Our last port was Naples, Italy. Home of the pizza, beautiful blue water, ancient Roman relics, and one giant volcano. We signed up that day to do the Mount Vesuvius hike and Pompeii walking tour.
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| Mount Vesuvius. |
Thank God for buses, especially ones that take you half way up so you don't have to walk! Our bus twisted and turned through the narrow streets up to Mount Vesuvius first and then dropped us off. From there it was up to us to hike the rest of the way. Oh sure, the hard part had already been done for us you think....think again.
We started walking enthusiastically up, even got some walking sticks along the way. Not that we needed them! We were the youngest people on this hiking tour---surely we wouldn't be outdone by grandpa over there.
It was around half way up to the top that I realized how out of shape I truly was. How come my lungs hurt so much? Why am I breathing so hard? And why couldn't we have signed up for the tour Naples and eat pizza expedition? The only thing that kept me going was the view. It was magnificent! Screw long walks on the beach with a view like this!
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| The view. |
Once we made it to the top we got an up close and personal view of the crater. What was it our tour guide said, "It hasn't gone off in 60 some years and could erupt again at any time." But look at where are we currently standing....oh right, next to a volcano! Suddenly, I wanted to climb down and fast. Granted with technology these days they would (hopefully) know ahead of time if there was volcanic activity. They watch it like a hawk, but that doesn't make standing next to the craters edge any more relaxing.
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| Steam from the crater. |
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| Me by the edge of the volcano. |
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| More of the beautiful view. |
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| Ben at the top! |
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| Happy we made it! |
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| Inside the volcano. |
Thankfully we did eventually have to climb down. It was time for lunch, which meant pizza and our daily dose of gelato! Suddenly, I am glad I just climbed a volcano...I need to work off all these calories some how. :)
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| Hiking a volcano makes you hungry! |
After lunch we got a guided tour of Pompeii, which was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 AD. Here is an artist rendering of Mount Vesuvius exploding on Pompeii.
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Image from wikipedia.
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The reason Mount Vesuvius is called a "mount" is because there was no word in the Latin Roman language for volcano at that time. As in they didn't understand or know what volcano's were yet.
Despite the sadness of Pompeii, it did help preserve some of the best ruins of the Roman Empire. Forget the Forum in Rome and come to Pompeii if you want to see ancient ruins (at least in my opinion).
Ben really enjoyed the tour and took a million pictures. I had toured Pompeii before, but was still impressed with the scope of it. Times like touring Pompeii I envy the tour guides. Maybe I'm a nerd, but I think it would be fun to guide groups through ancient ruins everyday.
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| A ceiling of a bath house. |
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| Tile still well preserved. |
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| The streets of Pompeii. |
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| The theater. |
After our tour we went back to the ship and watched the sunset on Naples.
When we came back from our trip Ben received this funny e-mail from his sister, "What did you do? Dana shouldn't have touched that rock." Apparently just a few days after we left Pompeii this is what happened:
Buildings Collapse at Pompeii!
I guess my intuition had been right, it is dangerous to play around a volcano and ancient ruins. Come back tomorrow for the dramatic conclusion of our Fall Break series!
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