Naples, Italy

The last port we had on our itinerary before we reached Rome was Sorrento.  Here the ship was to drop anchor  and we would be tendered to the shore.  At 7.00 am the Captain’s voice came across the intercom informing us that it was far to dangerous to use tenders.  The swell, although it doesn’t look much in this photo was very large and stepping from the ship to the tender could have broken legs....
So the Captain announced that we would pull up the anchor and more further up the coastline to Naples where he had secured a dock.

Sorrento, Italy that we did not get to see....

We docked in Naples (Napoli) around 9.30 am but almost all tours that had been booked for Sorrento had to be cancelled.... we were going to travel by hydrofoil to Capri. It didn’t leave us any choice other than to explore Naples on our own.  It didn’t worry us at all and we had looked forward to doing this our whole journey.  Unfortunately most of the places that we docked at were not attractive and certainly not within walking distance of anywhere that we would find interesting.
The walk from our ship to the city centre of Napoli took around fifteen minutes and we thoroughly enjoyed the walk.  The city is lovely and being a Sunday not many shops were opened so we weren’t bustled along. This changed rapidly however as word got around that there was a cruise ship docked!
We walked up and down narrow alleyways passing fish mongers, fruit stalls and many pizzerias. The buildings are all around five stories and as you look up at clothes fluttering in the wind hanging from the balconies you are reminded that life simply moves on no matter where you are.

We walked for around an hour and then boarded another Hop On Hop Off bus so we could get a little more information about the history of Napoli.  As you know, we love this and the GPS headphones give exact information about where you are and what you are looking at.

After our quick one hour bus tour we headed to a Pizzeria for beer and pizza.  By this time it was almost 1.30pm and we were quite hungry. We ordered Margarita Pizza that we were told is the traditional pizza for this area.  It is possibly the best pizza I have ever eaten!  Our waiter was friendly and played around with us by bringing an extra pizza (on the house) as we devoured our pizzas very fast!

All to soon we were back on board Navigator and heading to our final port - Civitivecchia.  This is at the gateway to Rome where we will spend the next few days.