Vesuvius and Pompeii

When we booked our holiday we were given a lot of information on trips to various locations around the area, one of these was a trip to Pompeii for €51 each. To us this seemed a little expensive and after talking people that had been to Pompeii we decided we could do the trip ourselves so off we went to the local train station to start our adventure. The guy in the train station was really helpful and asked us what we wanted to do. We told him we wanted to visit Pompeii and to see Vesuvius and he showed us a leaflet so we purchased tickets to climb the Volcano and headed for the Platform to get our transport to Villa Dei Misteri. As we were a little early for the train we got on and sat down and waited for the train to start, it gave a few encouraging sounds but after a minute or 2 the engines cut out, this was to happen 2 -3 times and we exchanged glances so we must have both been

wondering if the vehicle was capable of it’s proposed journey. Just as we were getting a little fed up with the wait the entertainment arrived in the form of a band of buskers. 3 guys turned up playing “La Bamba”. They went through 3 or 4 tunes then came down the train for their reward before leaving us all with a smile on our faces and then the journey was underway. Although between us we speak little more than the basics of Italian and although the man sitting opposite us spoke barely no English we found ourselves in conversation with one of the locals for a good part of the journey and he helped us with our stop, pointing out where we needed to leave the train and how long the journey was using hand signals and words that were familiar to both of us. Once we had arrived at our destination we
decided that we should do the Volcano first and then come back to Pompeii so we had a bit of an explore and found the stop where our bus went from and waited for it to arrive. Soon enough a huge green bus that looked like an American school bus stopped and we took our place on one of the plastic seats and off we went. Our ticket took us all of the way to the top of Vesuvius but this bus didn’t, we had to stop and get on another bus with bigger wheels. This was like a cross between a monster truck and a school bus so we knew we were in for a treat. Luckily the seats on this one were not the hard plastic ones, another difference was the bus was divided into a cab and a sort of trailer so it was able to get around the corners better. The journey was a real experience, as well as feeling like we were being transported up the mountain on a bouncy castle we could also see how rapidly we were making the climb and the views were getting increasingly more spectacular.

We pulled up onto a level area and were told we had about 2 hours before we were collected and we all left the bus ready to tackle the great unknown. We took a minute or two to get ourselves composed as we could see exactly how far up we were and how far was still to go before we were at the crater. We could see that there would be no need to visit the Gym today. The climb began as it threatened to continue, there was no warming up to the slopes, it was steep from the start and 10 minutes in we were panting and puffing away and had to stop to take it all in. The climb was steep and the surface was difficult but it was a hot day as well so we were glad when we reached the rest stop and were able to get some more water. As part of the ticket we had a guide tell us all about the history of Vesuvius and he even pointed out Pompeii in the distance. It is difficult to comprehend that it is so far away and yet was so devastated by the eruption but looking at the

sheer size of the crater you can get a bit more of an idea of how it can happen. After a little more climbing we were on a relatively flat surface so we were able to get around the crater relatively easy and this gave us a different view. Instead of looking down onto Sorrento we were now looking over Naples and could see the cruise ships heading into port and there were now Seismic sensors dotted about on the side of the crater telling the volcanologists all about any slight movements that were taking place below the surface. I didn’t realise that Vesuvius is still classed as an Active Volcano even though there had been no significant activity since 1944. After our

extreme walking we were starving so once we got off the bus we grabbed a sandwich from one of the stalls and headed into Pompeii Scavi. The site is huge and we had not anticipated the sheer scale of the area we needed to cover to see what we wanted to see. We had opted not to take the walking tours or audio guides and instead we had bought a book that included a map and my wife became the tour guide. We started off full of life and enthusiasm and found the court building and made our way to the Odeon and small Ampitheatre
followed by the gladiators dorm rooms but the heat and the feeling of an already full day started to take it’s toll a little. The shade of the old baths was a welcome relief but it was here that the reality of the situation hit home as we were faced with a

plaster cast of a body in a glass case. We were no longer looking at a devastated city, we were in peoples homes. People had lived and died here and that feeling made the whole experience a lot more eerie. The Pompeii experience is one I am glad I did but I cannot help but feel we did not give it the attention it deserved as we tried to see it in just a few hours with little guidance, if I ever returned to Sorrento I would be tempted to give Pompeii a full day with an actual guide to help make the most of this historic site.