Mauna Loa (AE 8) - Naval Cruise Book

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This noisy, gay, and colorful city lying within the perfect crescent of its Bay with Vesuvius as a backdrop, has a population of almost a million, and is the cultural and commercial center of Southern Italy. Though great damage was in- flicted here during World War II, few, if any, scars remain. No other port city in Europe enjoys such a superb setting, and such has been the Neapolitan postwar renaissance that today Naples is a more sparkling gem of a city than it has been for many years. Gardens and parks now bloom and glisten, her streets and boulevards are busy and clean. An aura of healthy economic activity permeates the at- mosphere. The shops, restaurants, and hotels are extraordinarily fine. Naples contains fine examples of medieval and Renaissance architecture and works of art. Of prime interest are the treasures of Greek and Roman antiquity, chiefly the wonderful relics of Pompeii and Heiculaneum, now in the National Museum.

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Pompeii and Herculaeum five miles from Naples, and Pompeii, ten miles farther along, are the two famous Campanian towns covered by an eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Ex- cavation of these cities was not started until early in the eighteenth century, but now they have been largely uncovered. Herculaneum was overwhelmed by lava, while Pompeii received tremendous volumes of volcanic ash which sifted into the buildings and thus preserved the delicate decorations in their original color. The visitor can walk about in two once-thriving Roman harbor cities (the population of Pompeii was twenty thousand) and visualize them as they were almost two thousand years ago.