III. Vesuvius and Herculaneum

Captain’s Log: Wednesday, 28 March 2018

Accommodation: Hostel of the Sun, Naples

Distance: Up the Vesuvius and around Herculaneum

Weather: Clouds and cold without sun

Our day began the same way the other one did, we got up, had breakfast and got to the central train station for our trip to the volcano. It was cloudy and we hoped that we would be able to see enough on the top of the mountain.

The train was full as well today, but it was not that bad as it had been yesterday. Also we had to get out way earlier this time, since the station, where the shuttle bus left for the volcano was half way to Pompeii.

We got our tickets and waited for the bus, which brought us up to the top. The last bit to the crater we still had to walk, but at least it was not so hot this time.

On the contrary. Even if it was not below 0°C now, we still found some pieces of snow lying around.

Eventually we made it up to the crater.

It was still as stunning as it was the first time! Except for the view down, that was, well, it did not exist at all.

Luckily it was not like this the whole time, so we had some short moments of free sight and a bit of sun, but it was still cold.

We just felt bad for the few people we saw walking up the whole way, not taking a bus at all, because, they walked up the whole way, for this view?

However, we then went down again to the place where our bus was supposed to be. We had to wait about half an hour for it, since it was late, and it was still so incredible cold, but at least we were able to watch the other buses driving around, almost crashing into groups of people, but it never happened.

Once we were down the mountain again, we went to the ruins of Herculaneum, the second city which was buried under the ash of Vesuvius. It is not as popular as Pompeii since it is way smaller, but it was nevertheless impressive.

Some of the houses still had a second floor, so imagine how high the ash and dirt and everything must have been to bury it beneath.

We also found a small cave with a statue in it, and a couple of corridors leading away into the dark.

We though about how this would be the start of a horror movie, with a group of friends daring each other to walk in there. We did not walk in, of course, since we are both responsible adults.

You can try to find Galileo in this picture, he is somewhere.

And a last thing which we found out about the way they apparently build their pillars;

It looked like they build them out of the red stone, and put some sort of plastering around it? It looked kinda cool like this.

Sadly we had to leave again way too early. Funny thing was, at some point we noticed that there were no people around us anymore and we were happy about it, until we noticed one guard, who waved at us and told us to come out, since they were closing already. So, that explained why there were no other people around us anymore.

However, every day has to end at some point. We got back to our hostel, relaxing again a bit in our room before we had dinner. Afterwards we played cards, when another Austrian guy joined us. So it was a nice evening again, with a bit more of socialising this time.