Naples, Italy: We had an early morning sail-in to the bay at Naples, after a smooth night of cruising down the coast from Livorno, aka Leghorn, the port for Pisa and Florence.
Day before yesterday we visited Monaco/Monte Carlo. The Monegasques make a big deal out of Princess Grace Grimaldi, nee Kelly, much the same as the Brits make a big deal out of Princess Diana, and for the same reasons: money.
Both Princesses are tourist draws, tourists bring and spend money without costing the visited country much in terms of resources. Oddly, the official painted portraits of Grace we saw in the Grimaldi palace didn’t do her justice, she was a truly beautiful woman as her photos show. I wonder what that portrait beauty shortfall is about?
Monaco has a stunning setting, built on a coastal hillside facing south into the Mediterranean sun. Many of the newer buildings have rooftop gardens with medium sized trees as well as smaller greenery – very practical as there isn’t room for “grounds” otherwise.
We spent a lazy day on board yesterday as we’ve visited Pisa recently and will see Florence on the way back. I checked out several novels from the ship’s library, mostly for reading on the trans-Atlantic crossing.
Today we visit Herculaneum, the less-well-known town that was buried at the same time as Pompeii. Our tour leaves in early afternoon – an odd time but there it is. We will see Pompeii on the second half of the cruise. More about Herculaneum later.
Thoughts about cruise passengers: most are seniors and white. There are a few Asians and African-Americans, about 2% of the passengers. We see more African-Americans on cruises to the Caribbean, as well as more black staff on those ships. Marketing issue for cruise lines: in the future as whites make up smaller percentages of senior Americans, will the cruising market dry up? Or will destinations change?
Later…we did the Herculaneum tour earlier this afternoon. Herculaneum itself was good, although our guide Guido was not great, his Napoli accent was so strong. The ruins are in quite good condition, and remarkably detailed. I like the Roman sense of city planning - rectangular blocks, straight streets, standard street widths, provision of plumbing and fresh water.
The Romans were amazing builders, they did architectural things nobody else at the time even came close to doing. They worked with cement, faked marble columns, did beautiful mosaic work, and had sophisticated systems for keeping streets clean and flushing. They laid building stone work “on the bias” – something nobody else has done, to this day.
