October 10: Day 7: Naples

We were up at 6 this morning for breakfast before meeting our tour mates at 7 for our private van tour of the Amalfi coast. We had a great driver and laughed all day. He is single and asked us if we new any single women. We told him Gladys and Enid would be in Naples in the next few weeks and if they didn’t had a driver lined up would send them his way. Touring together today was Liz & Rick from Florida, Tim & Joy, Jim & Jane and Charlene (Sam now has the cold/cough/congestion the rest of us has had since arrival in Venice, so he decided to stay on the ship and rest). We visited several towns along the coast and had a lovely lunch on a terrace overlooking the coast. He kept telling us when we stopped that the best prices for shopping was in Sorrento but by the time we got to Sorrento we only had time for one stop and it was at the inlaid wood factory. I had 30 bags of lemon candy on my shopping list and was waiting for Sorrento to buy them, but we did not have any time left. I did pick up 5 bags in Amalfi at 4 euros each but was hoping to find them at a better price in Sorrento. Francesco, our driver, helped us buy hydrofoil (boat) tickets from Sorrento straight across the Bay of Naples for a quicker return to the ship than the drive would have been. The ride was very smooth and in less than 30 minutes we were docked at the next pier over from our ships slot. We had time for a quick trip to the thermal suite on the ship before sail away. The thermal suite features heated stone loungers, steam rooms and sauna with rainforest showers to rinse off between the rooms you choose to use. This seemed to help loosen some of the remaining congestion I have up. Hopefully it will be all gone soon.