Medi-versary Cruise, Part 2

The last stop in Italy was Naples. However, we drove through Naples to play tourist on the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii. After the history of Florence and Rome, it was nice to turn off the brain for a bit and just take in the breath-taking coastal scenery out the window. Our first stop was the very vertical Positano. The road became one-way down through the town where our driver gave us an hour to walk around. We opted to head to the beach. Overall very pretty, but a little overrun with tourists.

One thing we did not enjoy about Europe: digging in our pockets for change and having to locate the pay toilets.

Southern Italy is known for its produce; Amalfi is especially famous for its lemons. See all the different kinds (in yellow) below.

The next stop was Sorrento, which was larger but somehow felt less crowded. We enjoyed our third consecutive pizza lunch on a quiet, shaded side street. 

Sorrento is on a cliff, so the beach is a long staircase or side road winding down quite a ways. We got this view from an overlook. You have to earn that cold dip in the sea!

Then we met our guide for a couple of hours in Pompeii. The city was so much larger than I had pictured, and it's still being excavated. At least 10,000 people lived there when Mt. Vesuvius erupted nearly 2000 years ago. Crazy to think that Vesuvius is still active and nearly a million people have decided to live around it today.

We were impressed by the art still remaining on the walls and the detailed mosaic floors. The 20+ feet of volcanic ash preserved most of the inorganic stuff, and they had a huge building filled with vessels, tables, statues, and plaster figures that had been buried for centuries. Hard to wrap our minds around it all!

By that time, we were thankful for a day at sea to relax, read a book, and explore the ship. Our ship even had an ice rink complete with shows!

The cruise ended in Barcelona, and we opted to spend an extra day there, which wound up being our favorite day. We had tickets for Sagrada Familia that afternoon, so we relaxed at the hotel for a bit and walked across the old town on our way over. It was so beautiful with lots of gothic features to admire. Love me some gargoyles! 

We did a walking tour out of our guidebook and found lots of hidden gems, like Roman columns from the temple of Augustus, the church of Sant Filip Neri, which bears Spanish civil war wounds, and a gorgeous wooden coffered ceiling in the Viceroy's Palace.

All of our walking warranted a delicious tapas lunch and a giant pitcher of sangria! Oh my goodness, it was so good!

Then on to the Sagrada Familia. It was a little overwhelming with all of the details and symbolism, and they have a lot of work to do in the next 9 years (their goal of finishing in 100 years total), but it was definitely worth seeing!

We also ventured up the Nativity facade towers on some narrow stairs for birds-eye views.

We metro'ed back to the hotel to crash for a while, but then managed to stumble upon a musical light show at the Magic Fountain down the street after dinner.

What a trip! I'd absolutely do it again, but even better, I'd plan to take more time in each city so we could really savor each place. To quote Patricio, our Roman driver, "It's fantastic!"