BARCELONA TO NAPLES--THE POWER OF PASTA

Sunday, October 14: Board NCL Epic, Room 10243

Monday, October 15: At Sea

Norwegian Cruise Lines Epic is 1081 ft. in length, the beam is 133 ft. The ship has the capacity for 4100 passengers with 1753 crew members. On board entertainment includes the Blue Man Group, Second City, and Cirque Dreams, as well as other standard entertainment like comedians, musicals, and a magician, etc.

After a short $25 taxi ride to the port, we boarded the mighty Epic with hardly a line to wait in. A remarkable feat when one considers 4100 passengers were boarding.

Our stateroom, #10243, will take some getting used to. The room layout is not conducive to people who are not small. The queen bed is 18 inches from the counter/wall. The ship’s designer decided to put the toilet on one side of the entrance door and the shower on the other side of the door. Then, the sink is in the aforementioned long counter across from our bed. I doubt anyone can picture this from my description, but picture Tim and I leaping over the bed past the other and not killing each other over the next 20 days. The crew claims Europeans love this layout. However, no future NCL ships will be designed this way.

The ship left Barcelona about 6 p.m. on Sunday. It was sunny and about 75 F during the day. We had dinner in the Manhattan dining room with new friends from the Air Berlin flight, Esther and Clayton. Clayton is a retired Miami-Dade firefighter.  Lobster, grouper, and true Spanish seafood paella, a regional specialty, were on the menu. I enjoyed lobster, Tim the paella.

TK’s Takes for Sunday: The toilet placement in the stateroom is terrible. The live music in the dining room is way too loud for conversing while dining. He loves our new packing concept—packing cubes. All we had to do was move our cubes of clothes to the closets.

Janie’s Take: One more thing about the Hotel Pulitzer, the bathtub was very high to step into. There is no shower curtain, nor sliding glass door. A swinging glass door extends half the length of the tub and swings out—there are no grab bars and this door seems very unsafe. And, it does not prevent water from going onto the floor while showering.

We explored the ship, unpacked, and went to bed.

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Monday morning we awakened to room service/croissants, fresh melon, and European coffee (which, by the way, could be used to clean kitchen floors, it is so strong). Since it is a sea day, we did not rush to go anywhere and the weather was cool and cloudy. Our Cruise Critic “Meet and Greet” was in Fat Cats Lounge. Many officers, including the Captain, came to the gathering.

We passed the Strait of Bonifacio that separates the islands of Corsica and Sardinia about 1 p.m. The weather was sunny and warm at that time, but returned to cool and cloudy. The Mediterranean is not very rough with gentle waves. Other than the islands we can see no land. I did sit on the balcony and finished reading Neanderthal by John Darnton. I recommend this book.

Dinner in the “Taste” dining room was grilled Latin style sirloin steak with chimichurri sauce. Both Tim and I think it was almost the best steak we have ever had. I have the feeling that garlic and butter contributed to the taste.

Early bedtime---tomorrow Pompeii!!

TK’s takes for Monday: He saw on a TV factoid that 500 million snails are consumed in France each year. He also read that 500 pounds of rice are served every day on this ship.

Tuesday, October 16: Naples, Italy. Tour Pompeii, Sorrento, and Positano

We met our romeinlimo tour driver, Raffaello, right off the ship at 7:30 a.m. in Naples. Our group of 8 quickly gathered and we drove off for the Amalfi coast. We could see Isle of Capri not far away from the coast. Mt. Vesuvius was in the distance too. We stopped for a quick taste of extra virgin olive oil at a small olive oil factory. Then we continued on to Positano driving on hairpin curves with steep cliffs on the side. Vespa drivers felt no fear and passed everything in sight on the center white line dividing cars, buses, and trucks going in both directions. Positano is built on cliffs and is quite intriguing, strictly an expensive tourist town. The streets are very very narrow with no sidewalks and one walks in the street to shop.

To add to the atmosphere, our driver played a CD of Italian music sung by Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Michael Buble, Doris Day, and the 3 Tenors. He also sang Italian songs for us.

Our next stop was Sorrento where our driver said the specialty was making mozzarella. We dined at Rossi’s—the best Caprese salad we have ever had-the mozzarella was so creamy, almost buttery. If only we had such mozzarella state side! I dipped my pizza slice in the fresh olive oil. TK had spaghetti carbonara-he said the spaghetti was truly al dente. There was shopping in Sorrento, but my main objective was to find a protective film for the display glass of my DSLR because it cracked unexpectedly on Sunday.  Thankfully the camera still shoots. Mission accomplished.

POMPEII, Italy

After Sorrento we headed for Pompeii, a truly amazing site that I only dreamed of ever seeing. The Mt. Vesuvius eruption that destroyed the original city occurred in AD 79.  We learned that the volcano erupted again in 1944. Because we planned on renting audiotapes, we did not hire a guide. The audiotape opportunity fell through and we were basically on our own with little information. The site is not marked much and it is much larger than we anticipated. I took plenty of photos and saw some unique things, and I bought a very good book about Pompeii. We have a reason to return! It is evident that the citizens of Pompeii had good skills and a unique sense of community. The Roman male with status had great privileges not extended to the women, children, or slaves.

The structures, whether homes, columns, forum, amphitheater, all were meticulously constructed. Streets were made of large flat stones.

One-day tickets to enter the area are €11 per adult—about $14.00.

Pompeii was so much bigger than I expected and so amazing. Things we saw:

• The amphitheatre. This is in the most easterly corner of the excavated area, near the Sarno Gate entrance. It was completed in 80 BC, measures 135 x 104 meters, and could hold about 20,000 people. It is the earliest surviving permanent amphitheatre in Italy and one of the best preserved anywhere. It was used for gladiator battles, other sports and spectacles involving wild animals.
• The Great Palaestra (Gymnasium). This occupies a large area opposite the Amphitheatre. The central area was used for sporting activities and there was a pool in the middle. On three sides are lengthy internal porticos or colonnades.

• Forum. This was the center of public life, although it is now to the southwest of the excavated area. It was surrounded by many of the important government, religious and business buildings.
• Temple of Apollo. This is to the north of the Basilica on the western side of the Forum. It has the oldest remains discovered, with some, including Etruscan items, dating back to 575 BC, although the layout we saw today was later than that.
• Theatre. Theatre built in the hollow of a hill for acoustic advantage; it seated 5,000
• Via dei Sepolcri (street of tombs) A long street with worn ruts from carts.
• Lupanar An ancient brothel with pornographic frescoes over the entrance to each room, presumably indicating the services offered.  Even allowing for the smaller size of ancient Romans, the beds (stone) seemed rather small.
• Street There are tracks for the carriages in the street for a smoother ride. There are also stone blocks that stick up in the middle of the street for pedestrians to step onto to cross the street. The sidewalks are higher than the modern sidewalk because the streets had water and waste flowing through them. The stone blocks in the street were also as high as the sidewalk, so people did not walk in the waste and water. The stone blocks were also used for what we would call speed bumps. When the carriages were going through the city, they were going fast. To avoid people from getting splashed by the water and waste they had stone blocks in the street. This would make the driver slow down when they were speeding, so they could get through the blocks.

TK’s takes: Raffaello, our driver, reminded Tim of the detective on CSI. He was amazed at the quality of the food, e.g. the spaghetti, the mozzarella, the tomatoes (even the tomatoes were very special) The towel animal tonight was a bunny rabbit.