It’s not too far from Sicily to Napoli, so the ship arrived in port about dawn. Chiara, Gianna, Sam and I had booked an excursion to Sorrento and Pompeii. We reported to the Princess Theater at 8am to begin our tour.

 

By that time, Aaron and Toni were already tearing through Napoli. They were the first ones down the ramp after the ship was secured. They had arranged a motor cycle rental, and they planned to squeeze eleven full hours of sightseeing out of Napoli.

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Sorrento

 

Chiara and I had never been to Sorrento, but Gianna had spent significant time there, and it was Chiara's father Drew Bacigalupa’s favorite city in the world (indeed, Drew was instrumental in arranging for Santa Fe and Sorrento to have “sister city” status), so Chiara and I had heard a lot about Sorrento and were eager to see it.

 

The tour guide dropped us off in Sorrento’s town square, told us where to find the best pizza and gelato, and directed us to enter an inlaid wood store for a demonstration of how inlaid wood pieces are made.

 

The store’s Director of Marketing to Tourists guessed we would tolerate about five minutes of pitch, so the semiotics were jammed in pretty tight: She had been married to an inlaid wood artist for decades, it takes weeks or months to make a piece, the artist sits very uncomfortably during the process. She showed how thin and delicate was the inlaid piece by shining a light through it, she showed us the actual tools used, each piece was custom made and unique, and she showed us the chemicals used to make it perfect. It would have been rude not to buy some inlaid wood at that point, given all that we had learned in those five minutes about the art and the sacrifice of the artist, so most of the cruisers seriously scrutinized the trays, platters, trivets, and jewelry boxes that were piled up in the shop.

 

We were rude enough to have just walked out.

 

Across the way, Gianna recognized Sorrento’s City Hall, and we went inside to see a photo of Drew Bacigalupa that Gianna had spotted up on the wall during her last visit.  Unfortunately, they were painting the walls that day, and all the artwork had been removed, and there was nothing to see but ladders, rollers, and drop cloths.  Next time we visit Sorrento, we’ll see if Drew’s photo survived the remodel.

 

Next we walked down to Sorrento’s famous walkway overlooking the sea.  Sorrento is a cliff-top city.  We recognized the walkway from photos and stories that Drew had shared, even recognizing the benches that he had sat in. 

 

It was a beautiful place.  Across the bay was a clear view of Napoli, Pompeii, and Mount Vesuvius.  Below, were swimming lagoons that had been built for the hotels – very much like harbors for boats – rock barriers with gaps to the sea – only for people, and surrounded by decking and umbrellas.  Across the shore we spotted the cliffy landscape that Drew had painted in a watercolor that hangs on our wall.  We had been hoping to see the original, to understand whether it was more accurate or more idealized, but we did not know for sure that it existed, let alone that it would be in sight.

 

Drew also has a sculpture of the Santa Maria that was placed in somewhere in public garden in Meta, which is the next town north of Sorrento.

 

It happens that that Santa Maria statue is my favorite of Drew works, and one that Chiara was allocated from the Bacigalupas’ estate. It also happened that our bus was driving through Meta, and Gianna knew that Meta is shaped like a piece of spaghetti so she alerted Chiara that if we were driving through Meta, then we would be driving past the statue.  Chiara managed to snap a blurry photo of the statue as the bus sped by, and we determined to do better on the trip back.

 

Sorrento turns out to be a much more touristy town than we had anticipated. It is all hotels, restaurants, and touristy stores – perfectly nice, but not what we expected. Drew had managed to get some inside view of civic life there, because his closest contact had been the mayor of the town. And Drew had probably been good for tourism – bringing some art and leading some tours.

 

We had drinks overlooking the sea, and then pizza at a strange pub called Mannekin Pis. Chiara, Gianna, and Sam derogated the food, but the wifi was good. 

 

Our server at the Mannekin Pis, strangely, refused to speak to us, no matter what we said.  You got the impression that she did not speak any English at all – except that she understood us. Gianna speculated that there was some kind of silence-contest underway.

 

The truth came out when Sam dropped his knife, and the server involuntarily uttered, “I’ll get that, love,” betraying her British heritage. At the end of the meal, I said, “Thank you,” and she responded, “Grazie,” trying her best to keep up the illusion that there was something authentically Italian about our meal.

