Destination Roma: In Progress: Naples...Napoli...Day 1 and 2 of our Southern Italy Trip

Naples was our first stop on the trip. It was exciting on the train on the way there because of the anticipation. A lot of other people fell asleep - and though I took quite a few pictures of the funny positions, I decided to spare them the embarrassment. I'm just that nice. But I didn't understand how everyone could sleep through the beautiful landscapes that we passed by. I spent of the time staring out the window looking at the mountains and the small towns and cities we passed through.

The image above is one of the first glimpses of the city that I got from a slight distance. This was taken from the harbor where Dan and I had gone with Dave to purchase our overnight boat tickets - I'll get to that part of the trip in just a bit.

Upon arrival, we took taxis to the hotel - and driving here in Italy is an experience in and of itself. I'm not sure I like it too much - actually, I know I don't like it. Our hotel rooms were amazing and wonderful!

That's an image of our room. Once done there, we went out to sketch. We did a lot of sketching and this was only day one. We were sent out into the Spanish quarters where we did street sections, showing the interactions from one structure to the next. Balconies were covered with drying clothes, and the streets were so narrow I couldn't even imagine how any car could fit - but they managed to do it!

From there, we moved to the galleria - I have plenty of images, but I'd rather save the space for others. Not that I didn't find the space enjoyable - it was quite nice to feel as though we were outside, but to be in an enclosed space. It was certainly an interesting design. We also got to wander a bit before the opera (yes, I went to see an actual Italian Opera!) Amy, Maureen, Adam(o) and I wandered back down to the port where the Snav (our overnight ship) would leave from to see Mt. Vesuvius and the castle at the top of the mountain behind the city.

Then, it was time for the opera! We went to see Candide - but I can't say I was too impressed with the show. It was certainly amusing! I loved the opera house though! We had our own box and everything - it was great - and only 15 euro. You just can't beat that price!

Following the Opera was dinner at Pizzeria Brandy! All of the food was SO good - and we even had musical entertainment. There was a family in the room next to us who must have been having some kind of party - or maybe it was just dinner. Around here, I suppose that wouldn't be surprising. But they came in and did their best to talk to us in their rough English and us with our even more rough Italian (except for Stanley). Then back to our hotel to get some sleep. We all had high hopes that our Pompeii trip would follow through the next day - that and the fact that we were so beat.

Next morning we had breakfast in the hotel with the still high hopes that Pompeii would not be rained out. The breakfast room was at the top of the hotel and you could see out to Vesuvius. We ventured onto the patio to take some photos - my opportunity to get my picture taken with our fearless leader:

I was going to add the image of Amy, Maureen, and I but Dave beat me to it - that's on the group website, so you can find it there. After breakfast, we were all disappointed to find out that the high percentage of the possibility of rain was preventing us from getting to see Pompeii. Go figure that would have to happen. So, we ventured over to the Archaeological Museum to see the mosaics and models that have been brought over to Naples. It was a shame and we were all pretty upset about it, but the rain did come so it probably was better we didn't make the effort.

This is a picture of the wall mounted model in the museum. Tell me that THAT is considered advanced arts and crafts...

We ended the day with our overnight ship experience. Let me simply say that we all agreed it was a mixture of the Loveboat and Titanic. I slipped outside twice on the stairs of the ship and bruised up my arm a bit - how does one fall twice? Not even 5 minutes apart? We had fun outside before heading back in to see the lovely piano bar (straight out of the early 80s) and have dinner (which was very expensive and not all that wonderful).