After a big breakfast at the hotel, I finished packing my bags and took them out to our waiting charter bus.  Our driver is Pascuale.  He speaks some English and some Spanish so we can communicate.  We drove down the main road for about an hour before making a pit stop where most people bought something to eat later for lunch.  I was impressed with the number of limestone quarries in the Apennines.  We passed by Monte Casino and I related John Lyons’ exploits as an army air corps commander during the allied attack in World War II.  The road cuts changed from limestone to basalt when we reached Napoli.  Vesuvio was topped by clouds but still impressive as it loomed ominously above the sprawling city of 3 million.  Bob loaned me two letters written by Pliny the Younger to Tacitus, the historian, describing the 79 A.D. eruption from his vantage point on the north side of Naples Bay. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, crossed the bay to have a closer look and perished in the eruption, apparently by asphyxiation.

We took the road to the Observatorio Vesuvio, winding up the slope through neighborhoods at first, but eventually through insipient parkland.  The old observatory is closed so we walked to the new observatory behind it, only to find it locked.  The director, however, came out and gave a 5-minute talk, in Italian, which I translated for the group.  I understood almost all of what he said. I wonder how much the students understood of what I said!

We climbed back on the bus and drove up to the base of the active cone.  The climb up to the crater took about half an hour but was fairly easy on a nice, wide, graded trail.  A few hundred others were also making the trek.  We bought our tickets to the crater and were accompanied by a local geologist names Roberto Adolfini.  He gave a great synopsis of the eruptive history of the volcano complete with illustrations he had in a notebook.  As he spoke, the summit cleared and we had good views of the crater but it was still cloudy below us.  We then hunted and found some large (7-8 mm) augite crystals on the ground.  We stayed on the rim for about 45 minutes before descending back to the bus.  I think most people wanted to spend more time at the summit. Few had ever been on top of a volcano before. Vesuvius is a wonderful first volcano!

We descended the trail back to the bus. The ride to Pompei took about 40 minutes.  We arrived at about 4:30.  Rather than checking into the hotel, we went right to the ruins, which closed at 7:30.  I had wanted to visit Vesuvius and Pompei since I first heard of them in the first grade in 1960.  The place is amazing: a nearly perfectly preserved Roman town.  The ghosts are still there! I wanted to see plaster casts of the incinerated victims of the eruption. We saw several. (see photos)

With Anne and Bob in the lead, we visited the Colosseum, shops, homes, the Greek Amphitheater, the House of the Fawn – a beautiful villa.  I was particularly intrigued with the plaster casts of some of the victims of the 79 AD eruption, many of which can be seen in the storage area on the side of the forum. We had a lot of fun at the brothel, examining the bed slabs and the erotic frescos still preserved on the walls. The whole time I was aware of Vesuvius staring down at the town, 12 km away.  The nuée ardente that hit the town traveled a long way.

We exited the park; grabbed our bags off of the bus; and walked the 50m to the Hotel Forum.  It is a nice place that advertises free internet access.  After a shower, I went out to dinner with Elise, Laura, Jesse, The Faulkner, Drew, Dave, Erin, and Sarah.  We found a nice trattoria a block away that had great fried calamari and a good, sparkling red wine, of which we drank an ample amount.

Back at the hotel, I was told that Joan had called.  I tried to use the free internet but it refused to connect with the Brevard email system.  Frustrated, I went to bed and fell asleep within minutes.