Trip log, day three. The home of pizza, Naples, Italy.
7-Night Mediterranean Cruise
June 4, 2018
After a relaxing day at sea, we woke up in Naples, our first port of call on this 7-night voyage. Emily went to the gym and Cabanas before Isabelle and I even woke up. We did not have any early plans ashore so Isabelle and I causally went up for breakfast at Cabanas while Emily showered. We returned to the stateroom to get our day bags together.
There was a bit of misinformation between the navigator and the announcements. It turns out the personal navigator printout and the app has boilerplate text regarding required documents ashore that was not updated for each specific port. I called down to Guest Services to clear things up and learned passports are required ashore in Naples as well as the other ports on our sailing. A small, but important detail that was ignored in the navigator layout for the day.
With our day bags packed we set off to explore Naples as an “independent guests” per Darren AKA those risking life ashore not on a DCL Port Adventure. Frankly, there wasn’t an excursion offered for what we wanted to see and do in Naples. After skimming the Naples chapter of Rick Steves’ book on the Mediterranean ports, we made sure to secure our belongings to avoid any theft while walking down alleys that he suggests we shouldn’t. However, using our global hotspot Siri has been giving us walking directions and she isn’t so concerned about our safety. Honestly, I haven’t felt unsafe at any point. Maybe because it is just the time of day or we have just been lucky.
We booked a private pizza making lesson, which had us meeting at the restaurant at 11:30am. We had time to walk around the nearby shops which was helpful after realizing we did not have appropriate clothing for our tour in Rome, which requires knees to be covered.
Walking around the shops, I struggled to stay out of the cafes and bakeries. Everything looked delicious, but I’m holding out for pizza.
As we were walking past one pizza restaurant, I saw stack of Caputo 00 pizza flour and a tear dropped my eye.
So far, I’ve only been able to get this in Florida in 2.2lb bags from Amazon; at least I can get a case of 10, but seeing the bags in person reinvigorates my drive to find a local source back home.
We arrived at Annaré Trattoria Pizzaria around 11AM, and we were early. Not a problem, as they have vino. As we were sitting outside, my phone rang. Turns out, the tour company was going to pick us up at the port. In our email confirmation, it says to meet at the restaurant. I received two calls and both didn’t seem to mind when we told them we were already at the restaurant.
We booked our pizza making lesson via Ciao Florence. Em wanted to go to Capri and the Blue Grotto, but she was unable to find something that was a 1/2 day tour; only full day tours. I wanted to have a pizza lesson in the birthplace of pizza, so we decided to do a walking tour of Naples in between the pizza lesson and save Pompei & Capri for another visit.
PIZZA TIME!!!! Our pizzaiola, Gennaro, welcomed us into his pizza kitchen and gave us a tour before getting into the good stuff. We didn’t actually make the dough, but Gennaro did a fantastic job of teaching us the process as well as stopping, and basically scolding me for not taking notes. I was trying not to be rude blogger, but he insisted on taking notes as well as photos and videos throughout the process. He made a sample pizza and then we each had the opportunity to form the dough, adding the toppings, and putting it in the 300ºC gas fired oven.
Once we were all done, we got to enjoy our creations. Since we each made our own, and the experience included an appetizer and a dessert, we left with a full take out pizza box.
This pizza is now in our stateroom and I cannot wait for the leftovers. We joked about taking it up to the pool for lunch on our final sea day, but this may become a reality in a few days if I can keep my hands out of the box.
It is a good thing we were walking around Naples today, because I needed to work off my lunch. According to my watch, we walked nearly 8.5 miles around Naples. All aboard time today was 6PM and we had plenty of time to see more of Naples. We headed over to the Museo Archaeologic Nazionale di Napoli.
