Europe Trip 2008 Day #19: The Very Weird Capri, Sorrento & Pompeii Tour

Today was the last official day of our trip, and the last official day of the cruise. Can you believe the past three weeks have gone by so fast? Today we had another big tour, this was scheduled to be a 9 hour tour, and it used every minute of that time limit plus some.  We woke up this morning at around 6:00 AM and made our way downstairs for our tour at around 7:00 AM, another early morning indeed. The tour began with a boat ride to Capri, one of the most beautiful islands I have visited. The island is set on top of a cliff and overlooks some of the most spectacular crystal clear blue water I have ever seen.

We got off the rocky boat around an hour later and were literally let loose after taking a trolly up to the town. The trolly experience was interesting, it only fits so many people at is going straight up to town which is quite a steep incline. We were crammed into these very small box’s where a few people could sit but the majority were standing. When we finally did make it to the top we were taken to these gardens that overlooked a cliff and then sent on our way for an hour. Jenn and I are toured out at this point, it has been nearly three weeks, we have taken countless tours and it was nice to just go and be left off, the only issue was there wasn’t a whole lot to do. Jenn actually isn’t one who loves shopping and I sure don’t enjoy it so we actually spent the majority of the time in Capri just taking in the sights.

By One of the Many Cliffs in Capri

Another Beautiful Capri Shot

Beautiful Shot of Capri

After the hour was up we went from Capri to Sorrento via the same boat that brought us to Capri. The boat ride was a bit rocky again so I am glad I took the sea sickness medicine but at the same time the medicine made me extremely drowsy throughout the day. The boat ride fortunately was only a half hour from Capri so that was the good news. However the weird part of Sorrrento was there was nothing to see, it was just a normal town with nothing necessarily special going on.

Jenn and I by this time were starving, we had a lunch that was provided by the tour coming up but thus far in the trip we would eat a few bites from the tour food and still be hungry. So instead of walking around aimlessly with no actual motivation to buy anything we sat down and had a lovely lunch at a sidewalk cafe, true Italian style. I love Italian food, I have never met an Italian meal I wouldn’t eat, and today’s lunch was no exception. Jenn had her very typical Spaghetti with meat sauce and I went for a really nice cheese pizza. A lot of times in Italy I will go with Pasta or Chicken but I was craving a good pizza and this cafe delivered big time.

There is Nothing Better then Drinking Coke from a Glass Bottle

My Cheese Pizza Which Was Fantastic

It was another delightful meal, we did end up going to a second lunch following this for the tour and I am so glad we ate before hand. The tour’s meal was a three course meal which actually sounded fantastic when we walked in, you started with a lasagna but it wasn’t good at all, and then a chicken with potato main course followed by a slice of cake. The chicken was horrid, it was dry, and it reminded me of the kind of chicken you get in the sandwich meat aisle. To top it all off the cake was average at best and by that time I was so tired of eating I gave up on it anyways.

After the meal we took a bus ride from Sorrento to Pompeii. By this time I was exhausted, the medicine was making me want to pass out on the spot and sleep on the sidewalk, and yet Pompeii was the part of the trip I really wanted to go to. When we were in Naples in 2006 Jenn and my plan was to go to Pompeii from Naples but things got a little mixed up at the time and we didn’t follow through on the plan. Regardless I have heard such amazing things about Pompeii that even with the extreme exhaustion and the heat really wearing us all down there was still a little left in all of us to get up for the last stop of Pompeii.

The ruins in Pompeii were fantastic, they really worth going to see and were actually some of the best maintained ruins I have ever seen. There were so many great things to see in Pompeii and it was far more industrialized then I had expected. The nearby volcano was really great to look at and the heat was bad but we were fortunate enough to have some rain off and on. It wasn’t hard rain but just enough to help cool us all down just a bit. The trip ran a little long, and we had a lot of walking in Pompeii but it was all worth it. If I had my choice I would have done Pompeii first, it would have been great to start the day off with some great sights, you could see that by the time we all got to Pompeii everyone was struggling to keep the excitement up.

Holding Up the Ruins in Pompeii

Our Thumbs are Up for Pompeii

They Had Me Push Back up This Pillar

We ended up hitting some major traffic on the way home, there must have been an accident on the highway so we took side streets all the way to the cruise ship and it wasn’t until 5:45 PM that we arrived back on the ship. Dinner was 6:00PM and it was the last night so we had to rush and make it. Part of going on Royal Caribbean is that there tipping is not included in the price of the cruise, so you can either do prepaid gratuities or tip with cash. Jenn and I chose to do the cash method as our waiters were phenomenal but the housekeeping staff was not so great. Our waiters Marco (the main waiter) and Jay (the assistant waiter) couldn’t have been better and they deserved every penny of there tip. It is amazing what effect nice people can have on your trip, and they truly made you look forward to every evening.

Tonight’s dinner was nothing special in terms of the menu so I went with things I had previously on the cruise and I knew I would enjoy. I started with the Shrimp cocktail followed by the Top Sirloin and finished it off with chocolate ice cream. Jenn went the same route on the main course but had a nice seafood soup and her never changing vanilla ice cream. Dinner was a nice closure, it was a good last meal, it was sad to say goodbye but I guess that is how cruises go. After dinner we went down and purchased a few portraits of us on formal nights, and finished the night by packing up and getting ready for the extremely long trek back home.

Tomorrow is the big travel day, we leave the ship at 6:00 AM and head to the Rome Airport where we have a 9:35 AM flight to London, we have a five hour layover in London where we depart at 5:15 PM and arrive at LAX at 8:15 PM the same day. It is going to be a brutal travel day, but with three weeks of traveling it will be nice to just sit around and relax for a bit.

It has been such a privilege being able to give these daily updates, I hope everyone has enjoyed them as much as I have writing them. I am going to post a short wrap up of the trip for tomorrow and that will most likely be the last post for me for the week, and things will go back to normal after that. I hope you all have enjoyed this amazing journey that Jenn and I were so blessed to be able to go on, and until next time good bye (which means goodbye in english).