Serenade of the Seas picture heavy fun review–12 day Med cruise incl DIY port trips!

Stef...I love such tours and places where you can go normally nobody is allowed...where did you booked it? We've been to Colloseum 2011 but only at the public places...

 

btw.

Thanks for the detailed review...in only 10 days i also will be there...so excited...

Hi Mycraft,

This is where we got our tour tickets:

http://www.rome-museum.com/booking-colosseum-third-tier-hypogeum-porta-libitinaria.php

after the (extraordinary) tour you're free to see all the public areas as well -- but once you're done with the tour -- quite frankly -- you'll be pooped....but I'm getting ahead of myself here...wait and see about the rest of the tour!

Stef

Rome (last part)

After realizing that we were actually standing on 2000 years of history….

(see the amazing original stone floor in the middle?)

…..we left the underground section. After passing through a small part of the public part (here we actually did need the audiohelp, since it was so crowded we couldn’t understand Francesca without it anymore), we headed up these stairs to get to a chained off section once again.

We finally had arrived on the third ring

The whole area – once again – deserted…We had room to breathe and move around freely…after Francesca told us lots and lots of interesting stuff once more

You had a breathtaking view of the Forum from here

And last but not least the best possible view of the whole interiour of the Collosseum.

After letting us enjoy our privacy up here for a couple of more minutes, Francesca brought us back to the second ring (the public area), collected the audio devices and said goodbye. We assured her we had the best possible time and we enjoyed it immensely! She even spoke some German! Tarik could have asked her all kinds of stuff --- but he was a bit too chicken….or simply overwhelmed by all the impressions (and translated information overdose).

We then had the option to take all the time we wanted to stroll around the public part…But we felt that one more piece of info about this place would surely make our heads burst! Not only the kid was a bit over the top. Don’t get me wrong – it was FANTASTIC!!!! But after this tour we needed some time to digest all the info and impressions. It was sufficient and we just didn’t feel like joining the herds on the public levels…We made our way to the exit (sigh, which basically gives you a good tour as well) and we were off to the Metro.

The way back to Civitavecchia was uneventful. The Metro worked out nicely and Termini wasn’t such a hastle anymore, because we knew where to find those moveable bands to our platform. The train to Civitavecchia was already there and we could grab a seat and chat about all that we had seen…this way the train ride flew by. Since we took an early train out of Rome – I believe it was the 14:28 train, we arrived at the port real early as well…no tourist hordes waiting for shuttlebusses yet at all….how very pleasant. We just entered an empty shuttle bus and a minute after that we were on our way to the ship …. YES! Rome can be done without stress. We were proud of ourselves. The ship was basically deserted again and we ate about a ton of food at the Park Café! We were starved!

Thought on Rome:

This was the second time Tanja and I went to Rome on a cruise ship. I really value all the historic stuff we saw this time and am glad we did it. I wouldn’t want to miss it. However this day would not compel me to return to Rome. Maybe it’s just us, but I didn’t get the “Rome” feeling in these ancient ruins. I missed the vibes from the actual “modern” city which is so intermingled with the ancient ruins and palaces in town. I don’t get that feeling either at the Forum or the Collosseum but I did feel it intensely on our walks through the city last year….not the coin in the Trevi fountain made me want to return (quite the opposite) but this unique Roman feeling….real hard to describe…I guess you’ll have to experience it for yourselves. I definitely want to return to Rome (as many times as possible). There will be more archaeological sites in the planning, but I’ll try to limit that and get some actual city stuff in there as well --- otherwise I’d feel that I missed Rome.

Stuff I learned in Rome this year:

Rome has many faces – today we only saw part of the ancient one.

Always book your Collosseum tickets online – and if possible book the third ring tour!

Simultaneous translating sucks if you’re hooked to the words of the tourguide.

Don’t say a train station sucks if you’re too stupid to find the moveable walkways.

Next up: the evening on the ship (Yes – we finally saw a show!)

Intermezzo Civitavecchia – Salerno

This evening – like every evening so far the thunderstorm caught up with us.

And so we enjoyed a beautiful rainbow while leaving the port.

Oops – not meant as an advertisement for the European opponent. (Although my parents did enjoy their cruise on the MSC Musica)

Before dinner they had the crown and anchor welcoming in the Safari Lounge… cool – once again free champagne.

All the officers in their neat uniforms lined up to welcome you as you entered the club --- nice.

