A Leisurely Stay

A.M.S…
While many of our fellow passengers are departing to Florence, Rome, or taking local trips from here to Sorrento, Pompeii, Capri, and Ischea, we are enjoying a more leisurely four days staying aboard ship while she's docked here from Wednesday P.M. to Saturday night.

First night we took in “Manon” at the beautiful San Carlos Opera; very good! Naples, as judged by those at the opera, may be music loving, but its patrons are neither high society nor frequent imbibers of Metrecal. (a brand of diet foods introduced in the early 1960s)

We did a bit of walking, some shopping; visited the two very interesting but penetratingly chilly Museums here and took it most leisurely. Naples is no garden spot; the weather fair but rather cold, also overcast, but here it doesn't matter.

2. The annoyance to tourists by alleged guides at Naples was terrific. It was impossible to walk any distance within a mile of the ship without being approached time and again for the most persistent harangue about guiding one to shops
3. All sorts of subterfuges were used, as: “I get paid by the city” or “it won't cost you anything for me to guide you;” or “I would just like to go with you to practice my English”
4. Every imaginable type of portable merchandise was offered by street-hawkers:- watches, jewellery, gloves, gadgets and none of this motley array would take the first ten “Nos” for an answer. When they grabbed our coat sleeves to press their salesmanship my personal good-will-to-foreigners policy was badly bent
5. On many occasions attempts were made to short-change us or to prey upon an assumed ignorance of Italian currency

A Troubled World

A.M.S…
We do not like Neopolitans; and many of our fellow passengers, most of whom had been in Italy before, felt that the annoyance to tourists in Naples was far worse than on previous trips. Certainly our experience bore that out!

This latter point, the annoyance, was of very little importance as compared to that feeling which keeps building up that so many people in this troubled World are in such deeply sub-standard and destitute straits. You get so you feel pretty impatient with our gripes about foreign aid.

In fact, you almost feel as though you ought to go on a personal foreign aid programme of your own, and one thinks: “We haven't seen anything yet!”

Naples Departure

A.M.S…
On Saturday, February 18th, at 7:00 P.M. we sailed from Naples. It was a beautiful sight for not only the lights of Naples glittered, but a sizeable number of ships of the U.S. Navy were fully festooned with lights outlining each ship. The entire scene was further illuminated by the crescent of a new moon.