9 April
My creaky old brain had some idea that another friend of the bouncer was meeting us at the hotel. I asked the hotel manager a few times and he appeared not to know this guy, who I’ll call C. Lucy and I had our croissants, and still no sign of C. It was getting late by the time I remembered that I was meant to ask the hotelier to phone a number that I had been given. By now there was no answer.
Lucy wanted to do Vesuvius first. So, what could go wrong there? Did we really need a ‘guide’? We set off for the metro station, which happened to be across the street from the hotel. That was good.
But brain was still not functioning on all cylinders. Next to the note on asking the hotelier to phone C, I had written detailed instructions for getting to Vesuvius. I neglected to look at this bit of paper until we were several metro stops past Pompeii. Some other tourists were headed to a station about 15 stops along, called Ercolano. You can also get up Vesuvius from there. And it has the added bonus of more ruins, known as Herculaneum.
Admiring the view from the top of Vesuvius
Blazing sunshine promised a glorious day. But I only had about 10 Euros. Needed to find a bank machine, and buy tickets for the bus up the volcano. Still feeling like brain wasn’t working. But after lots of waiting around, Lucy and I found ourselves in 12-seater minibus heading up the mountain. In 45 minutes we were in a car park near the summit of Vesuvius.
Lucy thought that ‘climbing Vesuvius’ would be like climbing the rocks in Dorset: huge boulders to be scaled with tiny hands and long legs. She had not anticipated a dusty, hot, dull plod up a sandy path. It’s about a half hour walk from the car park. With 15 minutes Lucy was screaming to go back. But I insisted that this was what she wanted to do. So we were going to stick with it. No matter what. Echoes of the trip up Ben Nevis with my mom came to mind. But unlike The Ben, Vesuvio had not one but two drinks stalls at the top. Not only could you spend 2 euros on a can of COLD fizzy drink, you could sit on a plastic chair and admire the view while sipping your beverage. It was almost like being in Austria. Lucy calmed down and then we had a look at the crater.
Lucy was fascinated by the equipment used to measure the volcanic activity. In 79 AD no one had any idea what was happening. A bit of smoke from the volcano meant nothing to them. They had no idea a major eruption was about to take place. Nowadays the eruptions can be predicted within a good 7 days to evacuate the 600,000 people living in the ‘red zone’ around the volcano. I told Lucy that if the volcano were going to blow, Nana would probably phone us, because she’d be watching something about it on the computer. She phoned me from the US when the London bombs happened in 2005.
Equipment for measuring the volcano
When we got the bus back down, I bribed Lucy with a promise of ice cream. We were in Ercolano anyway, and it was about 40 minutes from our hotel. We may as well make the most of the day and see Herculaneum as well.
I had been warned by guidebooks that the living town of Ercolano was poor. This was evident by the lack of fresh gelato. Not a real ice cream parlour in sight. No iced coffee either, at least not like I remembered from Venice 10 years ago, with overflowing whipped cream and chocolate syrup. No, here we found only processed ice cream in plastic tubs, and tiny cups of espresso.
Herculaneum: ruins beneath the modern town
My best part of the trip was Herculaneum on the first day. Every corner was WOW, and you could freely go anywhere, and there weren’t many people. We could play ‘house’ in the ruins, and sit and draw undisturbed. We didn’t feel like we had to rush to ‘see it all’ because Herculaneum was small, and we had no agenda. AND it was free entry for some ‘cultural festival’ week. We enjoyed every bit all the more. And I bought a guidebook for Pompeii, to read on the beach the next day. After walking up the mountain, and traipsing around an entire ruined town, I couldn’t really expect Lucy to do more of the same the very next day. We would rest, read the guidebook, and prepare for Pompeii on day 3.
And now, from the ruins at Herculaneum, I phoned C, paying a squillion pounds a minute form my UK mobile. He picked up this time. And spoke more English than the driver.
Bathing pool, Herculaneum
We met at a designated metro station, and then walked for about an hour to the bouncer’s family’s pizzeria. Certainly the best pizza Lucy and I would have for our entire trip, yet such a long walk from our hotel, and from anywhere else, that we would not manage to return.
Pizza at the end of a long day
