Holy crap do I have a lot of photos. There is tons and tons of flickerage right now - I have everything posted through my second day in Naples. Stuff after that has not been sorted through yet.

So, here are my activities (in a semi-abbreviated format):

Day 2 in Naples
Day 2 dawned ... rainy. The rain seemed to be following me everywhere. My mom was quite depressed by all of the rain, but I convinced her to leave the hotel and brave some nice, inside activities. I was captivated by a photograph of the grand entryway in at the Palazzo Reale museum, the old royal palace. Thus, I broke my "no palace tour" rule and walked around the museum. It was BEAUTIFUL - not so much for the art (which was gorgeous, of course) but for the architecture.



After that, my mom convinced me to do another one of those city sightseeing buses. It was okay - problem is that during the rain, you can't sit on top if you are poncho-less (as we were). So, it was really difficult to see much of anything. We got off at the Archaeological Museum to see lots of the cool stuff from Pompei and Herculaneum, amongst other things. By then, the rain had let up, so we were able to walk back to the bus station to pick up the citysighteeing tour for a different tour. Sadly, the commentary broke halfway through the trip, so it got a bit boring. Beautiful views though.




Day 3: Isle of Capri
We took a houseboat across the bay of Naples to the Isle of Capri. En route, we met a very nice family of Canadians who were a little lost on the island, so they decided to tag along with us. We skipped the Blue Grotto, but took a bus up to Anacapri, the city at the top of the mountain. From there, we took a chairlift to the highest point on the mountain, Monte Solare. We decided to walk down - a 40 minutes easy walk in my guidebook - but a 60 minute excruciating downward slope filled with slippery shale in reality. The kids with the Canadians were tired after that, and they headed out, but my mom and I got some lunch and headed to Villa San Michele, a beautiful old church that Axel Muenthe converted into his private villa. The resulting museum is gorgeous, quiet, and all around fantastic. After that, we took an open taxi cab down to the lighthouse at Faro to "make some pretty pictures" and then back to Capri. From there, we headed down to the marina and came back to Napoli... just in time, as the skies opened up and it started to pour on us.

Day 4: Herculaneum and Sorrento
Herculaneum is amazing. Really, really amazing. Frescos still preserved, burned wood from when the firey ash from vesuvius poured down on the town. It's an archaeologists dream. We took the audioguide, which was interesting if loooooong. However, without the audioguide I would never know that it costs 11 asses to dig a well, and that bakers would put phalluses in their ovens for good luck. And I think my life has been enriched by that knowledge. (This reminded me of the "erotic room" at the archaeological musuem that has all of the sex statues from Pompeii and Herculaneum. I kept wanting to take pictures of everything but it seemed to immature. But there were men having sex with men, men having sex with women, and men having sex with goats. They really got around, those romans.)

After Herculaneum, we had pizza (again - no more pizza, please) and took the train to Sorrento. Sorrento is a tourist haven. In fact, I'm not sure I saw a single local save the shop keepers. We took a leisurely stroll around the city, the high point being a stroll through the lemon orchards and some limoncello tasting. It was delicious! (Unlike the rancid stuff we tried in Capri. I'm glad we gave limoncello a second chance.) We decided that the train ride was really uncomfortable, so we took the hydrofoil back across the Bay of Naples. We sat and chatted with a nice british couple from a cruise ship while sipping caffe and eating gelato and waiting for our ship. It was a nice end to a nice day. And no rain!!