Because of our dinner reservations we had to leave early though, which was a tiny bit embarrassing, since we had to walk this line of people in the WRONG direction. Never a paper bag around when you need it to pull it over your head.

Tonight we actually went to see a show. Since we weren’t out all day in Rome we still had some energy left to spare.

This was tonight’s show:

We went in expecting a singer….and that’s what she started with…singing. We thought … oh well, let’s see if we’ll sit through this. She wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t amazing either. But after the first initial singing part she started to chat. And now we started to really enjoy this show. She was hilariously funny! And after really starting to like her we didn’t even mind her singing some more. It was a really fun show and we’d go again for sure!

Next up: Salerno!

Day 5 -- Salerno

Cruise compasses coming up:

more to come!

Day 5 – Salerno (part one of seven)

We left the ship real early again and took the first shuttle bus off the harbour.

Recognize these two in front of us?

Bingo! Tatiana and Steven! Hooray! We really didn’t plan these meetings! They were headed to town to be met by Tatiana’s cousin who lives on the Amalfi Coast. How awsome would it be to have a cousin there? We were happy for them.

Once again this is a port where you can definitely not walk around!

Lots of containers, tight passageways, quite chaotic Italian-style parking and storing all kinds of goods --- but what’s best: hundreds of brand new pandas to be shipped into the world from here! Whoohoo – I simply cannot believe none of us took a picture of them! Shame on us!

Anway, the shuttle bus brings you to a central place in Salerno. It’s only about a 5-10 minute ride (depending on just how adventurous the parking of the locals turned out in the port).

When we were dropped off I was missing my camera bag. I ran back to the bus, because I thought I must have dropped it in the bus. The driver was really nice and let me look for it… I crawled around the floor by our seats, but no use – it had evaporated. Bummer! Now I had to carry the camera around in my hands or stick it in a pocket (when available) for the rest of the cruise…What a nuisance. I guess it teaches you to pay better attention to your stuff. Not after disembarkation on the last cruise day it occurred to me that someone might have found it and turned it in at guest services…duhhh… I guess it could still lie there today.

Anyway – let’s get back to Salerno. The walk to the train station is the simplest we encountered so far. You cross the street and walk away from the sea alongside the parking lot to the next street. Here you turn right for one block and then when you turn left you already see the train station. Less than 3 minutes walk! Getting the tickets is easy if you know in which line to wait. There are two ticket booths. The left one for all trains, the right one just for fast, non regional trains. Ofcourse we didn’t know that and of course we stood in the wrong right line…Sigh – well, no biggy – we stood in line again on the left side and got our tickets. We mysteriously got two tickets per person per ride each??? Is it a Zone thing? We weren’t sure if this was right, but we validated them all just in case…They’re €2,20 each – so we paid €8,80 per person for the day. Not too bad.

Oh, I just notice I haven’t even told you what our plans were for this day. Sorry about that. Here we go:

First of all we wanted to go to Pompei to experience it in the morning before the hordes get there. We wanted to enter at the back entrance and make our way up to the main entrance, with several presorted sights to see along the way. At the main entrance we wanted to hop into a bus to bring us to Vesuvio. I had timetables and all…the bonus of this bus would be that it would bring us back to Pompei afterwards, especially to the back entrance as well, as it would be closer to walk back to the train station from here. Attention – the other train station Pompei scavi – conveniently located right at the Pompei main entrance DOES NOT go to Salerno!

Anyway, back to the Salerno train station. There are two different kinds of trains that go to Napoli (Naples) which stop in Pompei along the way…a fast version (25 minute ride – Pompei is either the second or the third stop depending on the train) or the slow version (45 minute ride – Pompei is the 9th stop along the way). Since we were off the ship early and the walk to the station was a breeze, we had no problem getting the 8:01 fast train (even with having waited in two lines).

Whoohoo - Off to Pompei!

First view of the Volcano!

When you get off at Pompei station (pink building –you can’t miss it) you cross the circular drive to walk directly away from the main entrance.

You keep on walking to this tower in the picture, turn left there and after one block turn right again. Now you automatically get to a bigger busy street with pretty flooring that will bring you to the back entrance of the Pompei archaeological site (take a left onto this street). There are all kinds of tourist booths coming up now wanting to sell you tours through Pompei and to Vesuvio – don’t buy anything—but feel free to take the free map along that they give you.

