29 May

We took a shuttle bus to Mt Vesuvius today, climbed the mountain, and hiked as far around the rim of the crater as the path goes. It's not as big as expected and there was no smoke or steam. The views would be fantastic on a clear day, but it was pretty hazy today.

When we got back to Pompei, we took the train to Ercolano, the site of Herculaneum. It's a smaller version of Pompeii, but the disaster was slightly different there, lava/ash-wise, and things are better preserved. It's also much smaller and easier to navigate. Janene has had enough ruins for a while and read while Joe nosed around the city.

We rode the train back to Pompei, bought some food for tomorrow, and had pizza again at the RV park next door to where we're staying. There was some sort of religious festival going on in town tonight, with hundreds (or more) of people parading around with crosses and loud speakers. After being assured that the latest revolution wasn't starting and determining that they probably weren't bent on running the heretics out of town, we just sat back, watched a bit, and waited for it to run its course. We met an English couple in a motor home who were camped in our RV park and spent several hours swapping stories. They told us about outstanding Greek ruins dating to 600 BC in Paestum, Italy. We had planned to take the train to Bari, Italy, tomorrow, then an overnight ferry to Greece, but now we've decided to go to Paestum.

Mt Vesuvius

bus to Vesuvius	Joe on Mt Vesuvius	Joe & Janene on Mt Vesuvius
pyroclastic deposits	view from Vesuvius	view from Vesuvius
around the crater	another view	from the top
inside the crater	back to Pompei

Herculaneum

Casa dell'Albergo garden	House of Argus	Casa dello Scheletro	fast food thermopolium
decorated fountain in House of N&A	Neptune & Amphitrite mosaic	women's Roman bath	bath's marine mosaic
Samnite House	Casa dell'Atrio Corinzio	yellow stone wall	wall layers
broken column	Palaestra	SE corner of palaestra
another wall fresco	another thermopolium	House of M Fabius Rufus	House of the Wooden Screen
bedroom	window	window

Back to Pompei

Mt Vesuvius

festival crowds

festival crowds