Mt. Vesuvio

My original thoughts for the day were to wander the city and see a few sights in more depth that I didn't get to on Friday--a few churches and some main piazzas. I skipped the morning shower knowing it would be ice cold like yesterday and planned to get one later in the morning. When I got out to the common room, Hannah mentioned she and Mu were going to hike Mount Vesuvio and probably be back by 5pm so Mu could work his shift at the hostel. If I wanted, I could join in the fun. After a very breif hesitation, because who really wants to pass up hiking their second volcano in life??, I decided to join them and knew I'd be seeing more churches throughout my trip.

We walked the 20 minutes to Stazione Centrale to pick up the same train heading to Pompei. The plan was, according to Mu's website, to get off at Ercolano Scavi (Ercolano excavations), walk to the base of the volcano and then hike up to the top. It seemed a bit lofty, but if we would be spending most of our time hiking up, then it should work out fine. After a few detours and turn arounds in the city trying to get to the volcano, we stopped at a gas station and asked for confirmation directions. Just as we were walking away, the next guy who pulled into the station asked the attendant what we were walking to see in town. Upon hearing that we were hiking to Mt. Vesuvius, he beckoned us back and offered to drive us nearer to the base as it was another good 10-15km away still and all uphill.

Grateful for the speedy assistance, Alessandro drove us to a fork in the road which gave us another 1700m to reach the top. He owns a restaurant in town called My House. From here we walked along the road until we found a path leading up the side. Most of the ground was covered in large, porous, volcanic rock with moss on them. Around them were small pine trees with needles easily a foot and a half long. We got up to the point where the rock became gravel and decided to head for a ridge where we saw some stairs/trail that looked safer. From here we made it up to the top and enjoyed the stunning views as we walked around the rim of the volcano.

On the way down we realized that the path ended at a parking lot with a ticket booth. When we checked into the busses that stopped there, we discovered that you had to buy a round trip ticket from wherever you originally got on the bus. Mu talked to the driver when the bus finally showed up (apparently it was 45 mins. late) and after a while he agreed to let the 3 of us on for a ride back to Pompei (no busses were returning to Ercolano). What should have cost each of us E17 ended up being free. Not too shabby. We also discovered the mysterious, disappearing station for Pompei Scavi--the one Rick Steves' was apparently trying to direct us to in the book. We had taken the green line yesterday and directed by the train station staff and Rick wanted us to take the blue line. Who knew?

After such a long walk, Hannah and I felt we deserved some gelato. We were hoping to hit one of the most famous shops in Napoli--Polar Nor. After a bit of searching, we found it all closed up for Sunday. Not to give up on our craving for gelato, we walked toward the hostel and happened across 3 stores still open. We ended up at the one we went to yesterday since it still had the largest selection of flavors. I chose banana (full flavor with a tinge of lemon), cookies (literally cookies with a vanilla flavor) and a very sweet white fluffy stuff with almonds. All 3 were extremely delicious. After this we crashed at the hostel. I got a much desired shower after 2 days and eventually started to prepare dinner.

We did a twist on last night's version by adding roasted red pepper (fresh from the hostel oven!) and eggplant. What a great day this turned out to be.