Oh whoa oh oh VOLCANO!

"Are we at the top yet?" Those were the words spoken by Bella over a hundred times as we climbed up Mt. Vesuvius. Yes, we trekked up the mountain that destroyed the city of Pompei nearly 2000 years ago. It was a very long walk up with a lot of complaints from Bella, though it wasn't that bad. The trail was steep but pretty easy to walk on probably becuase they send hundreds of fat and old tourists up there every day.  At the top we were greeted by a massive crater with steam seeping out on the side and many people sitting down. After walking the rest of the way around the rim, we turned and headed back down and this time there were a lot less complaints from Bella.

The next day we woke up extra early to beat the big crowds to see the ruins of old Pompei. I'm starting to think this early waking up before famous tourist sites is getting to be a tradition that isn't all that fun.  Here is some history about Pompei for those people who don't know. On August 27, 79 A.D. Mt.Vesuvius erupted gushing ash 20 kms into the air. Meanwhile the people of Pompei were just chilling out, going through the morning routine when it started raining ash. About 2 or 3 meters of ash landed on the town of Pompei suffocating and killing everyone in it. Then the volcano started gushing out lava down the side towards Pompei at about 80 km an hour burning everything and any survivers to a crisp. After all the lava and ash stopped, the town was completely covered in 5 meters of ash with the land around it a barren gray wasteland. In the 1600's old Pompei was rediscovered when

someone was building a road. After its discovery, archeologists unearthed as much of the old city as they could. They discovered that the ash had preserved the form of a person as they were when the ash fell and killed them. So now there are many molds of the people of Pompei as they died. We wandered the streets of old Pompei and after a lot of complainting because dad was holding out on the water and we were choking on ash (ROLF!).

My new best friend!