Mount Vesuvius – What a Blast!

Today we were in Naples. The adventure of the day was a trip to Mount Vesuvius and the city of Pompeii.

On our way to the mountain we stopped at a Cameo Factory. They gave us a tour of the facility and we got to see the artists at work. Cameos are made of sea shells. The outter surface is carved away exposing the coloured layers below. 

Cameo Artist

Cameo Sample

The bus wound it's way up a narrow winding road toward the summit of the mountain. You can picture a narrow winding street about as wide as Hunt street with with cars and buses travelling in both directions. It was chaos.

The bus took us up as far as it could at which point we hopped out and started climbing the last 1000 feet to the summit. The picture below gives you some idea of the incline. It was a quite steep. The old boy in the picture was about 85 years old. I think he got on the wrong bus today!

Steep Incline

It took us about 20 minutes to reach the top. We met up with a geologist guide who filled us in on some of the interesting facts of the mountain. Originally, the mountain peak would looked like the pencil line in the picture. In 79 AD, there was an eruption that blew the peak 30 kilometers into the air raining ash and hot gases down on the towns below.

Ruins with Vesuvios in the background

Crater

Marty and I at the top with Naples in the background

Oh, by the way.... meet Ed. He's the old boy in the first picture. He made it all the way to the top!

Great job Ed!

Ed

The city of Pompeii was buried under 25 feet of volcanic ash. During the excavation of the site, the archeologists discovered empty pockets in the layer of ash. They came to the realization that these pockets were organic materials (trees, cats, dogs, people) that had been buried in the ash and decayed. Once they realized what was going on , they began searching for these pockets. When they found one, they would fill it with plaster and make a cast of it. The cast of two people buried in the ash were on display. I didn't add the pictures in case the kids see it, but check it out online if you're so inclined.

There are large rocks lined up across the street at regular intervals. No, they are not speed bumps as I thought. They are stepping stones. The streets also doubled as a sewer system, so you crossed the streets on the stepping stones to keep your feet from smelling, if you what I mean.

Gladiator Forum

Stepping Stones

Bakery with mill stone and oven

Marty and I at a 79 AD Pompeii Wine Bar

View of the Street

I'm gonna wrap it up. It's late here. Tomorrow we will be in Messina. Nothing booked. The port is right at the city centre so we'll do our own tour.