Our Date with Doom: Pompeii and Vesuvius

June 24 Another hot and sunny day here in Southern Italy. I like the heat in general, but all the hiking up hills we've been doing makes the high temperatures and humidity a bit more difficult. Literally, each of the last three days I have had periods of time when sweat was pouring down my face. Not attractive, but I guess I'm not here to look attractive.

This morning we set out at 8am, down our big hill to Sant'Agnello train station, where we went to buy tickets, but...no one was there. Apparently 3/4 of the town basically shuts down on Sunday, including CV train ticket sales. All we found was a hand written note, telling us to purchase tickets at "the bar."

Buy the ticket in the BAR!?

Fortunately we were a few minutes early so we wandered out of the station in search of "the bar." Also fortunately, I was in possession of my dazzling Italian language skills and was able to ask several people, "do you know where I can buy tickets for the train?" They either didn't know or gave directions that sent us in circles. In the last establishment we tried, the counter person basically told us to just get on. When I specifically asked, "are you saying we just ride without buying a ticket?" He just gave a nonspecific shrug that I interpreted as "yes, but you didn't hear it from me." Okay, so we rode the train for free. I still feel a little bad about it, but we had an ugly overpayment scenario yesterday, so we looked at it as some sort of cosmic train ticket justice.

Thirty minutes later, we entered the gates of Pompeii and I was transported. I love, love, love visiting places that I have been reading about my entire life and Pompeii was no exception. We arrived early and we were rewarded with the run of the place for a while. Long, sweeping, empty avenues of destruction. it was awesome! It was obvious that the site was very well maintained. And we had Rick Steves' walking tour to help us find the highlights. We spent several hours wandering around, but by lunchtime, it was absolutely packed with tourists and ridiculously hot. Time to go.

Wandering the ancient streets of Pompeii. Sublime.

We grabbed a quick lunch and then went about booking a bus to Vesuvius. Not as easy as the guidebook tells you. We were looking for one or two specific companies, but they were nowhere in sight. Instead, we were confronted by a number of very pushy people, trying to sell their tours and getting upset if you hesitated to compare prices. We kept walking and found a company we liked much better. And we're glad we did because our tour took the more scenic (and rugged) trip through the Vesuvius National Park. The 4-wheel vehicles we rode in was like a military vehicle, and it, miraculously, got us to within a 20-minute uphill slog through deep piles of dirt to get to the summit. We were told we would be greeted by a certified volcanologist, but when we got off the person, the woman who greeted us only pointed upward and said "it's 20 minutes to the top."

As per usual, we set a fast pace and were way ahead of our group when we reached the summit. Once we got there, we were told that we would be getting a tour in English once the entire group had arrived. We debated waiting, but since we knew we only had about an hour at the top, we chose to go on our own and were able to make our way around almost the entire rim. Glad we did, because we overheard a tour later that was more like a five-minute intro. The views were spectacular. Both looking into the crater, which looked like a lunar landscape, and the views back down to the Bay of Naples and surrounding areas.

Our descent - quite a bit easier than the ascent. The views were worth the price of admission.

It was much cooler at the top and we were even inside clouds from time to time - not surprising since we were nearly a mile up. Soon we made our way, slipping and sliding down the path back to our military vehicle, then to a shuttle bus, and then to our train. We were a bit weary (and did I mention FILTHY?!) when we arrived back in Sant'Agnello. But we were also hungry. Unfortunately we also chose to eat in town on the one day that the entire town was closed. MUCH more walking before we finally found an open restaurant. Worth the walk as the food was good and the staff was great. After walking back up our big hill and scrubbing off a great deal of dirt, we began the process of packing up for the next, final phase of our journey. Tomorrow at 8am, we set out for Roma!