Sorrento/Capri, Italy – August 4

Bay of Naples

Few clouds, 30 degrees, more humid today

The ship is anchored today so tendering is the way to start today’s adventures. The ride is about 15 minutes through the Bay of Naples. Then we boarded a jetfoil (basically a passenger ferry that moves faster than a regular ferry due to the foils that lift the boat out of the water) to sail about 40 minutes to Naples-Italy’s 3^rd largest city (5 million

Naples square

including the surrounding area), all the while gazing at Mount Vesuvius – no activity there today.

We started with a was a panoramic tour in a van (not a bus) because we were only a group of 13. This is a great sized group. We paid a bit for today’s tour, so maybe this is why. Naples is a crowded, a bit dirty, vibrant city. The one thing I happen to notice is how the driving is very

mango/paprika chips...meh

‘rule-breaking’ but in a calm, gentle, casual way; everyone accepting that everyone is breaking rules – we even saw a woman on a bike with a little kid on the back crossing a highway and the traffic just let her cross - no one really stopped, they just all accommodated each other.

We had about 30 minutes on our own in the

random Naples street

old town at the end of our tour of Naples. 30 minutes isn’t really enough time to do anything, even to get a coffee or beer. We managed to get a bottle of beer and bag of mango/paprika chips at a serve-yourself counter type pf place. I’m always on the lookout for new chip flavours and this one was a bit of a disappointment. I’m

quality, not quantity

pretty sure I’ve never met a chip I didn’t like, but these were on the meh side.

more quality

The second half of the tour brought us to a winery called Cantine del Vesuvio. Here they told us they focus on ‘quality rather than quantity’…that seems to be a theme at each of the 3 vineyards we’ve visited on this trip…I’d like to visit the place where they focus on quantity!! In addition to the vineyard tour and

even more quality

tasting, we had lunch here…antipasti and a tomato pasta – very good, especially a rolled sort of croissant type of bread filled with small pieces of meat – that was the star!

We got back to Sorento via the van rather than the jetfoil. I guess the jetfoil was charming and the vineyard was part way back to Sorento. Of course we still had a tender ride in front of uqqs to get back to the ship. Tendering always seems a bit charming, but then at the end of a long, hot tour you want to get on the sanctuary of the ship as soon as possible, so I could have done without the tender – that was not an

tender

option.

Back on board we, showered and relaxed in the room for about an hour before we had a ‘repeat customer’ cocktail party. This was fun, we met some other passengers and some the senior staff (one who will be on our January cruise) - I like the little bits of ‘insider information’ they share. We met the parents for

Sorento Bay

dinner at the ship’s steak pit – quite a bit more than a pit, but I like saying steak pit. This is one of the 2 restaurants that require reservations. It was good, but took a loooong time…2.5 hours for dinner can be a bit much.

By the time dinner was over it was after 9:30, so although tomorrow is a sea day (best day ever) I was beat, so we all headed back to our rooms. I spent a bit of time on the deck, admiring the stars with a glass of wine.

Sorento