 

Everything in Sorrento is lemon-themed, so you can get lemon salt shakers, lemon porcelain sculptures, lemon clocks, lemon anything. Lemons are grown locally and incorporated into a strong alcoholic beverage called Limoncello, which is 34% alcohol, or LimonCreme, which is only 12% alcohol. 

 

Our tour guide had promised an unscheduled stop at a Limoncello factory, with free samples, which we expected would go something like the stop at the inlaid wood factory.

 

We made our way down several blocks of the narrow, narrow lane of tourist shops that is Sorrento’s OLD main street (its new main street runs parallel and has modern stores, but we did not see it) without buying anything, and returned to the bus.

 

Drew’s Statue

 

Before we arrived at the Limoncello factory we did indeed pass the park in which Drew’s Santa Maria statue was placed, and Chiara managed to get a better picture and I managed to get some questionable video – enough to confirm the statue’s presence and location, but to appreciate the statue you would have to get out of the bus, so we have good cause to return to the area.  Although we could also just stipulate to the statue’s presence and enjoy our own copy of the Santa Maria at home.

 

Limoncello

 

Next stop was the Limoncello factory, which to its credit was a real factory with bins of lemons, conveyer belts, and automated bottling all going on behind a big glass window. We sampled the Limoncello, which tasted EXACTLY like a cross between rubbing alcohol and Lemon Pledge spray furniture polish. The LimonCreme was the same, but diluted.  We didn’t buy anything in the souvenir shop.

 

Pompeii

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Next stop was Pompeii, the fabled city about which I had already learned so much in Phoenix, Arizona, but which was both destroyed and preserved by a massive volcanic eruption one hot August day in 79 CE.

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Sam had assigned us a pre-read, an archeo-political thriller called "Pompeii" by Robert Harris, which takes place entirely during the two days before and after the fateful eruption of Mount Vesuvius. A roman aqueduct engineer investigates anomalies near the mountain, and is quickly swept up into events of historical significance. Sam recommended it as fast-paced, and a faithful attempt at giving one a sense of the times. The novel is great on its own, and a must-read for anyone visiting Pompeii.

 

On the day of our visit, the heat was searing, the crowds were thick, and our guide promised us a 90-minute tour of the ruins. 

 

The sun was directly overhead, and everything in Pompeii had been perfectly preserved EXCEPT for the roofs of the buildings, which had collapsed beneath the weight of 25 feet of volcanic ash.  So there was no escaping the sun, and we were resigned to an exhausting, dehydrating time.

 

The first shocking thing about Pompeii is the scale of it.  It is not a single re-created room, like I saw in Phoenix, but an entire city, with thousands of inhabitants. The vast grid of densely connected streets is more than anyone would explore in a day, and much of the city remains unexcavated.

 

The second shocking thing about Pompeii is the extraordinary state of preservation. We have been seeing ruins that were ruined by the passage of centuries, but Pompeii’s ruins are extraordinarily well preserved (except for the collapsed roofs). The mosaic floors are intact in the houses, and you can still see the patterns. In some places you can still see the paint. The few buildings with arched roofs that were strong enough not to collapse, like the bathhouse, are entirely intact.  It is a very different sensation to enter a reconstructed model of what ancient buildings must have been, as compared to entering the actual ancient building.

 

The most surprising thing about Pompeii is its depressed streets, which consist of stone-lined channels with elevated sidewalks on each side, and large stepping stones to cross at every intersection. Our guide told us that this was because the streets were actually streams of running water, filled by the aqueduct and the city’s public fountains, and into which perpetually poured all of the city’s sewage. The city was constantly cleansed or constantly soiled, depending on how you look at it.

 

The stepping stones were positioned so that you never had to step into the water, but horse drawn carriages could navigate up the street, through the water, and the carriage wheels could pass between the stepping stones.

 

The guide told us that all the houses were built to the same design, differing only in size, not shape. Guests would enter into a central courtyard that had an opening in the roof to collect rainwater, which gathered in a large cement pool in the middle of living room, which could be drawn from for convenience.  The rooms on the side were for utility, and the private bedroom area was in the back.

