Cruise Day 5: Napoli

Today, we were parked in the Naples harbor, a very short walk into the city itself. Our plan was to visit Herculaneum and the Archaeological Museum in Naples, plus try to get a pizza in between.

May 19

We started off the day with another breakfast at Lumiere's. I had eggs benedict again, and Danny had the fruit bowl with muesli and the french toast. I forgot to mention that at the previous breakfast our server was Thai, so Danny got to surprise him with a Thai greeting. We couldn't remember his name right away when we arrived, so we didn't get to sit in his area again. But, we met him later at the buffet and found out that he's a rotating server, so would have been there anyway. But, now we do know when he'll be there.

First, we had to walk along the harbor to the other end of town to get to the Circumvesuviana train. Several other groups of people were also touring on their own here, but most were going to Pompeii. Once we got to the station and on the train, we turned out to be next to another group of people headed toward Pompeii but thinking about trying to do both. We talked for a bit, and they ended up splitting into two groups. The couple who had been to Pompeii on a previous trip came to Herculaneum with us.

Naples port, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Today, I had the IPod Touch, and was using the Lonely Planet PDFs as our map and guidebook (with the GoodReader app). It's workable, but not great. The screen is so small that there's constant zooming and panning, and changing a page, especially with a map takes a while. When the map spans two pages, it's difficult to go back and forth and keep your place. I also can't make my own marks on the map, which I like to do. Still, it does work, means I don't have to carry a lot of guidebooks around, and if I'm only in a place for one day then it's good enough. You can buy the PDFs by chapter, which is ideal for cruising.

My summary of Herculaneum is that it's a lot more compact than Pompeii, and with the exception of Pompeii's Villa of Mysteries, better preserved (at least what's still in situ). There's an amazing amount of walls that still have the plaster on it, and a wide variety of frescos still remaining. Plus, the site is less crowded, and in many places you can get a lot closer to the artwork than you can in Pompeii. I remember a cherub painting deep inside one of the buildings where it was still possible to see the brush strokes. Another interesting sight was the few buildings that still had intact ceilings. What surprised me was how complex the ceilings were. One ceiling in a small room had two shallow barrel vaults on either side with a diamond recess set into a rectangular recess in the center section, all covered with fresco artwork. The also had crown moulding all along the ceiling edge. In another room, I saw a style of crown moulding which is still in use today. Another impressive sight was intact (but burned) wood - a staircase, some wooden partitions, a cabinet, balcony railings, and many doorway and support timbers. From what I read, the state of preservation in Herculaneum is greater because it was buried by a tidal wave of mud, rather than ash.

Temple ruins, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Fancy ceilings, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

We spent about 4 hours there, and I think we entered every building. A lot of the frescos retaining the most detail were hidden away in places, or high up on a wall, so it was very fun to explore the city. The intactness of it gave a real sense of what the city would be like. It doesn't have a theatre or a coliseum like Pompeii, and it's not an overwhelming large city, so it's not as awe inspiring, but I think that for a short visit, Herculaneum might actually be a better choice. Of course, Pompeii is much better for handling the crowds of a cruise ship.

Wall painting details, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Next, we went back to Naples, and tried to find a pizza with the official seal of approval. We weren't in the right section of town for that, but we did find a place that had good looking slices of Sicilian style pizza for one euro each.

After the pizza, we hit the Archaeological Museum. I can't believe that I skipped this on three previous trips to Naples. It's an amazing museum, with a very high quality of sculpture (mostly marble, but some bronze), much of it collected by a single family. There's also a supposedly similarly nice mosaic collection, but it was closed, because we're cursed that way. Finally, it has the best frescos taken from all the Vesuvius sites. The level of artistry is very high, and by the time we got to that floor, the amount was overwhelming. It's fun to see scenes from "classic" mythology and imagine how these would have been on the walls of their homes, and how it was part of their daily life and religion.

Roman wall painting, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Sadly, I'd forgotten my second camera battery in the charger on the ship, so I ran out of juice just as we were getting into the murals. Danny took plenty of pictures, and it this point it was really getting hard to decide what was the best. It was also getting close to closing time, so we had to hurry through the last floor before the museum closed (and before we needed to head back to the ship).

Carved gemstone, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

The museum has several historically important sculptures - a very old bronze head, a sculpture that is the only known work of a particular school, a pair of revolutionaries which have been copied many times, but the highlight of the museum is the Farnese Bull. This sculpture was so big that when I turned the corner, it was down the hallway far enough that I couldn't see the details, but I could see that it was many times taller than the crowd of people standing around it, and just as wide, shaped vaguely like a gigantic cube. It's actually a copy of a Greek original, but like the original, was carved from a single huge piece of marble. It's sufficiently impressive that it was written about by the ancients. It depicts a woman (Dirce) being tied to a bull by two men to be dragged through the fields, as punishment for a crime. The presence of the group alone is amazing, but the activity shown as the men wrestle the head of the bull raises it to a level beyond amazing. It might replace the Lacoon as my all-time favorite sculpture.

Farnese Bull, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

The runners, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Giant diorama of Pompeii, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

When we tried to exit the museum, the gift shop was closed, so we had to sneak through the edge of the construction area to get back to the entrance where we left our bags. Then we headed back to the ship, stopping to buy a bottle of limoncello on the way.

By the ship with Vesuvius in the background, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Dinner tonight was at Lumiere's. Since it was the French menu, we brought some yummy homemade goat cheeses from Annette's sister in France. We both had escargot, and a cheese appetizer, but I can't remember right now what I had for the main course. I think this was the dinner where Danny had three appetizers and two main courses because everything looked so good.

Belle and the Beast at dinner, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

After dinner, we headed to an event called "Adult Flubber", held in one of the normally forbidden kids' areas. Here, a mad scientist did a couple of liquid nitrogen demos, and then we made a rubber-like substance out of blue Elmer's glue, water, food coloring, and a white powder which might have been detergent. It was fun and silly, but the flubber didn't work very well - Danny's didn't want to roll into a ball, it just stayed flat, and mine had a huge crack what went halfway through it. It bounced, but that was about it. Between the mad scientist and the either intoxicated or just euphoric people in the group, it did keep us laughing.

From Cruise 2010 - On the boat

I don't think I've talked about the high staff to guest ratio. I've heard we've got about 2500 guests on board, and more than 1000 staff. The ship is always spotless, which must be quite a task with so many people in a confined space, and the large number of children. Everything seems to work very smoothly and effortlessly. This is a terrific illusion maintained for the guests by a highly disciplined staff.

Ferhat and Jason, our dinner servers, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

I've also forgotten to mention the towel animals. Each day, Leonardo, the person who makes up our room, creates a towel animal on our bed. They're different each day, and very impressive. We've had an elephant, a bed-spanning shark, a dog on a flying carpet, and most recently a trilobite.

Dog on a flying carpet, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat