Ferry to Capri

There is no quick and easy way to visit all three of Capri, Sorrento and Pompeii on your own in one day. So we Joined a tour from the cruise ship. We left at 8 am to take a ferry to Capri. The boat ride was about 45 minutes. When we got off the boat the sun came up from behind Mount Vesuvius. For a few seconds the sun was just at the tip of the volcano. It was quite unforgettable. 

Then we took the funicular (tram) up the hill to the top. Capri is a small hilly island. A bunch of brand name shops and jewelry stores lined the streets in the town. The tour guide led us to Augustus Garden. Along the way I saw some nice boutique hotels built along the hills. A hotel has a bull sculpture in front. From the top there is a nice view of a winding path that goes along the steep hill down to a rocky shore. The morning sunlight sparkled off of the blue water below. After a short stay we returned to the funicular and took the ferry from Grande Marina to Sorrento (25 min).

Sorrento
Sorrento is supposed to have very good food. The tour guide took us for a short walk to a restaurant to have lunch. Lunch was not that good compared to New York but I can't remember what I had. Most of the restaurants and shops are rather small. Since there are many tour groups, each tour guide took the groups to various restaurants. May be other tour groups went to a better restaurant. Along the narrow streets, we saw local residences that are two to three stories high. Some houses and small churches look really old. There are many architectural details in the houses. I also saw colorful frescos on some of the walls. I particularly remember yellow walls on some of the houses. After lunch the guide took us to a woodworking shop. The furniture and wood items are decorated with wood veneer mosaic. The store presented a talk and demo on woodworking. We bought a small wood veneer box. Then, the group head to Pompeii. 

The drive along the coast of Sorrento is rather famous. The road is built on the top edge of the cliffs that rose above the sea for about a hundred feet. As the tour bus snaked its way through the curves of the road we saw beautiful houses along the hillside. Some larger houses has expansive veranda overlooking the shore. Very picturesque indeed.  

Pompeii
Pompeii was the town buried by volcano ash from ancient times 79 AD. We walked the ruins with the tour group. There were stone mosaic tiles on the floor, frescos on the wall. We saw bar stove, small rooms of ruined houses, and potty benches. There are some reconstructed models of victims made out of clad from the hollow spaces they found in the site. In the ancient volcanic eruption the town was covered in several feet deep of volcanic ash. People and things were buried in the ash. During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids between the ash layers that once held human bodies. This allowed one to see the exact position the person was in when he or she died.

Cameo factory
Lastly we visited a cameo factory. Cameo is a kind of shell and was carved into decorative items and jewelry. Most of them are white with blue or brown colors. Some of the buttons are in the traditional shapes of a female head or a coat of arms. An old cameo master did a demo for us. This concludes the tour and we returned to the cruise ship.