 

We also visited Pompeii’s “forum,” a large flat public area the size on several city blocks, which held monuments, a theater, a speaker’s platform, and stores. The guide showed us how to take the classic photo of the ruins of Pompeii’s forum with Vesuvius in the background.

 

Near the top of the forum, behind locked gates and protected by chain link fencing, are displayed extensive collections Pompeii’s pottery, including large urns, as well as tools, plus the more famous casts of Pompeii’s petrified citizens – a woman lying down, a man gasping through his hands for air, a dog chained to the ground in the rising ash, and an infant.

 

The casts are disturbing. What actually happened is that the people were buried in the ash, and a short time later the ash was rained on, which turned it to stone, permanently capturing extraordinary detail – such as facial expressions, clothing, and the pattern on the dog’s collar -- even after the bodies had desiccated or rotted away.

 

The nearby city of Herculaneum was also destroyed, but by lava, not ash, so the remains of its citizens are preserved as skeletons, not casts of fully clothed people.

 

Antonia and Aaron, on their motorcycle, left Pompeii just before we arrived. We subsequently filled them in on the few details that our tour guide provided that they could not have deduced just from looking at the ruins.

 

They also visited Herculaneum, and drove to the top of Vesuvius and hiked the summit, and toured the town of Napoli.

 

Cameo Factory

 

After Pompeii, our tour bus stopped at a cameo factory, where a guide, a movie, and artisans described to us and demonstrated each step of the ancient art of carving images into the surface of sea shells to create amulets, typically featuring a mythological figure in profile. The difference between the cameo factory and the other two (inlaid wood and limoncello) was that the cameo work was actually pretty interesting.

 

The Crown Grill

Back at the ship, it was formal night, which meant that some of us (including me) weren’t allowed in the Dining Halls because we lacked a coat and tie.  Others of us wanted to avoid the Horizon Court Buffet for dinner, because the food was perceived as “nothing special,” or worse. So we succeeded in changing our Friday dinner reservation at specialty dining venue “the Crown Grill” to Thursday at 8pm. Half-drunk on limoncello, we prepared to enjoy an amazing meal or to document a shitty one.

 

The Crown Grill is a steak-and-seafood restaurant with a show kitchen. The show kitchen, I can attest, is nothing special, unless you also think Denny’s has a show kitchen, since you can see people working behind the warming lights, which you can at the Crown Grill. In which case the Crown Grill has a show kitchen like Denny’s. Isn’t that special!

 

The décor in the Crown Grill is striking. All the cameras came out immediately. Acrylic wall paintings in the style of murals depict fanciful scenes loosely based on Arthurian legends. So near our table we beheld a princess being carried away on horseback by a knight, and another princess contemplating her glass orb in a garden (as princesses are wont to do).

 

The six of us sat two-to-a-side and one-on-each end of a huge table, so that Aaron and Sam, on the ends, might have texted each other instead of yelling a conversation.

 

I probably found the ambience entirely delightful; Chiara probably found it entirely fake.

 

The food was not fake. You get to order an appetizer, soup or salad, a potato side dish, an entrée, and a dessert. Every vegetable dish on the menu is brought to the table to share family style. As with Sabatini’s, you can order extras of anything (except main entrees, for which a $10 charge is assigned if you want seconds), but there is so much food that the inclination to order seconds is weak, unless you are truly famished.

 

I think the table mostly favored filet mignon, but I went for the 22 oz. Porterhouse steak, since those are rarely served. It wasn’t a Prime cut, but there isn’t really such thing as a bad Porterhouse steak. There were too many desserts to choose from, except Gianna chose a sampler that included a small version of each dessert – what a Bacchanalia!

 

There was much joviality around the table as the party took ever more pains to make the most of the ultimate beverage package that Costco had thrown our way. The Crown Grill was easily my favorite dining option on the ship, and Aaron and Toni agreed that the Crown Grill was "the best meal of the week," which may or may not be damning with faint praise, but The Crown Grill drew a collective thumbs down from the rest of the party, mostly for the ambiance and meat-focused menu, I think.

 

We retired to bed well-fed, but truly exhausted from a long hot day.