Mt.Vesuvius on the right in the back
With a little more than 130 nautical miles to go, the Regal Princess still took off for Naples early in the evening, which told me that the Captain wanted to get to the next Port of Call: Naples for a day in Pompeii, early rather than the next morning.
Although Naples has a handful of interesting sites to see, most visitors only frequent the city for great pizza and as a start off for a trip to the nearby Amalfi Coast and the island of Capri or the historic wonders of the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Naples is a typical Mediterranean Port City; industrious, loud and busy and the entrance to Southern Italy, which is a totally different experience from the central and northern parts of the country. Southern Italy is laid back, agricultural or seafaring, yet fiercely proud. There is no pretense in fashion, food and family.
This was already Han’s 5th or 6th trip to the area as his family often came to a camping in the town of Terracina, about midway between Rome and Naples. Since our grand Liam was just studying the events of the year 71AD in Pompeii in school, we decided that our destination for the day would be Vesuvius and Pompeii.
Now the ship offers day tours to Pompeii at a steep $250 per person for the day, but we decided to once again decline the offer and find our way via local taxi service. The roundtrip was $175 plus tip and our driver gave us clear instructions how to find him when we were ready for the return trip. He didn’t even want to get paid until he dropped us off back at the ship.
Having a Refreshment before entering Pompeii’s Horrific History
We had refreshments in a bar/café across from the entrance and spoke extensively with the woman who owned the place. They were glad to see more tourists arriving, since Covid had practically obligated their income in the last two years. After strolling through the streets of old Pompeii, we decided to have a late lunch at the women’s brother’s place from where our cab driver picked us up and returned us to the ship.
A lot has changed in 65 years, says Han. When he first visited in the summer of 1962, the old Roman city ruins were comingled with the new village that had been build around it. There was a little museum where you could witness to gruesome results of the volcano’s eruption coming down on an unsuspecting population of Rome’s aristocracy. Pompeii was a summer place for Rome’s elite, more so then neighboring Herculaneum that housed many of the servants.
So make no mistake, today’s Pompeii is a place for tourism. The old ruins are discreetly separated from the new town with fences, impenetrable hedges and tree lines. You are naturally guided towards the various entrances to the ruins and with clear instructions and an admission ticket, you are allowed to enter and encouraged to stick to the clear pathways. Pompeii has been re-designed to be a worthy tourist destination for today’s day and age; a far cry from the Wild West it was in 1962. But to be honest the story of horror is still the same. You just need to use your imagination a bit.
Han is understandably a bit ambivalent about our’trips to nostalgia’. He remembers traveling here with his family. His father taking them to a small Cameo manufacturing business, where they bought some jewelry for his mother. It was simpler and more affordable then. Italy’s money was the Lira, not the Euro and life seemed to play at a more accessible level.
Through the ages, the centers of cameo cutting remained in this part of Italy and, in fact, the majority of today’s cameo artists still reside in Italy and are now concentrated in the small city of Torre del Greco, a small town situated opposite from Pompeii at the foot of the Vesuvius, overlooking the Bay of Naples. We decided to buy some souvenir cameos as well as a book about Pompeii and a postcard for Liam and mailed both from the post office.
Sadly the post office never forwarded the package to the US.
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