The Naples’ Archeology Museum admittance was 12 euros for adults and children under 18 are free. Before we could enter, we were required to check our backpacks. This was a free service offered by the museum. You put your bag in a locker and they give you the key. There is an employee on hand in the area, they also wrote us out a claim ticket for our box of pizza. I wasn’t kidding, we took the leftover pizza, walked around Naples and brought it back to the ship. When it comes to pizza, I do not mess around. Getting back on track.
The archaeological museum is full of artifacts, primarily sculptures, from Pompeii and Herculaneum which were recovered when Pompeii was excavated in the late 1700s. There were some gigantic, towering sculptures that I could not envision any one attempting to create today, even with modern rock forming equipment.
In addition the the nude statues, there was a Star Wars exhibit. It was not technically, Star Wars, but more of a comparison of mythical ancient heroes to Star Wars.
We spent a long time int he museum, nearly 2 hours. It was really interesting to see the artifacts, especially those in the Egyptian collection.
We then made our way back through Naples to the port and the Disney Magic.
We cleaned up and got ready for the evening. Isabelle had room service and spent time between Edge and the Oceaneer Lab/Club while Emily and I had dinner in Palo.
We were seated at a table along with windows which provided a front row view of Mt Vesuvius as we sailed away from Naples.
We had a wonderful dinner and our server Richardo from South Africa was fantastic.
Following dinner, Emily and I headed to the Cove Cafe to get Isabelle some carrot sticks to snack on, but we discovered the evening offering is basically the anti pasta items from Palo. While we were there, Emily decided to give the Moka Pot experience a try. At first, when the ingredients where set out on the counter, she was worried it was going to be a too sweet. Oh, this is a good time to point out, the Moka Pot is not espresso brewed in a Moka Pot, it is a cold alcoholic cocktail with espresso. The espresso is shaken with Star 7yr rum, Kahlua, and some Hersey’s syrup. In the bottom of the pot, whipped cream is mixed with Rumchatta and Grand Marnier. The coffee ground mesh holds two chocolates. The cocktail is poured into a glass mug and topped with the whipped cream mixture. The drink was really good and paired well with the chocolate.
We all met back up in the stateroom and called it a night to get some much needed rest before heading into Rome tomorrow.
Loved the picture of the bags of flour. I’m sure you wanted to take one with you! You could have checked it at the museum. Sorry for the silly question but did you exchange your dollars onboard for local currency? For tips ashore and purchases. I have no clue how that works.
Kathy, I don’t want to steal Scott’s thunder, but DCL Guest Services will exchange dollars for local currency, in this case Euros.
Thanks. I thought it was the Euro but wasn’t certain.
Kathy,
I’ve always had good luck in Italy just using my ATM card. As long as it has the VISA logo you are good to go. All of the ATMs I found in Italy were actually free too.
Just beware – they do give $50EURO bills as well as $20EURO. Most places are actually fine with taking a $50EURO but if you don’t want to deal with that I recommend just taking out $80EURO at a time.
Looks like an awesome day!!! Much better than the crappy day I had in Capri a couple of years ago (did not even get close to the Blue Grotto as it was a THREE HOUR WAIT to transfer to one of the smaller boats to go in). 😀
Love it. The pizza in Naples really is out of this world and the Museum is so worth it.
My wife and I were there in May and found the Star Wars stuff to be a bit weird but really enjoyed all the collections. The best of Pompeii is on display there rather than in Pompeii itself.
So glad to read about your experience walking in Naples on your own. We had a very limited exposure driving through on the way to Pompeii from Rome (detour) and based on that alone I wouldn’t have planned walking it on our own. Thanks for amazing detail review!
My family and I enjoyed our tour in Pompeii a couple of years ago, I encourage you to go next time. I’d like to know how you got the pizza on board the ship. Didn’t you have to put everything in the X-ray machine at ship security? I wasn’t allowed to bring my leftovers when we got back on the Wonder in Key West a couple of years ago. Did DCL change their policy since?
Yes, we had no problems bringing the pizza onboard. They asked what was in the box and we said pizza. It went through the x-ray and they said, “yup, it’s pizza” and that was it.