World cruise 43

April 14

Today we are at Naples. Margaret has gone to tour Sorrento and Pompeii. As for me, the same as the last time I was here. The only tours that I was interested in were ones that I cannot physically do. So it's an "in port sea day" for me.

I went out on the back deck to look at and photograph Mt. Vesuvius across the bay. It was totally obscured by haze. I could sort of guess at part of its outline, but only because I've seen it before from this same location.

After lunch I went a little bit ashore, but just to the shops in the passenger terminal building. Naples is not a particularly safe city to roam around in by yourself. There are cases on previous stops here where even crew members have been violently attacked and robbed in daylight not to mention those passengers and crew who have been pickpocketed.

I've been meaning to tell you about the flowers on the ship. In a word, they are spectacular. There are pots of orchids on every dining table in the Lido buffet and in every restroom that I've been in. There are low bowls of mixed cut flowers on every table in the dining room and special themed flowers on formal nights. Whenever you are in a public space (other than hallways), you are never more than a very few yards away from an exquisite large to huge arrangement, and these are changing all the time. All of this is the work of a husband and wife team of florists -- a young Dutch couple named Eddie and Calista. They recently received a feather in their cap big enough to make a whole headdress. The CEO of the Holland America Group, while visiting the ship last week, decreed that all the florists on HAL ships should follow Eddie and Calista's lead in the style of arrangements. Several months ago we had them at our table for dinner. We were all impressed with their intelligence and poise as well as their creative talents. I'll put some photos of their work here. The non-floral parts of their arrangements are as creative and beautiful as the flowers. In the last photo, the Round, light-colored thing is a coolie hat.

April 15

"Render unto Ceasar..." And on this rendering day most of the people on the ship have gone to Rome which is about a 1.5 hour bus ride from the ship which is docked at Civitavecchia (say that 3 times fast).

Margaret and I had signed up for an 8 hour tour to some Etruscan ruins, Tarquinia and Tuscania. A week or so ago, after talking to someone who had done that tour before, I decided that was too much walking over seriously uneven ground, so I cancelled my ticket. That left her to tackle yet more ruins on her own while I do another "in port sea day." This time we are way out at the end of nowhere, so there's not even a terminal building anywhere near by and not much to look at but a strip of concrete out our side, and out the other side, some storage tanks. Blah.

Yesterday at diner Penny asked Margaret if she was getting"ruined" out yet. I think that might work as a short description of this trip. Certainly by the time we get home Margaret will have seen a lot of the so-called important ruins and similar sights around the world. Of course we had to miss the stops in Egypt. There are also some others like Angor Wat, Agra, Machu Picchu, Easter Island, and the Great Wall, but you can't see everything in one trip around.