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Monday 26 August 2013

Day 7 - Vesuvius

Phew it's hot!
Had breakfast at 7.30am and were the only ones in the dining room for the first 10 minutes or so, got the shuttle bus into town and then went to the station. The train was late coming in so we stood chatting to a couple from our hotel who are from Southampton. When the train finally left it was a relief as we needed the breeze that came in!
We arrived late at Pompeii but that didn't matter as it meant less waiting around for the bus to depart. We had bought tickets for the Busvia del Vesuvio.

A bus took us to the National Park and then we transferred onto a four wheel drive bus. That ride was a bit hairy to say the least!

We arrived about 600m from the summit and then had to walk the rest of the way. It was quite cloudy which was actually nice as it meant it was cool. It was punishing walking though - almost vertical and very slippery stones under foot. We arrived at the summit after about a 20 minute walk. Fortunately the cloud cleared quite a bit some got quite a good view of the Bay of Naples,

 but what was more important was that we had an excellent view of the crater

and even saw some steam coming out! Hugh was pleased!

After a slippery walk back down

we returned on the 4x4 and I felt really car sick! Fortunately I wasn't. After transferring back to the ordinary bus we arrived back at Pompeii just before 2pm and got the 7 minutes past train black to Sorrento.
As we had to wait 45 minutes for the hotel bus we did a little more souvenir shopping and had a 3 scoop gelato each!
We got back to the hotel just after 4.30pm and had a rest in the room before going for a swim and a read by the pool.

6 comments:

Missus Wookie said...

Yeah for clouds that cool and steam that pleased Hugh. Wookie and Ewok would have been pleased too :) You had such an amazing set of experiences!

Abi said...

What views! The boy visited here but they went up on a day when there was such low cloud that they couldn't see a thing!

Anonymous said...

After reading Abi's comment I'm glad you had a good day and good views

alexa said...

So glad you got to see it 'live' so as to speak, and had the benefit of those glorious views too. I should think a tree scoop gelato was just the thing for settling a queasy tum :). I am enjoying this vicarious holiday very much!

Karen said...

You hit some major sites on this trip. This is a place I'd love to visit.

Maria Ontiveros said...

It seems like you earned that gelato! The four wheel bus looks very cool.
Rinda