Day 4 - Mount Vesuvius and Capri

This Blog entry is all over the place, but since I have been working on it and not managing to get it up for quite some time, I have decided to just post it anyway. Apologies if it is hard to follow. On Day 4 we arrived at Naples and there were quite a few choices of things to do. The tours done through the ship were quite expensive, and often involved lots of time on buses, so we kept them to a minimum, but Papa Bear and Zander were both intrigued by the idea of hiking Mount Vesuvius and being able to stand on the edge of a crater, so at Naples they did the Ship's tour of Mount Vesuvius. I decided to take the Rocket on a hydrofoil to the island of Capri.

The boat ride to Capri took about 40 mins arriving at Marina Grande, and then we started going for a walk. The poor little Rocket was hungry and thirsty, but I didn't have any Euros, and needed to find a bank. There was a sign for the town centre, so that is where we headed, but, Oh My Goodness!! It turned out to be a hike!! Hundreds of very steep steps that seemed to go on forever. There is a funicular to the top, but we didn't realise this at the time. We finally made it to the top, and were lucky enough to find someone who spoke enough english to point us in the direction of a bank. Then we treated ourselves to a drink and the Rocket to a chocolato Gelato in a sweet little Italian cafe.
Brock near Marina Grande at the end of our day on Capri before we caught the Hydrofoil back. He found some interesting Rocks, some of them made it back to England, then onto Adelaide and we still have them now in Melbourne.

The beautiful sunrise over Mt Vesuvius, with quite a large boat in front of it.
These are the box of official volcanic stones that we bought at the top of Mt Vesuvius. I am not sure how 'official' they are, but they are quite pretty.









The waffle cone had the name of the cafe stamped on it.


The Italian fascination for growing food in even the smallest of open spaces is commendable. Similar small vegetable gardens dot parts of the city which aren't high rise, and spread even half way up Mt Vesuvius



The sun rising over Mt Vesuvius, outlining what would have been the former glory of the mountain. The outer peak on the left used to be the outer edge of the mountain, which rose over twice as high as the current mountain. This shows just how big the mountain used to be, and how devastating the eruption was when it buried Pompeii
The boat bringing in the harbour pilots to take us to Naples look like they are driving a toy boat from the top of the ship.


Mt Vesuvius at dawn as the boat starts to enter into the port of Naples, Italy.




The Rocket and Mama at the cafe in Capri after a very long walk!!
The Rocket with his Tunisian camel on the Hydrofoil to Capri




The path up and down the side of Mt Vesuvius is a very busy place. The bottom 3/4 of the mountain can be driven up in a car or bus, (though some of the keen people on the boat rode up on bicycles). This part of the path is for walking only, especially as the loose gravel that makes up the sides of the mountains is crumblysteep, and somewhat trecherous.
A kind traveller took a photo of us walking back down the mountain. We are almost to the bottom, with a hill in the background. That hill is the former edge of the original mountain before the big eruption that destroyed Pompeii. During that eruption well over 3/4 of the former mountain was blown into the sky, devastating the area.
At the top of the crater is a rather rickety fence to prevent you from either falling into the crater, with a rope fence on the other side to stop you falling down the side of the mountain. Even so Alex really wanted to balance on the big rock to show off the castle shaped rock he found. Especially as I didn't want to cart down a whole bag of rocks to the boat and eventually through Aussie customs. I doubt customs would accept that it is ok to import because it is from an important volcano.
The view of the crater is spectacular, as is the amount of tiny little rock dust is surprising. It is also surpring that the rock fragments are also very sharp, so it is also wise to keep them out of your shoes.
The scale of the crater at the top of Mt Vesuvius is immense. It is also not actually very hot with rock plugging the crater bottom, which until 50 years ago had lava bubbling out of it. Unfortunately whilst the plug stops lava from flowing out, it also means the next eruption is likely to explode the mountain.
Photo of Alex after we had docked at Capri

On day four we arrived in Naples. The cruise into Naples was glorious as we began to see the first outlines of hills and mountains of the coast of Italy in the early dawn light.
There were lots of options from Naples, and our shortlist was Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius, and Capri. We deliberated lots before finally deciding that Alex and Papa would go on a bus tour so they could climb Mount Vesuvius and Brock and I would catch a ferry to the island of Capri.

A picture of Alex in front of our ship, the Ocean Village Two.


The view from Mount Vesuvius over Naples. The rocks show the clear path of the last lava flow around 50 years ago heading down the valley towards the city.
This is the view across Naples from the top of Mount Vesuvius. The rocky outcrops are the remnants of former lava flows, which have gradually grown over with some hardy plants.
Water melon carving at dinner
Ice sculpture outside one of the restaurants on the ship.