Life in the Red Zone

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Today is an important day - we've booked a tour to climb Mount Vesuvius, which is the first of the three volcanoes we plan to scale on this trip. I've been keeping a close eye on the mountain from our balcony since we arrived. I haven't seen any smoke or noticed any earthquakes, so hopefully it should be safe to climb today. Issy's still feeling the after effects of her seasickness tablets so she tells me that she won't be joining me, and will instead spend the day by the pool. I hope that she hasn't heard something about an impending eruption that she's not telling me about.

Our guide introduces herself as Rafaela. She tells us that people from the south of Italy have a reputation for being lazy, and that this applies to every aspect of their lives except for when they're driving. As soon as they get behind a wheel it seems they can't wait for anything, and they all drive like lunatics. The motorcyclists don't look much better - we pass a helmetless rider scooting along in busy traffic whilst talking earnestly on his phone.

I'm sitting next to Sharna who's from Leicester in England. She's here for a week with her boyfriend who's sitting across the aisle. I ask her what it was like in her hometown when Leicester City won the English Premier League last year. She says that it was amazing; she says that the team was something like five thousand to one to win at the start of the season, so it's probably something that will never happen again. She says that there's not usually anything to do in Leicester, so it's really put the city on the map.

We're told that Mount Vesuvius' most famous eruption was in 79 AD, but there have been lots of others as well. The most recent was in 1944, and it produced a number of lava flows which destroyed several entire villages. The crater was open before the 1944 eruption, so it wasn't particularly severe, but it then collapsed, and the magma is now under an eight kilometre deep volcanic plug. The pressure required for the magma to break through the plug is so great that the mountain will explode the next time it erupts, and this won't be good. It seems that they've got lots of instruments in place to detect any signs of imminent activity, including infrared cameras to sense changes in temperature, and sensors to detect swelling of the ground and any changes in the gases in the crater. Vulcanologists think that they'll have about three days warning of any eruption, and there's a comprehensive emergency management plan in place. There are roughly 800,000 people in 25 villages in the so called "Red Zone", and they'd all need to be evacuated. It seems that the main hazard isn't the lava which flows quite slowly, but rather the pyroclastic cloud of ash, gases and volcanic rock. This would reach the coast, several kilometres away, in only five or at most six minutes. The 79 AD eruption lasted about a day and was in two distinct phases. The first phase sent rocks raining down which destroyed most of the buildings. The pyroclastic cloud came in the second phase. This covered the town in eight metres of ash, and it and the toxic fumes killed anyone who managed to survive the first phase.

It seems that we're very lucky to be able to climb the mountain today. There was a bad fire on the slopes recently. This closed the trail for three weeks, and this is only the third day that it's been reopened. The fire was apparently deliberately lit, and the police have yet to identify the culprits. The damage is very evident all around us.

We arrive at a car park partway up the mountain, and we're told that it's about a twenty minute walk from here to the top. The views from the trail over the Bay of Naples are excellent. The crater's massive, and photos don't do any justice to its scale. Its sides are vertical other than where there have been rockfalls. These are apparently relatively frequent, and after they occur vulcanologists then need to be lowered on ropes to dig out any sensors that have become buried.

We get back on the bus and head towards Pompeii. As well as being an archaeological site, it's also a modern town. Sharna starts giggling. She points out a large bingo hall across the road from the site entrance. It does look ridiculously out of place.

We stop for lunch at a restaurant near the entrance. There are about forty of us in the group and six tables have been reserved for us. I think I'm the only person who's here on their own. I sit down at an empty table and a family of four joins me .... well almost joins me ... they've left two seats separating me from one of the teenage daughters on one side, and another from the father on the other side. This is starting to feel very awkward. I tell them that I'm feeling lonely over here by myself, so I move across one seat so that I'm now sitting next to the father. I think I preferred feeling lonely; I now feel like I'm the fifth member of a family of four. I'm sure they must think I'm a creepy old man who can't find anyone to go on holiday with. The mother can sense the awkwardness and tries to make conversation. I tell them that I do have an actual wife and that she's back at the hotel, but I'm not sensing they believe me. They tell me that they're from Falkirk in the north of Scotland. I try to talk to the father, but I'm struggling to understand anything he's saying. I think he's speaking English, but it's hard to be sure. I tell them that I'm from Australia, and he responds that he likes Foster's Lager; at least I think that's what he said. The conversation lags again, and it's feeling more awkward by the second. I start hoping that the mountain might erupt and put us all out of our misery. It's so awkward that the Scottish family has now even stopped talking to each other. The minutes drag on. Dessert arrives and I gobble it down, and I've now got a reasonable excuse for leaving. I make a mental note to be sure to drag Issy along on all future tours, no matter what.

Rafaela tells us that the Pompeii site is massive, and it would take at least three days to see it all. We've only got two hours, so we'll only be able to see the highlights. It seems that they're still far from finished excavating, and they're constantly finding new buildings and artefacts. A significant new artefact was apparently found only last week. We start our tour at the amphitheatre. Next stop is a villa where there's a very scary looking lady whose job it is to make sure that no one touches any of the frescoes or takes pictures of them using a flash. She might look scary, but she still seems to be fighting a losing battle. We move onto the town brothel, which it seems is a very popular attraction. Rafaela explains that we'll see a series of frescoes near the entrance which were effectively the menu. They show the different positions that the different prostitutes were best at, based on the ratings of the clients, which were also written on the walls. I hope modern day brothel websites don't include personnel ratings, but I've got a horrible feeling they might. Last stop is the forum, which is a large open area which served as the town square.

Back in Sorrento, it's back into town for dinner. We finish eating and order a round of limoncello followed quickly by another. Issy's again looking very happy and asks the waiter if she can get a picture with him. She says that she's particularly disappointed that we didn't manage to get a happy snap with Punjabi Whiskey Man last night, and from now on she wants to be photographed with the waiter at every restaurant we eat at. Groan.....

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