Mt. Vesuvius

After spending the morning at Pompeii, we had pizza in Naples, then headed to Mt. Vesuvius.  Lunch included a drink: water, soda, beer, or wine!

 

The road up Mt. Vesuvius is narrow and twisty with steep dropoffs, and riding in a bus ... well, maybe it's best not to look out the windows too much!  Just before each hairpin curve, the bus driver would *HONK*HONK* the horn to warn any oncoming cars that we were approaching. Finally, after a terrifying drive, we arrived at the parking lot for trailhead and began the hike up Vesuvius.

Vesuvius is still an active volcano.  There have been many eruptions since 79 A.D., when Pompeii was destroyed, and another like that one will (some day) likely destroy Naples, the city at its base.  And the current activity in Vesuvius, which continues to release gases that affect breathing, leads tour guides to warn people not to hike too fast.

The hike is fairly strenuous, but not very long.  And definitely worth the work!  It was a little hazy the day we were there, but the view of the Naples and the nearby bay was pretty awesome.

The flowers along the trail are interesting, beautiful...

 

...and plentiful!

Even the flying creatures are beautiful!

And a peek into the caldera makes a hiker forget the steep and gravelly path he (or she) just climbed.

And after the long, hard walk up the volcano, the walk back down is a welcome change.

The views on the way down are equally as good as on the way up!

Of course, there's still the terrifying maneuvering of the tour bus through the teensy-tiny parking lot (I only wish I had video of this!) and then the drive back down the mountain (*HONK*HONK*), followed by a long drive back to Rome.

(Did I mention the wine and limoncello tasting on the way back to the city?  Delicious!)

By the end of this day, we'd walked approximately 14 miles and climbed the equivalent of something like 63 flights of stairs. Thankfully, we had nothing planned the next morning, and we were able to sleep late before the next adventure.