Along our path, right after we left the train station we were accompanied by a local….

We named him “Humpelchen” (limpy). We failed to advise Tarik beforehand, that you don’t pet street dogs. So harm was done and this friendly fellow had hopes to join our pack. He had a severe limp (therefore the name) and all my vet sensors were blinking like crazy. But there was really nothing I could have done there and then anyway, so I needed to let it go (that was tough!).

Humpelchen accompanied us almost all the way to the Pompei entrance, trying to regain our attention. It was so cool to see how much “wolfish” behaviour was still in these dogs. His gestures were very submissive as he tried to gain access to be a member of our pack. He figured Tanja was the pack leader and when he couldn’t get our attention otherwise, he brought a piece of bread from who knows where and laid it in front of her feet. When she walked past he picked it up three more times to offer it to her again in the same manner. Finally he accepted the fact that his gift was not being accepted and ate the bread himself. Just to trot along behind us still – but with a little more distance. We were wondering if he would attempt to walk into the archaeological site as well, but something (someone) else came up to shoosh him away. The canine fatso Mafiaboss and his little terrier-assistant were on patrol around the archaeological site. Tail way up in the air they quickly “convinced” Humpelchen to skoot, since he had entered their territory without permission. Standing no chance against these two brutes Humpelchen ran away. Poor baby. Tarik asked me if there would be street dogs within the archaeological site as well. I answered that I don’t think the people at the entrances would let them pass. I was severly underestimating their digging skills. Who needs an entrance if you’re a dog? Sorry – my mistake. But more on Pompei in the next post!

More to come!

Thanks for the useful info about Salerno and the train station. As for having someone who lives on the Amalfi coast - our son is moving to Salerno to spend a year at the University there. This is one of the reasons we booked this Serenade cruise as he'll be with us and will get to explore the town which will become his new home less than a week after we get off our cruise in September.

We'll spend our day exploring the town and finding all the key places for him - the train station being one of them as he'll be arriving there on his own :eek:

Looking forward to your pictures of Pompei - we visited a few years ago, it's wonderful :)

Salerno (part two of seven)

Ancient Pompei

This is the back entrance…

We’re about to go in. The people before us didn’t have their kids ID’s with them…bummer, this way their kids had to pay admission as well. If you’re a European resident … and that includes all you British folks as well (I believe your emotions are differing on this fact sometimes ;-) ), your kids below the age of 18 enter for FREE!!!!! All you need to do is show their ID.

So we were prepared and got out Tarik’s ID…and then they didn’t even want to see it!

???

Do we look or sound soooo European, that they didn’t even flinch to give us his free ticket? I don’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted. But this isn’t really interesting for you guys, so let’s move on.

We entered into a completely deserted Pompei – even the people that entered before us had mysteriously disappeared.

Wow – to wander around this place with really nobody else around was magical, fascinating, awe inspiring and spooky all at the same time.

Did I say nobody? Well, Tarik found somebody hanging out here:

There’s the fatso Mafiaboss and his terrier assistant again. Of course Fatso gets the best coolingdown spot on the wet ground. Boss privileges afterall.

The Amphitheatre was completely lacking human spectators.

And now guess what – Tarik LOVED this place MORE than the Flavian Amphitheatre (the Collosseum) in Rome! He said here you still had the feeling that it was the way it was when they still used it. He walked all through the arena pretending to be a gladiator. I’m sure in his mind the ranks were filled with thousands of anciently clad spectators. With no “modern” people around to interfere with his daydream he had a blast.

This Amphitheatre was one of the new highlights of his cruise (So far we’ve got 1. Sagrada Familia, 2. Cars in Monaco and now 3. Pompeii amphitheatre in the run for being his favourite site).

Before the cruise we decided on the sites we wanted to see in Pompei the most and printed out maps to get there and info about them on sheets of paper again. This worked out great! We mostly got around to cover our plans…just the House of Menander was sectioned off together with more buildings in that complex because of lawn mowing activities…Gah! But we did also stumble into sites that we didn’t have on our itinerary that made more than up for it. There is no way you can see all of Pompei…or at least not thoroughly. We loved the first part of our visit best, since we got to experience everything without others around.

See the empty streets? It almost felt like it was 79 a.d. when the volcano had just destroyed all life here…well yay –we were still about to climb that still ACTIVE volcano later on that day…gulp!

More on Pompei in the next post!

