Naples

Friday 4th September - Another early morning as we berthed in Naples at 7am. What a chaotic city – cars going everywhere and no one taking any notice of the lights or any rules whatsoever- they seem to park anywhere and at whatever angle they like, as long as they can get the car in, heaps of motor scooters and not many wearing helmets and children standing in front of adults driving!! Pedestrians have to take their life in their hands and just walk out to cross the road- they do stop for you!! It was extremely hot and we started on the hop-on-hop-off bus at 9am – the first route was lovely around the waterfront (the purple route) and took about an hour then on to the historic route (red) and stopped at the museum where we stayed looking at some of the artefacts they had excavated from Pompeii and Herculaneum. By this time we had decided it was far too hot to even try and get on the train for Herculaneum so spent two hours at the museum – there was a lot to see and very interesting. Had to wait a long time for the next bus to come around – is not as efficient as in other major cities – in hindsight we should have probably got a taxi for four hours – would not have cost us a lot more, still, we got a good feel for the city of Naples. Some of the areas are rundown – I certainly would not like to live there. Had a much needed sit down and a cup of coffee before the boys left Alice and I to spend a bit of time in the shops – we started to, then decided we were too hot and tired, so made our way back to the ship. We were late to leave as someone required hospital treatment so had to be taken off the ship. It was early to bed after drinks and dinner at the buffet.