Mt. Vesuvius - Normally the clouds are above me.
Off the boat and into Naples. We’re on a bus. The last time that happened, in Turkey, we had a bus wreck. We are two with locals who are giving us a ride to Mt. Vesuvius and then a tour of Pompeii. One of the guys is aiming for a Beckham look. He’s wearing jeans and a suit coat, with a few loud pieces of gold. He’s driving the bus. The guide is wearing his hair a little long in the back, a near beard, some unfortunate sunglasses, a baseball cap and a jacket.
While it isn’t especially hot — it did make the mid 70s today — it is June. It is an unfortunate choice, this jacket. It is white vinyl.
But he is a nice, soft spoken guy. Very funny. They took us first to a little place in Naples where they make cameos from conch shells. They are handmade, an elegant and traditional Italian piece of jewelry. No one is sure why we’ve stopped there, though, and we’re all ready to get on the road for Vesuvius. We walk around with mild curiosity and then take advantage of the restrooms. We’ve been forewarned that the facilities at Vesuvius are dirty and of poor quality. Europe really has to get it together on this one.
So we move on to Vesuvius. We go up what he calls the Mama Mia Road. It is steep, narrow and full of switchbacks and blind turns. When another bus comes down the mountain toward us he says “Everybody breath in, maybe we’ll make it. Mama mia.”
You drive most of the way up the mountain. At a certain point the bus runs out of road and you’re on your own for the last 200 vertical meters or so. The path winds around the mountain, so the walk is a good one.
Your Vesuvius walking stick.
After you hand over the tickets and make it inside the hiking part of the trip an old couple give you walking sticks. Our handsome, vinyl jacketed friend has stayed behind. He’s made this walk before and knows better, it seems. We picked up a new guide at the top of the mountain. He told us about the last eruption, during World War II. That was just a flow (from the hike up the mountain you can see the remnants of that eruption, it looks like an unfinished road) and no one was injured, but a more serious eruption in 1906 killed 100 people.
Seismologists, he said, expect the next eruption to be a violent one. Three million people live in the shadows of the volcano.
We took a lot of pictures.
We threw her in to appease the volcano.
I have three hastily assembled panoramas. The ascent. The crater rim. The city below. Click each and magnify.
We had to be back down the mountain by a specific time so the bus didn’t leave us behind. I had to run down the mountain to keep up. At the bottom the old couple were collecting their walking sticks. Sitting at an angle you couldn’t see while walking up there was a sign requesting a tip for the walking stick. Because we are honeymooning, and I’ve learned the role society has assigned to me, I had no money on this particular hike. The old Italian man didn’t speak English, and I couldn’t say “My wife has my money,” in his language.
I did understand what he said in reply, though. (My god-parents-in law are Italian.)
So I’m laughing as I make the bottom of the descent. I tell this to The Yankee, who says the old woman tried to get money from her. As The Yankee reached for her cash the old woman hit her camera with the stick. She said “No” and walked away. That’s some restraint; I would have thrown the stick down the side of the mountain.
Our tour guide in Pompeii, nice jacket.
Our guide says they’ve uncovered about 70 percent of Pompeii. They started excavating before the United States was a country. To see it all, he says, would take about 16 hours. In our two-and-a-half hours he gave us the highlights, including this temple. These columns were brick which were intended to be covered. There were no toppled columns or debris found in the excavation, so archeologists says this temple was still being built when Vesuvius erupted.
Life was very much in progress here. Our guide rattled off the food inventory of one of the bakeries we visited. So well preserved was the city that we apparently know how many chickens were inside. Or our guide has an easy, believable yarn.
Vesuvius from Pompeii.
We had another War Eagle Moment. This being, by the numbers, the biggest one I’ve ever had. I was taking pictures in the House of the Faun, the largest private residence in Pompeii, when a few girls said hello. They were traveling Europe. One of them, it turns out, may be one of The Yankee’s students one day. It was pretty cool.
War Eagle, ladies.
I count 18 of them, all in the perfect group pose. And notice the Faun in the bottom of the frame. That is a replica. The original decorated the impluvium, a basin for catching rainwater, is in a local museum alongside many of the other famous pieces of art from the house. The famous mosaic of Alexander the Great on display in the home is also a replica. But they replicated the damage, too, so at least there’s that.
There was an exhibit from Pompeii a few years ago at the Birmingham Museum of Art. People don’t often think of it, but that museum is top notch and was one of only two places the exhibit toured in the United States. So impressive was the exhibit, we saw it two or three times. Even still, Pompeii is an incredible place. It was a bustling hub of travel and trade before the volcano, sat hidden and forgotten for centuries and is now host to more than 2.5 million visitors a year. Today it felt almost peaceful.
Want to see more of Vesuvius and Pompeii? Here’s the gallery.
This is our last night on the ship. After we packed our bags and We sat on the veranda of our stateroom and watched the ocean slide by. In the morning we’ll have breakfast and sadly get off the ship for the last time. It has been an incredible cruise and a near perfect honeymoon (did I mention we had another minor bus wreck on the way down Mama Mia Road today?).
But it isn’t over yet. We still have more fun in Rome!
