We went to breakfast at 7 AM and then I finished
getting ready and we all met together in our room and had a prayer and left by
8 AM to meet our driver by 8:05 AM. We went to find our driver and found him
quite easily. He told us we were going to Positano first, then Sorrento, then
Pompeii. The description said we go to Pompeii first, but I think it worked out
fine to do it this way because that way the bulk of the driving was at the
beginning of the day. With all the traffic, it took us quite a while to get to
Positano. He pulled over to the side of the road at one point and we got some
beautiful pictures of the Amalfi coast.
He dropped us off in Positano and we started
walking down the little touristy street. Emily and I immediately saw some cute
dresses and swimming suits, but the first dress price tag we looked at was €200
so that immediately turned us off to that idea. I saw a little light
cardigan that I wanted, but I tried it on and it didn't look great so I wasn't
interested in that. After passing by a few clothing shops, we found a place
that sells gelato. Emily really wanted that. She went in there to get her
gelato while the rest of us went to find bathrooms. We had passed them and had
to turn back. There were quite a few stairs to get down to them and of course
we needed coins. The cost was $.50 euros but of course I only had one 50
Cent coin, maybe two, and the only other coins I had were one euro or two euros
so I ended up spending more than we needed to because it didn't give change. By
the time we got to the gelato place, Emily was just getting her gelato because
the counter wasn't ready yet. Michael and Andrew and Jonny also got
gelato, I got a cream pastry, and Daniel got a hotdog pastry. They heated it up
for him and he was pretty happy about that. We stood in the shade and ate our
food and then started heading back. I stopped into a shop quickly to buy some
magnets. That was the quickest hour ever.
Our servers, Jean and Raj, were fantastic!
This is the view from the parking lot.
This is the shop where we bought our treats.
It looked cute on the hanger, but not on me.
We've been trying to take turns with having
people sit in the front. Yesterday for Rome, Nathaniel and Audrey sat in the
front the whole time. Today I asked Emily and Jonny to sit in the front. Jonny
sat in the middle and when we first got in the car our driver, Salvatore, told
Jonny he gets to choose the music so he was pretty happy about that and the
rest of us groaned. Jonny immediately wanted to play A Sky Full of Stars by
Taron Egerton from Sing It 2. He and Emily also chose some Taylor Swift music.
Then our driver played some fun 70s music like Barry White and To Be Real. He
even played some Bee Gees so that was fun. As we drove past a particularly
scenic part, he played That's Amore by Dean Martin. It just seemed so surreal
being in Italy looking at beautiful scenery and listening to that song.
The driver took us to Sorrento next. We
didn't have much time there and the plan was to eat our lunch there. He
directed us down a road that he said had a nice restaurant so that's where we
went. We immediately found a nice restaurant called Zi ‘Ntonio that was just
opening for lunch. The driver had said we didn't really have time for a
sit-down lunch and we were just going to choose something quick, but we
told them that we were in a hurry and they said it would only take about 20
minutes to make pizza for us. Daniel ordered a calzone, Michael and Andrew each
got a meat pizza, Nathaniel and Audrey got a meat and a cheese pizza, and
Emily, Jonny, and I all shared two margarita pizzas. I also ordered some
zucchini flowers. I didn't know if they were going to be good but they were
delicious. The breading was amazing and it had zucchini stuffed with cheese.
Most of us tried it and loved it. The pizza came pretty quickly. I'm sure
it was within the 20 minutes but I didn't check the time. It might've even been
less. We thoroughly enjoyed our pizza and Daniel liked his calzone but could
only finish half. It was enormous! We enjoyed our lunch and I took a picture
and we had fun relaxing and talking. We were able to use the restrooms there
without paying an extra fee, so that was nice. Emily wanted to look at
some shops so she went and did that while the rest of us finished using the
restroom and paying the bill. While the rest of the family took their turns
going to the bathroom, I also went out into the street and looked at a couple
of shops quickly.
The zucchini flowers
Our delicious lunch in a beautiful Italian restaurant
We walked over to our meeting place to meet our
driver. There wasn't much time to do anything else. I walked into a little
store that had some cute knickknacks. They had a little tiny ceramic basket of
lemons but it was €24 and I didn't think it was worth it. We had a cool
view right there on a bridge so we took a few pictures and then our driver
showed up and we got in the car.
Emily and Andrew rode in the front. He got us to
Pompeii in an hour, right on time for our 2 PM appointment with a tour guide.
Her name was Floriana. I thought she did a really good job. She advised us to
skip the first set of bathrooms and go to some others when we got in. Andrew,
Daniel, and Jonny were all free. I had to show their picture IDs and the guy
really seemed to scrutinize them before he would give me the ticket but it
worked out and I was also able to pay with credit card which was nice. Pompeii
was so cool. Michael loved it and I thought it was amazing. She told us so many
interesting facts. It was cool just to be there and I can barely fathom how
they were able to do all of that excavating.
You could see the countertops they used and some
of the mosaic tile work and the frescoes.
At one point, she said we would see a lot of male
private parts today. I thought I misunderstood her. Nope. That's exactly what
she said. Apparently, the brothel was a big deal and they would use symbols of male
privates to point the way to the brothel. That was an easy way to bypass the
language barrier, I guess. It was interesting to see the remains of the
people. She explained that some of the slaves were midgets, and it makes sense
because the bodies of the people were tiny. Except that they weren't stout,
they were just small. Anyway, it was an amazing tour. I took a lot of pictures.
By 3:30 PM, I thought she was ending the tour
but actually, she walked us down to the Antiquarium and we were able to see all
kinds of cool things that they recovered. The original things were behind glass
and then there were replicas that we could see that were not behind the
glass.
We made one more bathroom stop, tipped our tour
guide, bought a couple more waters, and got into the van to go back to the
ship. Nathaniel and Audrey ended up sitting in the front again. He told us it
would take 47 minutes to get to the port but he had us there in half an hour so
that was nice.
Castel Nuovo, near the Naples port where the ship docked
We had a little time to rest before it was time
to go to dinner. Tonight was Dress Your Best night. Emily and I had agonized
over what we would wear tonight. I tried buying multiple dresses that would
match hers and nothing ever worked out. Emily wore a floral dress that was
burgundy and Audrey wore a blue floral dress and I wore my plain green one.
After dinner, I came back up to the room to get
changed. Emily and Jonny went to karaoke again and Emily sang Good Girl by
Carrie Underwood. Apparently, somebody else had sung Before He Cheats and
that's where she got the idea. They came back up and we gathered everyone for
scriptures and prayer. The kids played Trivial Pursuit in the boys’ room and I
played a round with them. Daniel won. I almost fell asleep. It had been a long
week!
Here is the tour we took today:
https://www.italytours.eu/shore-excursions/naples-shore-excursions/pompeii-sorrento-positano/
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