More to come!

Stef,

Thanks again for your great travelogue and photos.

I fly to Barcelona tomorrow and will board Serenade of the Seas on Friday, 8/23. I'm really looking forward to the cruise and your great review has increased the anticipation.

I'll catch up with the rest of your review when I return on 9/5.

Hobie.

our son is moving to Salerno to spend a year at the University there. This is one of the reasons we booked this Serenade cruise as he'll be with us and will get to explore the town which will become his new home less than a week after we get off our cruise in September.

 

We'll spend our day exploring the town and finding all the key places for him - the train station being one of them as he'll be arriving there on his own :eek:

Hi Bobal,

thanks for posting... I started to feel lonely here.

Wow-- not only will your son enjoy southern Italy for a whole year ... no, you even invite him to see this place via a med cruise beforehand! You should be awarded some kind of parent of the year medal! Seriously -- just enjoy the cruise with him before he's off to explore the world himself...If he's brave enough to go abroad for a year -- he'll surely manage such a trifle thing like the train station. I believe that going to all the key places will be mainly useful for the parental ease---not the kid's---he'll be fine anyway!

Stef

Stef,

 

Thanks again for your great travelogue and photos.

 

I fly to Barcelona tomorrow and will board Serenade of the Seas on Friday, 8/23. I'm really looking forward to the cruise and your great review has increased the anticipation.

 

I'll catch up with the rest of your review when I return on 9/5.

 

Hobie.

Hi Hobie,

thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful cruise! I'll be here when you get back...so many stuff to write on still that I doubt I'll be finished until the middle of September. Have fun:)!

Stef

Love reading each new post. I look forward to your next adventure post!! And, I didn't know about the third ring tour. Now that is on my list for my next Rome trip.

Salerno (part three of seven)

Ancient Pompei continued

We checked out the ancient fast food restaurants

This is the lovely merchant Tanja pretending to sell her wonderful food to the ancient Pompeian Tarik. He does seem to be inclined to buy some of it.

These pedestrian stepping stones were even more impressive in real live than in any book.

We saw several more cool houses from the inside and out until it happened… the hordes arrived. They hit us like a tidal wave on our way to the theatre (not the Amphitheatre!). Apparently there was a Princess cruise docked in Naples. Plus the first paddles with RCI on them started to kick in as well. It was a pain in the … ! Boy were we glad we were here early and got to enjoy this place on our own. We sat down in the theatre after fighting our way through at least 5 different cruise tours with paddle people in front.

see us sitting there taking a break?

Oh well, we still wanted to see the Thermal bathing house, the Forum and the brothel. The bath and the forum were partially crowded. But by the time we got to the brothel a line had formed outside of the building of people wanting to check it out. Sigh – the mystical feeling from early in the morning had evaporated completely by now.

We did wait in line, just to say we’ve been there, done that. Check. Fun experience? No! All we wanted was to get out of here.

Tanja took one more cool Photo of this statue

This is the less photographed one of two…the other one has more of her arm remaining and you can see more clearly that those hands held a bow and arrow once. But this one had an eerie charm….Look at those eyes!

Finally we reached the main entrance (or for us – exit) to the Pompei archaeological site.

Off to the next adventure of the day – little did we know just how much adventure awaited us!

More to come!

I sure have loved reading your review. I have caught up now and will just have to wait patiently. You have a great talent for writing travel reviews and taking the pictures makes it feel like we are right there with you! Thank you for taking the time to make it so detailed!!:)

Love reading each new post. I look forward to your next adventure post!! And, I didn't know about the third ring tour. Now that is on my list for my next Rome trip.

Hi ms8654,

thanks again! One of the reasons I'm writing this is to encourage people to enjoy some of the brilliant things we did as well:)---and of course not do the same mistakes:o...so if you say you'll try the third ring tour I guess I can say: Mission accomplished:D!

Stef

I sure have loved reading your review. I have caught up now and will just have to wait patiently.

Hi Sherman793,

Welcome to the review! Thank You! I'll try to keep up the pace...but there might be a day or two in between posts sometimes...but not often:)! This is pretty addictive to write...feels like being back on the cruise -- loving it!

