Roanoke (CL 145) - Naval Cruise Book

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Bay of Naples, with Vesuvius in background City of music, flowers, and delectable food Restaurant Zi Teresa retains the charm of olol Italy N A P L E S Verdi, Veal, and Vino Naples is a charming city of paradoxes. Wide, clean boulevards cut through the city, but frequently they are intersected by cobblestoned alleys alive with odors, trash and lined with tenement houses, Expensive Mercedes and Fiats speed by antiquated taxicabs and horsefdravvn carts. Marbleffaced town houses and apartment buildings, once elegant homes of the rich, novv frequently shelter the poor in dimly lit, unheated rooms behind their faded pastel facades, The city is aglovv With brilliant flower stalls, yet only the tourists wear corsages. The Bay of Naples, surrounded by Vesuvius, Pompeii, Sor- rento and Capri, is an excellent harbor, famed for its prefwar shipping and its beauty on calm, sunny days 3 but the Bay is treacherous during storms, with svvamping Waves ten feet high, as the Roanolce dis- covered vvhen a storm followed her in the day after her arrival. Much of Naples has been rebuilt since World War Il to its former beauty, but human life carries on the tragedies of War. Destitute orphans scavenge the streets for cigarette butts, and it is a pathetic sight to see these thinffaced children beg' ging in front of the fashionable hotels. There is no resentment in their hollovv eyes when the expen' sively dressed guests step out of the thiclcfcarpeted lobby of the new luxury hotel, Albergo Vesuvio, there is just hunger and pain behind their out' stretched hands. Naples is Italy at her best and Italy at her Worst. No where in all Europe were we so beseiged as vve were in Naples by peddlers and hawlcers, salesmen and shortfchangers, guides and gyps, all attempting to sell or swap through the medium of handfvvaving, haggling and just plain hollering, a seemingly inexhaustible suppty of cameos, bracelets, jewel boxes, watches, rings, post cards and sou' venirs, tours and trips. All surged about us in a clamoring sea of salesmanship, through which We plowed resolutely on, knowing that Woe befell anyone who so much as hesitated at the cry, I giva you good price! He'd probably be found hours later sitting in the midst of a mountain of lcnick' lcnaclcs and trash, moaning softly to himself as he gazed mournfully at his empty poclcetbook. The center of Naples, so far as tourism is con' cerned, is Within the glassfcanopied expanse of the Gallery of Umberto, Where, at prices you felt were 14:48

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47-Af N: .74 W 2 K Hcfwcnty licks to thc board, O.K. sailors, heave Wound, ready, syncopatcn 'wwf' 1 2 155 .lin NB X xx

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1'hz ruins of fponipcii had character Sil'CVdl of OHV fdl'0l'lIC Cl1ilVi,1CICTS ilHIOHg Ill! VHIH reasonable enough considering all things, you could buy the souvenirs you wanted-leather, cameos, gloves or silver. A few blocks away were the excellent shops of the glove manufacturers them' selves and of the Borsalino hat people, where quality goods could be had in a quiet enough atmosphere ol' shopping. Naples was known to the Riiaiwlcc as the starting point for a numher of tours, arranged hy the ship with our popular tour agent, Tours hranched out to Rome, to Pompeii, to Capri and to Vesuvius Though we were hindered from leaving the ship for two full days by the storm that churned the harhor into fury, nevertheless a lot of us went on these tours and returned to Naples feeling well satished In Rome we had the chance to malfe the Holy Year Pilgrimage, to tour the Vatican and to see Pope Pius XII. In Pompeii we walked through the ancient city and marvelled at the things explained to us hy our guide. Un Capri we let the heauty ol' the enchanted isle soak into us while we wished only that there were more time to stay. Scents at the Isl: of C apr: