The Hixson Holiday Headlines: Naples, Italy

Naples, Italy Tuesday, April 7, 2015 Trip to Pompei

It was nice to see the bright sunshine this morning even if it was a cool 55. The traffic in Naples was bustling. We had been warned that the drivers were wild....we noticed all the dents in the cars . We were also told that the red lights were just for decoration...so we nervously crossed the streets even with a green pedestrian walking light. Larry and I caught Tram 1 down to the train station and boarded the south bound choo-choo for Pompei…It was loaded with people and we felt lucky to have a seat for the 45 minute ride….many were standing the whole way.

Graffitti appears a lot in Naples and Pompei.

What a pretty flower display!

We arrived about 10:30 and could not believe the long, long line to buy tickets to go inside. We immediately said, "NO Way" to standing in line and started taking our own tour of the city of Pompei.

Lemons grow like weeds in this part of Italy....aren't they tremendous?

Mt. Vesuvious is still standing tall over the city. Its eruption buried the city long ago.

We managed to see some of the old Pompei through the iron fencing on our walk into town.

This town was bustling with loads of traffic and a ton of tour buses. We enjoyed talking with some of the other folks visiting the area and also had a nice lunch at a sidewalk café.

The sidewalks had beautiful designs.

We walked to the city center and saw the huge cathedral that swallowed the park in front of it.

Looks like the Pope has been here.

It ended up being a great day riding the train and trying to talk to the local Italians. They seem to enjoy practicing their English with us as much as we enjoy finding out Italy.

Wednesday and Thursday, April 8 and 9, 2015 Traveling to Tanzania
We left the Pullmantur Sovernign at 9:00am Wednesday in Civitavecchia, Italy taking the shuttle to the port entrance and catching another town bus to the train station. The train took us into Rome arriving at 11:50am. From the huge Rome station we caught the 12:00 noon train to Rome Airport arriving at 12:30pm. It took us from 12:30-3:00pm to get through customs and all the TSA luggage checking....It was a busy, busy day at the airport.

We left Rome at 4:30pm on Qatar Airline and arrived in Doha, Qatar over next to Abudahbi, at 11:00pm. After a short nap in the airport hotel till 5:00am, we waited patiently for our 6:30am flight that was delayed till 7:30am and didn't take off till 7:45pm. The pilot informed us that our flight to Kilimanjaro was now going further south to Dar es Salaam, the old capitol of Tanzania with an additional 2 hours added to our flight due to flying around Yemen because of the fighting going on there now. After the plane landed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, we sat on the plane for an hour and half before it took off again to take us to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania arriving around 5:00. Here we had to arrange for a visa with two crisp, brand new 100 dollar bills. The country will not exchange face value amount for any USA bills dating before 2004...so glad we were informed about this before the trip.