Stef

Salerno (part four of seven)

Vesuvio

When we exited through the main entrance, we almost fell into a train station. This is a special railway line, that runs between Naples and Pompei Scavi…It has absolutely nothing to do with the regular trenitalia ferovia train station!!!! Do not get on a train here if you don’t want to go to Naples…If your cruise ship of course docks in Naples you have the choice…either take the Circumvesuviana train to this station (Pompei scavi) and enter at the main entrance…or take the regional train to Pompei (just Pompei) to walk to the back entrance (Ingresso Amphiteatro). I would always choose to take the back entrance way early in the morning – which you know already, since you’re reading this review. Sorry, I guess that was obvious. But enough on Pompei – let’s move on.

When we exited the archaeological site we turned right. There were signs to where the bus to Vesuvio was supposed to leave. Mhh, but where to get the tickets for that? Before we even started to look for a booth a person was addressing us asking us if we wanted to go to Vesuvio. We thought he wanted to sell us a full tour and we said we only wanted to buy the bus tickets. He nodded ferociously and said yes,yes – only bus tickets. Tickets are sold over there in the little hut. He gestured to the other side of the street. Okay – so THAT’S where we can buy our bus tickets --- quite logical conclusion, isn’t it? I was a little confused though, because the guy said the next bus would leave in 5 minutes….mhh, according to my schedule printed out at home the next bus wasn’t due till another 40 minutes…but who am I to complain. This is Italy after all and maybe the bus from the hour before was delayed…We hurried into the little ticket booth. The very nice Italian vendor sold us two adult tickets and a child’s… although Tarik actually needed an adult ticket. We were just supposed to tell anybody who wanted to know that he’s 10! Thank God Tarik didn’t understand our conversation right there and then or he would have been upset. Luckily it worked out without any age questions from there on though.

When the guy handed us our tickets we were a little stumped…it had a picture of a brown bus on them, which looked juuust like the one standing outside promoting an offroad adventure to Vesuvio….ahem, what exactly did we just buy? The bus ride I looked up in the internet was a regular travelcoach which should bring you (via regular paved streets) to a parking lot from where on you would have a 30 minute hike up to the crater.

Well it was obvious that we just bought something completely different.

Okay, we’re no sissies! Let’s see what we had gotten ourselves into. We entered the already crowded bus. Tanja and I were able to grab the last two seats. Tarik had to sit on my lap. There were still people getting on…they had to stand entirely. Our tour guide (we had a tour guide???) entered the bus and started to explain what would lay ahead of us. I don’t remember her name…it was a name that I had never heard of before…it really bums me that I forgot…She was a blast! Loved her!

She told us not to worry about having to stand. These busses would only be the first busses to get us to the starting point of the “real” offroad busses. This transfer would only take about ten minutes. Yeah – the way the drivers drove these babies it actually worked out in ten minutes – any other “decent” driver would have needed at least twice that time. I was sure glad I wasn’t standing…people were hanging on for their dear lives! And during our speedy drive towards Vesuvio our tour guide told us a lot of fun facts about the Volcano. Imagine riding a roller coaster while someone is giving you a history lesson! She had a passionate way of teaching us and we were hooked to each and every word. She only paused for splitseconds everytime we passed a religious shrine…which was OFTEN! She very quickly did this sign…you know…the father, the son and the holy spirit…touching first your forehead then your chest and shoulders…what do you call that again? She finished it off by kissing her fingers, which just did this sign. It was cool to watch. Splitseconds after that she continued fervently with her lecture.

By the time we got to the bus changing site I was a lot more relieved about hiking up the volcano…Now I knew it’s the most closely monitored Volcano in the world and that scientists believe they’ll be able to warn everybody 3 weeks ahead of time if there might be an eruption…She added though that she’d be happy if that meant 3 days in advance. Her family lives in the most dangerous zone around the Volcano. She talked the whole 10 minutes and I loved every second of it! If anybody recognized her…please post to tell me her name! She was fantastic!

So now we all (shakily) left the first bus to walk over to the offroad busses. Boy did they look cool! Huge tires and an army sort of look. Definitely something you could go on a jungle expedition with…or Siberia… or the Sahara desert…anywhere. I was excited like a little kid! Whoohoo, this was gonna be fun! The bus filled up fast. Tarik and Tanja grabbed the last seats…Mhhh, I couldn’t take Tarik on my lap in this baby, so I mentioned to the driver who still stood outside that there were no more seats… He looked inside, nodded and then gestured me to go up front to sit in the passenger seat!

REALLY?

ME?

All the way up front?

IIIKS!

