Upon waking this morning we packed and headed up Mt. Vesuvius. The roads were ridiculously narrow and winding, which is to say they were actually wider than the mountain roads leading out of La Spezia into Cinque Terre. It turns out that the reason the roads here are wider is because they have dozens of busses going up the mountain to drop off their passengers for a hike up the mountain to the gaping crater at the top. We parked at the highest point we could reach and hoofed it up to the rim of the crater. Here we could see down into the caldera which ejected a mountain’s worth of ash and volcanic rock down onto the towns below.

Where do you think all this rock went?

The volcano is mostly dormant, although we saw a little stream of steam rising out of one of the edges.

Steam coming from the cone

After a couple of selfies on the summit overlooking the surrounding Italian countryside…

At the top of the mountain

On top of the world

We headed back down the mountain to the village of Herculaneum, where a lovely gentleman with almost no English was able to direct us to a paid parking spot on his property. (Legal paid parking is always preferable to the “do you think it’s OK to park here?” game). Once there, we got to see the best-preserved and best-excavated ancient Roman village in existence. Pompeii is better known, and was also destroyed by the eruption of 79 AD, but in Herculaneum you can actually see a large part of the intact city, which was buried suddenly and completely by the eruption, and therefore preserved for 2000 years. The site includes roads and sidewalks,

Herculaneum road and sidewalk

many fragments of fresco paintings,

Surviving frescos

Fresco details

decorative tile floors,

Detailed mosaic tile floor

Incredibly well-preserved tile floor

the potties,

These are potties

Villas lined with Roman columns,

Gary standing outside a once-wealthy person’s home

Arched decorated ceilings,

Original surviving decorated ceiling

and even surviving charred wooden beams and shutters.

Original wood shutters charred by the eruption in 79 AD

The view from the bottom of old Herculaneum looking up to the mountain allows you to see the ancient city on the lowest level, the modern Herculaneum sitting on top of the foundations of the old city, and the volcano looming over both of them. The foundations of the modern city were set on the volcanic ash and stone. The city underneath was discovered in the 1700’s during the digging of a well, and they’ve been excavating downward ever since. The ancient city sits about 3 stories underneath the new city.

Two levels of city and the mountain overlooking them

After pretty much exhausting ourselves climbing a volcano and exploring an ancient city we jumped back into the car and headed out to the jut of land that leads to the island of Capri. As the crow flies we’re probably less than 10 miles from the volcano, but it took over an hour of insane twisty mountain driving to get to the outskirts of the little seaside town of Sorrento. Once here we parked out car on the roof (which was even with the road coming in), and got this view from the parking lot…

Looking back at the Bay of Napoli

The sweet young girl behind the counter gave us a super-cheap room with a view of the bay, and complimented me on my Italian! After getting to our room and seeing this view off our balcony…

The view from our balcony

We marched right back downstairs to ask for a second night here. Actually, that’s not true. Our room here is #121, which is on floor 1.5 (not 1, not 2). But it took us an elevator ride and a confused expedition up the stairs to realize that the hotel goes DOWN 3 stories into the mountain, not up 3 stories above the ground! Had we been thinking we would have gotten this right away since our car is parked on the roof level with the incoming road. In our defense, we were tired!

After getting our bearings, it was a lovely seafood pasta/risotto dinner, and now we’re settling in for the night.

Tomorrow is Capri!