like forever and nothing had passed at the same time. We savored our time with our dining staff, pouring over details of our days in Naples and discussing our favorite dishes of the night (and the cruise).

Chilled Honeydew Melon Soup

Crab Cake

Smoked Duck Breast

Summer Fruit Medley

Arugula and Bosc Pear Salad

Orecchiette Pasta

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Braised Beef Duo

Jaffa Cake

Cherries Jubilee

We finished dinner just as we began pulling out of Naples to begin our journey back to Barcelona and spent a couple of hours after dinner just sitting out on the promenade. Yes, hours. It’s amazing how much time can pass by you when you’re completely immersed in your surroundings.

We headed inside to grab our sweaters and check out the shops before sunset (I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in awhile, but in the Mediterranean in the late spring/early summer, the sunsets are usually between 9:15 pm and 10:00 pm and it will throw your internal clock more than the jetlag). The shops had put out the souvenirs from all of our stops, so if you missed out on goods from Spain, France, Greece, Turkey or the other Italy ports, you had another chance to spend the money you didn’t spend on land.

We were pulling past Capri just as the sun began to set. We’d been treated to some of the most spectacular sunsets on this voyage, but none so stunning as the one over Capri on our last port day. This trip had truly spoiled me for amazing sunsets and some of my favorite memories involve the time we spent sitting on that promenade just watching the sunsets.

We walked around for a bit after the skies darkened, from the shops to the casino to the lobby and back, ultimately ending up in the Masquerade for the headliner show, a quartet called Fourever.

We didn’t make it through the entire show, opting to head upstairs to get some tea before falling into bed. We had one sea day ahead of us before the next (and final) leg of this adventure began, but I knew there was one thing worse than the boredom of these sea days: packing.