I almost skipped up there giddy as a four year old. Good thing I didn’t do a cartwheel…Close call as excited as I was!

I took a picture of my loved ones in the back

well you can see Tanja – Tarik’s yellow cap blinks two seats further up…see him? This yellow cap would be an issue today…but be patient.

Surely my loved ones would take a picture of the glorious moment when I was allowed to take a seat WAY in the front, right?

Nooooope! Neither one did. Sad—very sad!

Oh well, so we were ready to get moving…I thought…the bus driver thought so as well…but an American lady had a completely differing opinion on that! She was freaking out big time…we all just didn’t know what her problem was. Finally we understood that she was angry because she didn’t have a working seat belt…I would guess that one third of all the seat belts in this bus didn’t work. This is Italy --- southern Italy …in an offroad truck…so those seatbelts were for decorative purposes only. I don’t even think most people noticed that they were there at all. However after quite some time she said she wanted to leave the bus at once (to put it in nicer words than she actually used). Thankfully a young gal with a working seatbelt understood what her problem was and offered her to take her seat instead. Good job. The lady wasn’t appeased but at least she was silent. After this really unnerving moment in which the bus driver and I bonded with rolling eyes and smirks (no languages needed) we were ready to roll (he simply ignored two more guys who wanted to start their quarrel about missing seat belts as well).

…and finally we were on the road…. Needless to say without seatbelts.

First there was this foresty area

Which turned into shrubs

More to come!

Salerno (part five of seven)

Vesuvio continued

Well, as we were driving along in the offroad bus (it wasn’t too bouncy) suddenly the bus driver mentioned to me to look to the right (always a good thing to bond with the bus driver) and a few seconds later I could take a picture of this view!

We went up further and further…

the bus driver was always on the phone with the other drivers…only one bus fits and they constantly checked where everybody was at. There were only few wider parts to actually pass another bus.

And further up still

Until we arrived at our parking location after approximately 20 minutes (see our cool bus?). From here on there would be a 20 minute steep incline to the crater. The bus driver showed around a sign with a time on it. 13:45…that would be the time our bus would be waiting for us here to bring us back down. Okay, that gave us 1 hour and 45 minutes to look around minus 40 minutes for the hike up and down, so a good hour to spend up on top! Cool!

That hike was hard! We were really happy we wore our hiking boots for this. I still had little pieces of volcanic gravel in them when we returned to Germany.

Never mind the poor security fencing….but rather look on the ground. The ground is real loose and especially for Tanja this was quite a task to pull through. It felt like walking up a sandy dune. Remember her being real brave on the long and strenuous trail in Cinque Terre? Well, this was way harder for her still recovering knee. Half way up she wasn’t sure if she would be able to make it all the way to the top. But after resting the knee for a while and me sweet-talking her into it, she finally kept on walking up.

The views were spectacular!

More to come!

Thanks for lovely review.

can you tell me how this "checking of wine" worked. Was it forced or voluntary?

Here you have to pass another security check where they check the wine bottles. You have to show the bottles and they will write down the amount you brought and your cabin number.

!

Thanks.

Miryam

Hi Miryam1234,

Welcome to the review!

Once we stepped onto the ship they scanned our backpacks once again with an x-ray machine. The ones that contained bottles were hollered over to a near by table, where we had to open the backpack to show the guy there that it was two winebottles. Then he wrote the two wine bottles and our cabin number in a little list he had. All of this was mandatory, not optional. But I don't know if they did this all day long.

Stef

oh stef,

oh how I chuckled at the 'rolling eyes and bonding with the driver' you have just a way with words, that makes your tales come alive.

Hi Lorrdean,

:p you are so sweet! :p I LOVE to hear you like my tales...I was afraid maybe it was getting a bit too detailed.

Next post up will be including a looong story (I'm still in the process of writing it right now), so if you're enjoying details...that ought to be fun for you!

Thank you!

Stef

Hi Lorrdean,

 

:p you are so sweet! :p I LOVE to hear you like my tales...I was afraid maybe it was getting a bit too detailed.

 

Next post up will be including a looong story (I'm still in the process of writing it right now), so if you're enjoying details...that ought to be fun for you!

 

Thank you!

 

Stef

Do you realise I am hanging on your every word and check in at least 5 times a day to see if you have added more:D

Liz

Do you realise I am hanging on your every word and check in at least 5 times a day to see if you have added more:D

 

Liz

Hi Liz,

:eek: speechless for once :eek:

:D:D:D

Thank You! Next post coming up in a few minutes!

