Not Intent on Arriving

We set up toward Vesuvius, one of the legendary mountains on the planet.  As we got to the top, the guides offered us a “special” deal where we would walk around the entire cone of the mountain and then enter the crater (a little bit).  Since we had a little bit of extra money at this point, I said sure (after asking the kids).  We set off on our tour.

Now, I quickly realized three things:

1) Some of my kids were deathly afraid of heights even though they didn’t say anything.  Rob began freaking out almost instantaneously.  When we were walking down a cliff he crouched down and grabbed the side because he didn’t want to fall. Travis said, “Man, I can’t believe we’re on this volcano.  What are we doing up here?”  At that point, though, nothing could be done.  They had to tough it out.

2) Many of the kids were afraid the volcano would blow up.  Our guide told the kids that Vesuvius is the best studied volcano on Earth and that scientists would have a lot of warning before any eruption would occur.  Also, he mentioned the next eruption was not forecast until 2020. Still, someone asked, “What are we going to do if it starts looking like it’s going to explode?”

3) Our guide was crazy. The kids called him “Billy Goat” at the end of the visit.  At one point, he stopped in the middle of what he was saying, crouched down and began pawing at the rocks to find one specimen to show us.  When we went down into the crater, he was jumping from rock to rock merrily without a care for where he was jumping, etc.  The nickname was well-deserved.

Additionally, the weather got really crappy, really quickly.  A thick layer of fog rolled in and unfortunately made it so we couldn’t see the view from the mountain.  In spite of that, we got to descend into the crater and stick our hands into a hole where steam was escaping from the mountain.  Really cool stuff.

We took some sweet group pictures and then began to hike down the mountain.  Bajia was not a fan of going down and continually told us (she was walking with Kelly) how she was going to die.  Nevertheless, we survived and made it back to base camp.  There, the guide had me sample some Vesuvian wine (made from soil enriched with the ash of the mountain) and thanked us.  It was a really nice visit.

After our visit Pompeii, we took a train into a beautiful town with quite a tourist presence: Sorrento.  We took the kids to a very special place.  As we walked into the limoncello factory, you get the overwhelming smell of the acidity of lemon mixed with the sweetness of sugar.  Everyone got to taste a bit of the world-famous liquor which, when chilled, has an incredibly delicate and smooth texture going down.

Inside our limoncello factory

After that, we gave the kids some time to explore the area on their own.  Enzo and I walked around downtown and then I split up at some point and wandered off by myself.  Below is a picture of the area.

In the distance here, you can see Napoli

Enzo took me to a wonderful bar in the center of town where we had the speciality of the house:  Granita (basically lemon shaved ice) with sweet tea.  Yum!  After about an hour, we reunited with the kids right outside of the center of town.  Enzo had a restaurant in mind and we took off for it.

Now, I’ve already mentioned something about Italian portion size.  In this restaurant, Enzo had already negotiated a price and the owner proposed 3 “tastes” of pasta and a second course.  I told the kids this, expecting all three “tastes” to be on one plate and tiny portions.  Instead, they were served separately and were quite a bit of pasta.  Then, I hadn’t told the kids there would be a second course (sausage), but there was.  I thought we would have a mutiny.  No one could eat anymore.  “My stomach is about to explode.” Blah blah blah.

Anyways, the food was really good and the kids did survive.  But it’s pretty funny thinking back to the faces when that fourth course of food emerged from the kitchen.

PS: the kids went out for gelato after all this food.  Some things can never be sacrificed.