The Shields: Naples, Italy with MEL MEL!

Including our Prague trip, that puts our traveling record to 5 countries in 5 weeks! I will also say that we were planning on going to Turkey the weekend after Prague. But after Prague, we were just a bit exhausted. So we canceled that trip and decided to stay in Bucharest for a bit. It was a smart move for our family and for our sanity. I will post about some of the things we did during that time later, but for now I wanted to post about one of the most anticipated moments of our Romania stay. My sister, Melanie, was in London for a soccer camp and afterwards she flew to Bucharest for about two weeks! She got in around midnight on May 18, so we had a couple days in Bucharest. Then we were off for an adventure in Naples, Italy! We got in really late Friday which made Laila fall asleep like this... Haha!

But waking up the next morning and going to breakfast on the veranda with this view was quite amazing!

After breakfast, we got picked up for our tour to see Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius!

This is the entrance of Pompeii and you can see Vesuvius in the background. This history of this place astounds me. We are talking about a once thriving city from 79 AD when Vesuvius erupted! We walked through many acres of buildings, streets, courtyards, shops, etc only to realize that there are still acres that aren't excavated. Just walking through this city made me want to be an archeologist so badly!

Gladiator training space

Ampitheater

Best travel companions ever!

Loved the stonework detail in the public baths.

Oh, look, we are all together in a picture- even sleeping Harrison. See his arm?

Our little man with a big man. They have placed these statues in random places as part of an exhibit lately.

I love the relationship these two are developing!

After Pompeii, our tour took us to a restaurant for the lunch. Naples is where pizza was invented and we are all eternally grateful!

After lunch, we road the bus almost to the top of Vesuvius and then walked the last mile or so to the crater. Vesuvius is still an active volcano which I did not know. But there isn't any lava or anything visible.

Vesuvius Crater

Not a bad view at all!

This is yet another reason we LOVED having Mel Mel with us. Both kids insisted on sitting with her and a few minutes later, this is how we find them.

I'm pretty sure we took pictures of every meal in Italy because let's face it, it's Italy. This meal was no exception and we enjoyed it all!

Saturday night/ Sunday morning was rough. Harrison had a really bad fever that kept waking him up every hour or so. Finally, Michael went and found a pharmacy and bought Italian version of Tylenol. Tricky task at 3 AM! Thankfully, his fever didn't return the next day! Laila also wet the bed. So it was just a great night all around. I guess it helped us appreciate the next day that much more. After breakfast and slow moving morning, we got on a ferry that took us to the MAGICAL island of Capri off of the Italian coast. It was absolutely stunning and enchanting. We ate THE MOST AMAZING FOOD there, walked around the town and then got on our PRIVATE 3 hour boat tour.

CAPRI:

LUNCH!

The Boat!

The view!

We even found Melanie's future husband for her. He was our handsome, 22 year old tour guide. Mel, you are welcome!

This lasted about two seconds.

This was the case most of the time.

Michael did some cliff jumping and then some flips off the boat. Laila kept shouting, "BE CAREFUL, DADDY!"

We actually got Laila in the water! So brave!

Swimming in the Mediterranean. No big deal! AHH!

Sorry, I'm not sorry for smooching. We are in Italy!

Hi boats!

Green grotto- do you see the glowing water! Amazing!

The rest of the time, we just sat admiring the island and wondering if this was really our life. It was. And it was the perfect day.

After our perfect day, we had a perfect dinner. Oh man! We just really, really love Capri. Take me back!

Thankfully, we got a much better rest that night. The next morning, we slept in, ate breakfast and explored Naples for our last day.

It's so incredible to me how detailed these building are even though they are centuries old! It's amazing!

Loved the Italian streets and our super helper!

Also, we ate A LOT of gelato. And it really was phenomenal! Laila says, "Italy has the most amazing ice cream ever!" She should know. She's quite the ice cream connoisseur.

We walked all the way to one location to see some catacombs and found out they were closed. So we had to walk a little further to some other ones. It was quite the experience. Definitely a little creepy and also fascinating.