Stef

Salerno (part six of seven)

Vesuvio continued

It took us a little longer to get up there, but we made it afterall

When we walked around the crater we first saw some construction workers doing some repair on a couple of stairs. Mhhh how did they get all that material up here? We turned around the next corner and we saw it…a car ….the ONLY car on the top of Vesuvius….guess what kind it was?

Woohoo!!!!! Pandapower!!!!!!

We got to see some more fabulous scenery.

And then all hell broke loose.

No --- not the volcano --- the kid!

Attention: this is a long story….if you don’t want to read it feel free to skip the rest of this post!

In order for you to understand I need to take a minute to explain the surrounding of the Volcano Crater. Basically there is only one big trail. On the one side of the mountain there is the parking lot for the offroad busses (the one we took). On the other side of the mountain is the parking lot for the regular busses, tour busses and private cars. To get to the crater – no matter from which parking lot you have to hike up a pretty strenuous slippery gravel path to a first checkpoint hut before entering the actual crater surrounding region with the center souvenir/resting hut.

Depending on which path you came up on you get a sticker to stick visibly onto your chest. There will be a person at the checkpoint huts (identical huts on each side) to (loosely) check if you’re about to hike down the right path according to your sticker.

So now we had already passed our checkpoint hut after coming up the “offroad” side. We stood by the crater, goggling in and were quite wow’ed. Tarik said he’d run ahead to get to a better picture taking spot from the platform near the hut on top. I said okay—go ahead, I’ll meet you up there in a little bit….I mean I saw the platform on the other side of the crater. Tarik saw it too…what could possibly go wrong? There were a lot of people around but he’d manage to squeeze through.

See? The people up there? That’s where we wanted to meet up.

Tanja and I took our time to take pictures of the panda, the crater and the scenery. Slowly we started to wander towards the top hut and the platform which would be a little bit further still.

When we reached the top hut we couldn’t spot Tarik – no problem, since we said we would meet at the platform…not the hut. Tanja’s knee was giving her a hard time after the hike, so she decided to rest at the hut while I was heading to go join the kid at the picture taking spot.

How convenient he’s wearing that yellow cap I thought---it’s so easy to spot him this way. I started to scan the masses for a yellow cap….nothing. I started to get a little uncomfortable. Where was that kid? Okay maybe he took off the cap because he was hot…Now I did a thorough scan of all the people around. Still no Tarik. Mhhhh, I was a hundred percent sure he didn’t pass me on the path back to the top hut. So there was only one logical conclusion…He had continued to walk along the path. Maybe he thought he could find an even better picture taking spot on his way to the other sides checkpoint hut? I started to walk into that direction…not yet at an alarmed pace.

I scanned the masses real thoroughly all the way up to the “wrong” checkpoint hut. No Tarik. Maybe he looked in the hut for souveniers? I looked there too…no Tarik. Okay—time to start panicking! There was only one possibility—he must have continued on this path down the mountain on the wrong side. When I wanted to pass to track him down of course I was told by the person watching the flow “Wrong side” “Wrong side” No kidding!

I must apologize – I don’t remember if I was rude to him or not… I was just so worried that I jelled something like “I KNOW” back at the poor guy. Once again—really sorry! I rushed past him and paced down the path…after about 5 minutes I could see quite a bit of that path ahead…no yellow cap.

I started wondering…maybe he DID pass me afterall – he surely wouldn’t be so stupid to walk down all this path? Am I maybe just overreacting, while he has already joined Tanja at the top hut, waiting for me to return? Either he was with Tanja already and I was just being a neurotic motherhen, or Tanja didn’t even know yet that the kid had disappeared! Plus the deadline to start heading back down the OTHER side of the mountain was quickly getting nearer. I turned around and started to jog up that path…

steep trail, loose gravel ground and I was the one with the big backpack jogging along uphill! I was drenched in sweat once I got to the top hut…Please let him be there , please, please, please!

Tanja sat there alone.

I asked her have you seen Tarik? She was a little confused and said no, wasn’t he supposed to be with you? Well YES---but the darn kid apparently didn’t listen when I said we’ll meet at that platform. Argh! Tanja hadn’t payed a whole lot of attention to the passing crowds, why should she? So she couldn’t say for sure that Tarik hadn’t passed her while heading into the “right” direction looking for us.

