Mediterranean Cruise: Amalfi Coast & Pompeii

Our last port on the cruise was Naples, Italy. From Naples we took a short bus ride to Sorrento where we boarded small boat to tour the Amalfi coast.

 

The views of the coast from the water were spectacular. The view of the beaches and resorts were from a completely different perspective than from the road. From the water, the hotels appeared to be rising out of the side of the cliffs. Some hotels had elevators to take guests down to the beach!

 

The Amalfi Coast is known for their lemon crop which is used to make delicious limoncello. Due to the hilly terrain they grow the produce on terraces.  

 We stopped at the town of Almafi for shopping and exploring. At the entrance of the town, there was a beautiful cathedral that dates back to the 11th century.   

We explored the shops and bakeries in the town. I stumbled across a pastry shop after my own heart. Check out the size of those pastries. They were larger than your head!  

We also found an astronomically large lemon as well as some delicious limoncello.  

 We visited a local craftsman that created hand carved cameos from local shells.  The man in the picture makes each cameo by hand. It was a family run business that had been in operation for over 50 years. He makes traditional portrait cameos as well as floral designs. 

After our boat tour, we visited the ancient city of Pompeii. The ruins were amazing to see in person. No amount of reading about it in books or recent movies prepares you for the massive scale of the city. Only  two-thirds of the city has been excavated. The ruins are well preserved underground but once exposed to the air and elements begin to deteriorate. They have decided to keep the remaining part of the city underground to preserve it for future generations. 

Prior to it's eruption, Mt. Vesuvius was one giant mountain. After it's catastrophic explosion two smaller mounds were formed. 

We spent a full two hours exploring Pompeii and I thought that was just enough time. We used a tour guide for this trip and I am thankful we did since there was so much history to take in with such a short amount of time. The tour guide kept us on track and on time!