Honeymoon in Italy: Mount Vesuvius

From the bus we could see the "sleeping giant," which was a face the mountain ridge created.

I realize it's been almost a month since I returned from Italy; time is running away from me! But I am still thinking about my wonderful honeymoon. And I haven't written about one of my favorite parts yet: hiking Mount Vesuvius!

Now, we didn't hike the whole thing. It's more than 3,000 feet tall, which is manageable, but we didn't have time for that. Instead our bus drove us most of the way up, and we hiked the last bit to the summit. We were given 90 minutes in total, with this rough breakdown: 30 minutes to hike to the summit, 30 minutes to take photos, and 30 minutes to come back to the bus.

I packed my hiking boots for the trip specifically for this excursion, and I am glad I did. I think it would have been okay to wear sneakers, but I felt more comfortable on the dirt path in real boots. I also had a back-pack full of snacks, water, and layers of clothing (semper peranda, always prepared!). Now that we’ve moved to Florida, there is no hiking (there are no hills, let alone mountains), so I was very excited to go on even a short hike. The crater itself is not that exciting (it is indeed a hole), but the views were so cool. I couldn’t believe people still live at the base of the volcano knowing what happened so long ago (and it’s still an active volcano), but since 79 AD, there have been 49 eruptions and none of them that bad, mostly slow-moving lava from which people can have time to escape. I guess it’s like us moving to Florida knowing hurricanes are getting worse, or people who live in California understanding the dangers of earthquakes. You take your chances!

We took some photos while climbing up, but of course the best pictures were the views at the top. I felt like you could see everything!

This is not a great panoramic photo, but you can see the crater at the summit.

Another hiker offered to take our photo, and of course we returned the favor afterward!

The view at the top was so beautiful! You could look down onto the cities and towns as well as see islands in the distance.

I thought this plant was so cool! It's called "Old Man's Beard" fittingly.

This pretty pink flower is a type of Valerian.

After the long drive back (we both took naps), we went out for drinks at Bar Ercolano in the heart of Sorrento. The town is much cuter when it's not raining! After our happy hour, we enjoyed one last pasta dinner at Mamma Che Pasta. I liked that you could pick your shape of pasta and your sauce, and then you could add items to the dish like meatballs. Yum!

This was our last full day of vacation! The next two days were travel days: one to train back to Rome (we took THREE trains that day), and the other to fly back to the States. So we ended on a literal high note!