May 24, 2006. Vesuvio. We awoke reasonably early today, and after a breakfast at the hotel, drove to the volcano Vesuvius. The road winds up the northwest side of the mountain, between the active cone and the older, forested, caldera wall called Monte Somma. It passes a largish, young and grey-colored lava flow, that I suppose to be from the 1944 eruption. It ends a rather-too-touristy parking lot, complete with tacky gift shops. One of these proved handy, though, for we bought Hannah a straw hat to fend off the bright sun. As a geologist, I was appalled to see that the vast majority of “Vesuvio volcanic rock specimens” sold at these shops are faked. I guess bits of real lava make dull gifts!

After paying for parking and entrance tickets, we joined a large crowd of hikers, and made our way up a steep path that climbed up to the crater, and then circled partway along its rim. The crater is not so wide, just a few hundred meters, but impressively deep, and will walls exhibiting the typical layering of stratovolcanoes. Rock formations on the light tan walls were in places quite beautiful. The only activity that we spotted was one little steam vent, fairly high on the crater wall.

We ate lunch on a small overlook, just below one of the gift shops, gazing out towards the northwest, towards Napoli and its bay. We had croissants with Nutella, and copious amounts of water. In addition to the big lava flow, we could recognize several small cinder cones on the slopes below us. The city of Napoli seemed all too close. Evacuating it will be a real problem during the next major eruption! We could also see narrow dikes cutting up across Monte Somma.

Our walk to the crater was rather too short, about 2 hours. We attempted to find an open trail on Monte Somma, but all appeared to be gated and locked. A brief discussion with a staffer at the National Park office yielded only the word closed, spoken authoritatively. So we decided to visit Herculaneum.