Vesuvius

Wow what great shots. You had an exciting day, and well done for climbing all the way up - not easy when the air gets thinner. Lets hope the residents down below heed the warnings next time it wakes up!

Thank you St. Deleted all the fuzzy photos, caused by rain on the lens. It would have been nice to get a view of Capri, bathed in sunshine from the top.

Thank you for your great photo's Siris.A shame it wasn't a good day,weatherwise..but worth the visit,nevertheless..The memory will always stay with you,I'm sure..It's 16 years since we were there,for our Silver Wedding..I wonder if I could make it to the top now? :o)

My goodness that's impressive Siris....you must go back (people always do lol) especially on a sunny day! but your photos do convey the sheer size and a foreboding eerieness about the place...

Thank you, Bloomer. We are glad we went up. The coaches give you about one and a half hours to go up and down. There were many other o.a.p. who were struggling and turned round part way up, and over weight British teenagers. Up a volcano, is a strange place to celebrate a wedding anniversary. Lol (I know you really meant romantic Sorrento)

Ha ha,Siris, you are correct..It was actually in July,but September/October is 'supposed' to be a bit cooler..not so! It was stifling in Pompeii,and no shade,as you will already know..only the Japanese tourists had the sense to have Umbrella's..our sunhats did little for us..luckily it was a bright cloudless day at the top of Vesuvius,so we could see clearly the lava flow to Herculaneum,which looked like a dry river bed...makes you think of the awful horror of it all,doesn't it?

Bloomer, horror indeed, and the inhabitants 2000 years ago thought they had brough retribution upon themselves from the gods. The poignant part was seeing the actual skeletons in Herclaneum in 'frozen' death poses, and the castes of the body holes where they had vaporised, in Pompeii.

I felt the same,knowing they were once ordinary people,going about their everyday lives..I can't imagine which would be the worst,..the Lava in Herculaneum,or the Pyraclastic flow in Pompeii..

Just looked that up on Google images Sandra - absolutely terrifying, if doesn't bear thinking about does it?

In 1980 on holiday in Sicily we thought we'd take a drive up Mt Etna. About 3/4 of the way up along the zig zag road we had to swerve over to avoid what was a previous flow of lava now set hard but blocking 1/2 the road. It was quite disconcerting.
We drove as far as you can then continued on foot scrambling & picking our way over what looked to us like the surface of the moon, black, crispy & pitted with the odd bit of gorse here & there.
We jumped over fissures with smoke puffing out that smelt like rotten eggs. A couple of locals acted as our guides & showed us the most recent crater & we also looked down a ravine where you could see a red glow far below.
It had been a long hike but we had to head back at a pace as we'd gone up the North side & the sun was going fast.
We had been back home for 2 weeks when we heard on the news Etna had erupted wiping out most of the village below where we had had lunch & chatted to the cafe owners.
Etna continues to be almost constantly active with frequent eruptions.

Yes Sue, very sobering thoughts...we are so lucky to live where we do ..and Greenfinger,that must have sent a shiver down your spine..how very sad..We will be calling in at Messina next year,so we will see how things are,before we decide to visit Etna..or the Authorities might make the decision for us,for safety reasons..

Oh my! Greenfingers. I hope the villagers in 1980 had sufficient time to leave their village. At Vesuvius, there was monitoring equipment all around the rim, but then there are 3 million folks living in a 25 km radius.
Bloomer, at least Messina is about 80 k from Etna, as the crow flies, and it sounds as if you could rush back to a cruise ship? Last eruption was only 2014.

I didn't realise it was so far away from Messina,Siris,and yes,we will be on a Cruise ship..Looking at the Itinerary,it seems there will possibly be an optional trip to Etna..a full day,I presume,for that distance..We will know more at the time,so can decide then..thanks for the info :o)

Bloomer & Sirus, it certainly did shock us & I've often wondered about the cafe owners & if they escaped. They had a 6 mth old baby in her highchair & I was missing my own 6 mth old daughter at the time so we spent time with them showing pics & baby talk.
There was no internet then & the tv didn't give out much info, but it made us realise how foolhardy we had been to have gone up by ourselves.

Greenfingers, your visit troubled me to find out more info. Apparently, only 77 deaths can be directly related to Etna, mostly tourists, so hopefully there is that 35 year old (baby) alive, today.

Considering how active it is that's quite a low figure, poor unlucky tourists though!

Your Daughter is of a similar age to mine,Greenfingers,so I can imagine how you were missing her..We didn't think much about dangerous situations,to some extent,in our younger days,did we? older and wiser is such a true saying..for most of us,hopefully..we just do dafter stuff ,but maybe not quite as foolhardy ,,don't we ? Lol

Too true, Bloomer, old heads & young shoulders & all that.
You never think it can happen to you, which is just as well else we'd never do or go anywhere.
Back then, bottled water was unheard of, you had to use water purifying tablets & I don't remember seeing guard rails on the mountain roads either. One little car was going up backwards cos it kept jumping out of gear on the steep bits.
Everywhere we went I seem to see babies, almost spoilt the holiday for my then hubby. Didn't go away after that till they were old enough to come too.

Thankyou for sharing your photo's, shame the sun wasn't shining for your trip up there, I think it looks quite threatening in the grey light and certainly wouldn't want to be up there at dusk, its making my back go all shivery, lol...

Linkslass, just imagine being up there on a cloudless eve and watching the sun set over the bay of Naples. Not permitted though.

Thanks for sharing Siris very interesting blog and great pictures!!

Wow... stunning blog... thanks, Siris for sharing your adventures and fabulous photos. :o)

Thank you for you kind words, Terra.