Speakers Cruise Free: Naples / Pompeii

Naples was the second port on our Med cruise. It's such a short distance between Livorno and Naples that we pulled into port about 5am. I watched from the deck as we did. It was such a peaceful, gentle process. The city was just starting to wake up and the glint of the dawn was barely visible on the horizon. It was sublime and surreal at the same time. BTW it was my second port and I still had not been scheduled to speak. God... I love being an enrichment speaker! Why not join me?

Naples was special for me because the ancient ruins of Pompeii are just on the other side of Mt. Vesuvius, very close to the city.

For those of you who don't know, I was raised in a predominantly Italian family. Both of my mother's parents came from the old sod and I was extremely close to my maternal grandfather who I lost when I was 12. What made Pompeii so special to me was hearing my grandpa tell fabulous stories of his own travels there as I was growing up. So for me to tour Pompeii years later was to create a kind spiritual connection with my grandpa. I know it sounds weird but the feeling and "connectedness" was palpable to me.

We booked our excursions through the shorex office and I'm glad we did. Our guide was excellent having been a guide for many National Geographic writers and photographers.

Pompeii is an ancient Roman city in the shadow of Vesuvius which is still a potentially active volcano. Here I stand in the excavated amphitheater. They have plans to make this an active venue again. Isn't that wild? The first act slated for the grand re-opening (2 millennium later) is Andrea Bocelli.

Here's a little history of Pompeii I lifted from WikiPedia. "Along with Herculaneum, its sister city, Pompeii was destroyed, and completely buried, during a catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days on 24 August 79 AD."

"The volcano collapsed higher roof-lines and buried Pompeii under many meters of ash and pumice, and it was lost for nearly 1700 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1748. Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire. Today, it is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Italy, with 2,571,725 visitors in 2007, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site."

What is so cool is that the houses were all built on a zero lot line. Some of the places were quite palatial too. Here Jamey and I are standing in the House of Faun. "The House of the Faun was named for the bronze statue of the dancing faun located, originally, on the lip of the impluvium, a basin for catching rainwater; it has been moved to the center of the impluvium, as you can see in the picture to the left. Fauns are spirits of untamed woodland creatures, which Romans often connected to Pan and Greek satyrs, or wild followers of the Greek god of wine and agriculture, Dionysus." This statute is a copy. The original, picture below, is in the Naples Archaeological museum.

We spent the morning touring Pompeii and we were back to the ship by lunch. This worked out quite nicely because we beat the crowds in the morning and we made it back to the ship, had lunch and struck back out with plenty of time to explore Naples on foot. We walked from the ship to the Naples Archaeological museum (about a mile one way). My big tip for you is that no trip to Pompeii is complete until you have also toured the museum.

Why?

Because most of Pompeii's great treasures are housed there including this faun statute.

Another characteristic about Pompeii is much of it was covered in mosaics. Here I stand between mosaic columns that were found. It is absolutely pristine work when you see them this close.

Another thing I was surprised to learn about Pompeii was the shear number of brothels they had. There was about one every other block. They weren't difficult to pick out as they always had symbols like this affixed to the exterior.

Apparently, the ancient Romans were very nature loving including all aspects of sexuality. The archaeological museum also has an impressive exhibit of the sexually charged art that was found throughout Pompeii. Fascinating.

Naples produces an excellent slightly-sweet liqueur called Limoncello made from the rinds of lemons like this. I had to get a picture with this as this was picked from the bunch of the largest lemons I had ever seen.

On our walk from the ship to the museum I snapped interesting looking photos along the way. Like this alleyway leading to a church.

I was amused to see this sign for a Coffee shop as I live relatively close to the Mexican border.

This was cool too. I live in Corpus Christi, Texas which is where Eva Longoria is from and where she got here start in modeling. I saw her face all over Europe in ice cream ads like this. The ads reminded me of home. It was also a reminder that great things can come from small starts like Eva herself.