Yesterday we accomplished plenty. For the first time in our lives, we climbed an active volcano. And not just any active volcano either – possibly the world’s most famous one.
Then, not content that the day should be over with that great achievement, Chris and Chantal did a quick exploration of the Pompeii excavation site. It was thoroughly interesting and awe inspiring.
But, today also came with its challenges. Most of them were brought upon us by our own doing but it wasn’t helped by the fact that Naples has three types of trains (usually cities have two – a train line and a “metro” line) and there were thousands of people because of the public holiday.
There were times where we came to (almost) tears but we quickly found a place that sold arancini balls. Suffice to say, the advice is sound; get out early, ask for directions when you need it and wear the right shoes.
Getting to Pompeii
We began the day by jumping downstairs to the included breakfast with our hotel and writing our previous blog post. Once we finished up, we made our way to the nearby train station to head towards Pompeii. This was the difficult part as we later discovered that there is a third train line – regional trains. We were relying on Google Maps to help us with the public transport situation however it was proved unhelpful and gave us the wrong information. We finally gave in and asked for directions.
This is where we also learnt that in Italy it’s okay for trains to be late, very late.
22 stops later, we arrived at the Pompeii Archeological Site station around 11:30am. There we found out that entry to Pompeii was free (yay!) but it was closed until 2:30pm (no!). We wandered around Pompeii’s streets partly looking for cats and partly looking for what we wanted to do to kill the time.
We returned to the information centre and asked a few more questions where we found out that we could take a bus tour to Mt Vesuvius and still be in time to visit the Pompeii ruins which closes at 7pm.
Seeing a Volcano
Climbing an active volcano is similar to climbing an extinct one. The main difference is that there’s a lot more people and it was a lot more dusty! Oh and the volcano bit where it could go off.
The bus took us to 1,000m from the base. After that we had to climb the rest. Not going to lie, it was a hot day and it was tough going but we thought of all the pizza back in Naples and that got us through it.
When we reached the peak there was a very kind tour guide who explained the last time Mt Vesuvius erupted was in 1944 and it was a lava eruption so not deadly like what happened in Pompeii.
He also explained that the two peaks of Mt Vesuvius were probably created by the explosion that destroyed Pompeii and scientists believe that the mountain was originally 2,000m high instead of the 1,480m it is today.
As we got to the top, the guide pointed towards a small amount of steam rising up from the ground in the crater, probably 200m from us. He explained that this steam is continuously studied as it is one indicator of volcanic activity.
The view from the top of Mt Vesuvius was incredible! It looked down upon all of Naples and the surrounding cities. We could even see Capri.
Ancient City of Pompeii
We arrived back at Pompeii in time to get about an hour of the ruins. We quickly downloaded what we later discovered was the world’s most terrible app which had only part of the audio guide for the ruins.
We had no idea what we were expecting. The place is literally a city within a city. It is worth pointing out that a lot of the buildings are still in incredible condition.
A main feature that we learnt from Pompeii is that it was a city in the middle of re-construction from the earthquake of 64AD (the eruption which covered Pompeii was in 79AD).
While we got lost trying to find the great theatre in time before the closure, we stumbled upon the Lupanare (the brothel). This is where Chantal finally got to see ancient graffiti and Chris took a few photos of some ancient raunchy art.
Back to Naples
It is about an hour train ride between Pompeii and Naples. So we arrived back in Naples around 8.30pm and immediately wondered back towards the bustling Napoli streets where we were hopeful to find some good Napolitan pizza.
We were in luck as we discovered the Palazzo Petrucci Pizzeria which also has achieved a Michelin star (although the pizza they received the Michelin was done for the day). We had a Margherita and Capricosa and Chantal swears the Margherita was the best she has ever tasted.
We also tried some Vesuvius red wine. My god, it’s rough. It was great with the pizza and after the long day we had (over 10km of walking), despite it being a tough red wine.
A short note about our bus driver who took us to Mt Vesuvius
This dude was incredible! The drive up to Mt Vesuvius is similar to driving up a mountain range in Queensland, except the roads are half as wide, and people scream down at a terrifying speed, and there’s people walking on the road as there aren’t any footpaths. Basically, it’s not really like driving in Queensland. Good thing we weren’t!
This bus driver was able to manoeuvre the bus around some sticky situations and when he found another bus driver who had a broken down bus, (we assumed) he asked the bus driver if he could help. The other guy replied that he wanted a cigarette. Our whole bus giggled.
Chris and Chantal 