For a panic situation I must say we stayed pretty calm. I was pretty sure that he must have walked down to the wrong parking lot. I needed to go get him, no doubt…but I wouldn’t be able to hike all the way down the half hour path and up again to THEN hike down the right path to get to our offroad bus in time.

Time for emergency mode.

Tanja gave me her wallet with the remaining money – she only kept her ID and her credit card. I kept the backpack, since the kid would be pretty dehydrated by now. I took Tanja’s watch, so I could be able to tell as to which time it would be possible to return with the lost kid to the off road parking lot.

Tanja would walk towards the offroad busses, scanning the crowds as she would go and hopefully spot him along the way. I’d walk down the “wrong” direction (of course also scanning the crowds) to the regular parking lot. If he really hiked all the way down there, there wouldn’t be enough time for me to get to Tanja and our bus…so I would have to improvise to get Tarik and me (or only me if he wasn’t there) back to the main entrance of Pompei…where we would meet Tanja again, who’d take the offroad bus, explaining to the driver why he wouldn’t have to wait for 2 passengers. You get the picture!

If –and we hardly dared to think this thought, he wouldn’t be found by either one of us by the time we’d have met at the Pompei entrance we’d notify the police and start a big search.

So far we weren’t really that experienced with scary child situations – I mean we are foster parents for Tarik for 10 months now and before that for Dana for 8 months …would any of you lifelong parents have reacted any differently?

However we started to act out our plan. Tanja was headed into one direction, me into the other. Once again I passed the platform and the wrong checkpoint hut. The guy glared at me…I think I really was rude the last time I passed – really, really sorry! Shortly after I started my descent I spotted a yellow cap!

Oh you cannot believe how relieved I was!

The kid looked pooped (no wonder—he just hiked back up a substantial amount of the wrong trail) but okay. Now all the adrenaline broke loose. Fear was exchanged with anger. Tarik had a VERY unpleasant lecture on the need to listen, reliability and trust. But the real intense talk would still be ahead of him once we caught up with Tanja. Since (at least) he hiked back up by himself we could still manage to catch our bus on the other side. I told Tarik to hurry ahead to tell Tanja he’s okay---since she was a worried wreck by now! Since I had the heavy backpack I’d try to follow as fast as I could.

Maybe I should have learned from the situation and not have sent him ahead…but give me a break -- he’s 13 years old! And he just promised to listen better from now on. Anyway, he was on a mission to catch up with Tanja. At first I saw him jogging ahead. Then we passed the wrong security hut, the platform and the top hut…and suddenly I couldn’t see a yellow cap in front of me anymore…..oh please---not again! I turned a corner with some rocks to block the view to find a bulk of people gathering around something…I couldn’t tell what it was…until I came closer to see a yellow cap on the ground. Oh NO! What now?

Tarik had fallen down and bruised his knee on the volcano gravel. It looked quite bloody. Of course he was crying intensely and the multilingual crowd tried to help him out as good as they could. We had people handing bandaids, tissue, trying to talk to him in a soothing voice and giving advice as to walk more slowly – duhh, not what he needs right now – especially in many languages which he understands none of. I shooshed them away and cleaned his knee with some water and tissues. He said he didn’t pay attention to the ground and he tripped over a rock. Sigh! Now I was the meanie who sent him to catch up with Tanja… well, this little injury incident made it impossible to catch up with her before she would have reached the off road parking lot anyway, so I advised him to stay with me, so no more catastrophes could happen today.

We made it down to the right lot and Tanja was relieved to see us stumble down the mountain towards her.

Returning with the lost son…do you see how relieved I am?

Tarik did have to endure one more intense lecture about what general behaviour was to be expected of an almost 14 year old. Then Tanja told him about the time when she fell down on a mountain in Bavaria, when she was just as old as him---she tripped over a root instead of a rock, but she also bruised her left leg pretty bad. Now they could compare injuries. Both left legs…old scars on Tanja’s leg---soon to be scars on Tarik’s leg. If you don’t like to see blood---scroll down real fast to skip the next picture!

We disinfected the knee later on in our cabin – good thing I brought that medical kit and even went to go see the medical station, just to make sure the bruise isn’t too deep.

But for now all we wanted was to get back to the ship.

More to come!

ohh poor Tarik, I hope his knee better now x:)