Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii

Off for a day trip to the other side of the coastal mountain range, a tourist visit to Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii.

                                               Trekking up the slope of Mount Vesuvius.

The city of Napoli (Naples) is definitely in the shadow of Mt Vesuvius. Napoli is a heavily populated metropolitan area of over 4.4 million inhabitants.....

Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Vesuvius is somewhat overdue, as major eruptions occur every 1500 years, on average........

 Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in the year AD 79. The eruption buried Pompeii under 4 to 6 m of ash and pumice, and it was lost for nearly 1700 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1749. Pompeii was rediscovered--not only its houses, but (eventually) some of its citizens. Although only fragmentary skeletal remains were found there, hollow spaces within the hardened volcanic debris revealed the forms of many deceased Romans. Their bodies eventually decayed inside the hardening matter. This air space essentially formed a mold, since the ash that had surrounded the person retained an imprint of the body. Excavators realized this and filled the air pockets with plaster. The resulting "plaster mummies" poignantly capture the human tragedy of Pompeii.

                                            
                                                           Pomergranates

If you visit Pompeii, take a comfortable pair of walking shoes, sunblock, drinking water, a reliable camera, a good guide book and a handful of dog treats.

........returning from our tourist daytrip to Mt Vesuvius and Pompeii. We stopped at this spectacular lookout over the bay and city of Naples. The lookout is along the SP2 highway over the coastal mountain range, the route between the southeast suburbs of Naples and Ravello along the Amalfi Coast.

July 10 (or so).....Ravello and the Bay of Naples

Marisa and Dad off to explore the other side of the mountain range,  the Bay of Naples.

lunch at this restaurant near Naples.

               Mozzarella di Bufala (buffalo mozzarella), made from domesticated water buffalo milk.

                                            ....... the Ravello graveyard.

                                                 Aline and Thomas, the Ravello cat

                     A sizable public demonstration in the Ravello piazza on the Sunday. The story we were told was that one of the Italian Cabinet Ministers was getting married and people were demonstrating because of his exteme unpopularity in this area of Italy. Apparently this Minister's portfolio included the controversial Carabinieri the national gendarmerie of Italy, both military and civilian police, a branch of the armed forces.

                                              ..... for sale near the piazza

                                a local Trattoria had this very strange vegetable growing in their garden....

July 9th....Tuscany to Amalfi

Karen and the girls on the highspeed train from Siena, via Florence to Salerno -- while Danny and Céline return one of the rentals to Siena and drive onward to the Amalfi Coast.

        returning the Fiat Panda in Siena. Nobody in our gang was happier to see this car gone than Céline.

                             a Ferrari convention of some kind in the town of Bagnoregio.

Civita di Bagnoregio is known as il paese che muore (in Italian: "the dying town"). Civita has only recently been experiencing a tourist revival.
The town is noted for its striking position atop a plateau of friable volcanic tuff overlooking the Tiber river valley, in constant danger of destruction as its edges fall off, leaving the buildings built on the plateau to crumble. The town was placed on the World Monuments Fund's 2006 Watch List of the Most Endangered Sites, due to the threats it faces from erosion and unregulated tourism.

A garbage strike! The garbage strike into its fourth week. We passed through the southeastern suburbs of the sprawling city of Naples, before crossing the mountain range to the Amalfi Coast.

             ....the final stretch of our drive from Siena, Tuscany to Ravello on the Amalfi Coast.
Following the directions of our trusty GPS we took the route SP2 over the mountains from the southeastern suburbs of sprawling Napoli to the beautiful Amalfi town of Ravello. (caution: contains some profanity...)
 
                                     

                                                       Ravello !!!!!!

                            the street leading to our villa at Via San Cosma 15.

              Motorcycles and scooters are the only vehicles to pass beyond this point on the ancient street.

                      our gracious host Gaetano brought us down the street of his family to our villa.

                                                                 our terrace !

                 kiwis growing on our terrace roof, lemons groves and vineyards along the hillsides and cliffs

                                ......some of the lemons do very, very well in this climate !

                                                           the Ravello concert hall

                                        

                                       this little guy on the step beside our terrace....

                       ......the parking for the hotel owned by the family of our landlord, Gaetano.

                                         ..... thus ends our first day in Ravello       /sigh


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