Naples, Pompeii and Amalfi; Malta; an update on Rome

Sunday, October 20 – Naples, Italy and Pompeii and Amalfi

We had a lengthy tour out of our stop in Naples!  Naples itself is a busy industrial port city.  But for our tour, we started in Pompeii… amazing.  We got there before it got crowded so we had a great view of the marketplace, the stores and homes, the streets.  You can see the ruts still in the stone in the streets from the chariot wheels!  And you can tell which buildings were storefronts because they had sliding doors, hence the doorsills for stores all had grooves in which the doors would slide!  There had been an earthquake some time before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and so there was some ongoing repairs when Pompeii was buried in ash and Herculaeum was buried in lava.  The lava sped at 125 an hour, I remember right! But Pompeii didn’t get lava, but the blast of heat (maybe 500 degrees if we remember right?) and then choking ash.  We saw plaster casts of the bodies (and some bone tissue) – the heat had dropped them, then after covered with ash, there was a negative space when they were found, into which the archeologists poured plaster to get the shape.  There were dozens or hundreds of casts of people and many hundreds of pottery and other materials found. 

A loop to tie up horses - lots of them

Groove for sliding door, indicating this was a store

white reflector stones

stones added as stepping stones when flooding,
or 'speed bumps' for chariots! 

Painting still visible! 

Foot bones of a victim (see next 2 photos)

Head of victim

whole body of victim

long, wide streets

Mosaic with a dog, and "Cave Canum" sign - "Beware of Dog"! 

There is so much more to share, but you can find a lot of that online.  It was so thrilling to see the real spot, though!

From there we got back on the bus and were driven down the Amalfi coast to eat in a castle high atop a hill.  The food was OK, but the location was gorgeous – what a view!  Then we were driven down to the town of ____, got on a boat and were taken a 45 minute boat trip to the seaside town of Amalfi. We spent an hour or so shopping and had a gelato, then back on the boat to go to the bus, back on the bus to get back to the cruise ship.

Castle where we ate

On the way to Amalfi

town of Amalfi

Amalfi

As we had a gelato at Amalfi, we saw the tiniest hummingbird
we'd ever seen - the size of a bee!

Monday, October 21 – Valetta, Malta

We were so physically tired from our Pompeii tour that we enjoyed Malta (mostly) from our fantastic view on our cruise ship, 8-10 stories high.  It was a beautiful sandstone color with historic architecture.  It has a dramatic past, having been conquered by one culture after another. We did get off the ship for a short time but after wandering around a bit, we were happy to get back on and watch it from our veranda.  Perhaps another time we’ll be able to see more!

Tuesday October 22 – at sea

Since we were still tired (after Rome and Pompeii) we were happy to have a ‘sea day’ where there were no ports.  We slept in, had a couple massages scheduled, and we ate and played cards with Mark and Cat. 

Wednesday, October 23 – Mykonos Greece

This is a relatively small island with a lot of tourism.  We got a shuttle bus from the port to a parking lot near town – but then we were not told how to get to the interesting town area.  We ended up following some other lost people – and ended up lost and walking on a dangerous busy road with no sidewalks!  Finally we went into a laundry and asked where we were and realized how far off we’d gotten.  When we finally found the shops and the seaside, we were tired and I admit I was a bit grumpy!  It was pretty but we weren’t able to enjoy it much!  But it’s a lovely island with whitewashed buildings and blue trim – quite a sight!

Interesting sign forbidding removal of signs. There were
many of these! 

Thursday, October 24 – Ephesus (Kusadasi) Turkey

I posted a separate blog post about Ephesus and Kusadasi. 

Thursday - Rhodes, Greece

We docked in Rhodes. It was an interesting city with lots of guard towers and creamy stone fortresses.  We shopped and had a coffee, and walked around some neighborhoods.

Our wading in the sea!

Thanks for reading.  We send our love.            

PS - an update on Rome - I found some photos I took of a church where there is a huge painting depicting the work preparing for the Council of Nicea.  It was in this council where the church decided that Jesus is God, part of a Trinity.  However, there were passionate opponents of the teaching of the Trinity who believed (as do we) that Jesus is not equal to God, that God is his Father.  Here is a photo of the painting showing Arius along with others in chains in the lower right corner:

Latin underneath (I wish I could translate it...)