Day 11: Tues. Aug 28. The Amalfi Coast, Italy

Today was our last day and our last tour.  We met our group at 8:10 am.  This was the largest tour I had booked with 12 people on a mini-bus.  It was also our first tour that had several kids… this really slows ya down because you got to get out the strollers, load the strollers, track the kids down, etc, etc.  Also a few hours in Kory said “I am all sightseeing’d out.”  I definitely agree.  This was a rough tour day.
It started with driving about an hour along the Amalfi coast with views into the sea.  I was getting car sick because you drive at the edge of mountains back and forth, back and forth along the very very edge almost ready to go over.  I am also afraid of heights, which didn’t help matters.  We finally got to the overlook of Positano and stopped for about ten minutes to take pictures.  Then we turned around and drove back to Sorrento.

Our driver, Pasquale, dropped us off in Sorrento with basically no background or information.  Not that I wanted him to be talking to us during the harrowing drive, but we didn’t know what we should do for three and a half hours.  Kory mentioned at some point that he doesn’t understand the lawlessness of the roads, the scooters zipping everywhere, everyone driving for 5 to 100 miles an hour and then slam on the breaks, and yet traffic keeps moving everywhere we have been… Not at all like the U.S.

Anyways, back to Sorrento.  We sat at a cafe and had breakfast.  Kory was happy for the authentic cappuccino.  I was happy to be sitting in the center square of the city people watching.  We observed a little tourist train tour going around the streets, so we decided maybe that was the best way to see the city.  It was 6 euros each for the half hour tour.  It showed us that Sorrento is really quite small… around 19,000 population.  But it has tons of tourists and tons of scheduled boat service to other islands and other places around the coast.  If I came back, I would definitely do a tour by boat.  After the train ride, we just walked around the streets for an hour and a half looking at shops and the sights by the sea.  It was interesting because the beach is so far down the cliff-side that it really isn’t a beach.  It is like individual places that build piers for sunbathing over the water.

From Sorrento, we had a two hour tour of Pompeii.  To me it was the most interesting sight of the day, and so, so huge.  We only scratched the surface of what is on display there, but it is interesting that you could really see an ancient city and how daily life existed and walk the nieghborhoods to see all the different houses, public places, squares and theatres.  Enough of the remains exist that I can use my imagination to fill in the rest of the buildings.  Definitely a visit I will remember.
After Pompeii and another nine hour touring day, we got back to the ship just after 5:30 pm.  We made one last visit to the thermal spa and then had dinner at the Italian buffet for our last meal.  Then it was onward to looking at the pictures they took all cruise and packing up all our luggage.  Then we turned in fairly early to prepare for our travel home day.