Vesuvius

After leaving Pompeii, the tour bus drove us up Mount Vesuvius.  The bus has to make dozens of hairpin turns on a narrow road going up the side of the mountain.  When you are approaching the turn you do not imagine that it would be possible for such a long bus to make it around, but it does every time, occasionally having to force other vehicles to back up out of its way. 

     The buses let the tourists out at a base station where a rocky trail begins which goes up to the rim of the volcano.  It is a hot, dry and pretty steep  trail that goes up in three stages.  At the end of each stage there is a little refreshment stand and some shade.  Looking down one can see the city and the Bay of Naples and , off in the distance the Amalfi peninsula.  On the flank of the present volcano a great ring of lava fields spreads out from the volcano.  The remnants of the old base of the much larger volcano that exploded in 79 A.D.are still are visible. 

     The crater is about a half mile wide, hundreds of feet deep and almost perfectly cone shaped with a floor that looks like you could build a house on it or plant a garden.  Flowering plants and grasses grow around the rim and down inside.  It is said that steaming vents can often be seen but we did not see any the day we were there.  The trail follows the rim about half way around the lower side.  The higher side looks extremely dangerous without a trail or safety railing.  The sides drop straight down and there are places where you can see material has broken off and fallen.  I do not know what geo-physical dynamic creates the perfectly cylindrical shape or the flat plug at the bottom.  And I do not know what it would look like to see that enormous shape fill up with lava before it broke through one of the sides and poured down the mountain.  Evidence of such lava flows are all around.