Greetings from Napoli

Hello everyone. I guess by the title you can tell that I have mastered the Italian language. Want to hear some more? Gelato, Canoli and Pizza, good huh! Here in Naples (Napoli) those three things are on the top of everybody's list of things to sample. I got two out of three. We cruised into Naples on time but could not get into the part right away because the seas were too rough for the pilot to board our ship and guide it into the harbor (Maybe we should have recruited the pilot from San Francisco bay who plowed the ship into the bay bridge.) The seas calmed by 10 AM and we were in port by 11AM. We were signed up for a tour of Pompei and we got to go but it was a few hours late departing. The photo below is a us in the city of Pompeii with Mount Vesuvius in the background. That was really something being in a city that was built 600 BC. I think that ranks as number one for the oldest city that Cindy and I have been to. I think Philly is a close second.

The next photo is fantastic. Pompeii was covered by ash from the eruption of Mt Vesuvius on August 24th, 0079. The ash fell so fast that most of the residents of the city were caught by it and sufficated. In the 1700s when they found the town of Pompeii they also discovered these hollowed out areas where bodies were covered by ash and decomposed. They poured plaster in and the plaster took the shape of the bodies. They slowley removed the plaster molds and they now have several of them on display at the ruins.

After our terrific Pompei tour was over, we walked around Naples which is the 3rd largest city in Italy. There is a castle that Napolean built right in today's downtown area! We learned that the name Napoli comes from 2 Greek words for 'new' and 'city.' (We want to impress Taki with our knowlege of some Greek words!)

Tomorrow we have to be up early because we have a tour in Rome scheduled. From where the ship docks, it's about an hour and a half bus ride into Rome. We know we will be impressed with what we see tomorrow, but everything we've already seen has been fantastic, and it's hard to imagine there's more!