Rain and Volcanoes

The last few days have been all about rain and volcanoes. It has rained for almost three days solid. One of those days we were at Camping Pompei (a rat hole if ever there was one) in a tent. Camping Pompei is a small campsite in the city of Pompei. It is filled largely with camper vanners and most of them seem a little trailer trashy. The man who showed us to our camp site (a patch of grass so tiny it hardly warranted the name) was a short, stumpy “Lord of the Rings”-esque dwarf with a permanent scowl. He showed us to our camp site and stumped off scowling. We pitched our tent and went on a gorgeous scenic drive down the Amalfi coast.

Scenic Amalfi Coast:

Note to anyone intending a gorgeous scenic drive down the Amalfi coast – don’t do it on a weekend. The roads are long, winding, hilly affairs that snake along cliff faces. The cliffs then fall hundreds of feet into the sea. There are little parking bays to pull into every time you want to do some gawping at the incredible view. Unfortunately, on a weekend the roads are also jam-packed with traffic. It took us forever to drive from Pompei down the coast to Sorrento and past Amalfi. The scooters are the worst kind of annoying. On sections of open road they cruise along slowly, two abreast, with the drivers and their female pillion passengers yakking across at each other. This effectively stops any car from getting past them. As soon as the traffic comes to a standstill, though, they whip into single file and zoot through the snarl up, only to reform as soon as they are out of the jam, and then they slow down the next set of cars. I am surprised scooter drivers in Italy don’t have a drastically short life span.

Islands off the Amalfi Coast:

These roads are also a cyclist’s wet dream. The Amalfi coast line is a lot like Chapman’s Peak, only bigger, better and more beautiful. Cyclists were out in their droves, all cruising along for an awesome weekend ride with the most stunning view. Something that interested me was that none of the seemed to wear helmets. Obviously they are pretty confident that no one is going to run them down. Of course, they do not have our taxis to contend with. Or the road rage. 

Rock Formations on the Amalfi Coast:

After our coastal crawl we continued on to Vesuvius, despite the misty stuff swirling warningly about the top of the mountain. The day got a lot cooler as we drove up towards the top car park. You get to drive quite a long way up the mountain. By the time you park (and pay your 6.5 Euros entrance fee) there is a relatively short walk left to the crater. We walked up in a chilly wind and wispy clouds. We didn’t mind too much, as there is no shelter on the path and on a hot, sunny day the walk up must be nightmarish. The path is bare except for dust, stones and shale. It’s a short but steepish walk, and the shale gives way slightly with every step you stake. We decided not to part with our precious Euros and declined the offer of a walking stick at the beginning of the path. Most other people took a stick but it’s really not necessary if you’re even vaguely young or fit. 

I thoroughly enjoyed being at the top. It was delightfully gloomy and atmospheric, what with the stark pumice rock and the swirling mist all about. However, the swirling mist did prevent us from looking down into the crater. We wondered up and down along the top until the cloud lifted for long enough to allow us a peek into the crater. It wasn’t as dramatic as we had expected. It’s just a big hole in a mountain. Not a sinister, black hole lined with jagged rock and gnarled lava formations. Just a pale, rocky, vegetated slope leading down to a sandy bottom. Not exactly fire and brimstone material. Of course, given the choice I’d rather look into a sandy pit than into a raging inferno with the power to blow the top off a mountain and bury some cities and a few thousand people. We plan to visit the Pompei ruins within the next week or so.

Undramatic Volcano Crater:

More Like A Volcano:

Slightly chilled, we pilfered a few pieces of pumice rock and then decided to depart. We scurried swiftly down the shaley path, finding it a whole lot more pleasant to descend. Feeling ever so faintly smug at having been there and done that, we dashed swiftly past the folk who were only then ascending – trudging and gasping for breath. We piled into the Panda (Fiat Panda rental car – we were most impressed with this little car and the fact that we could squeeze all of our backpacks and assorted nonsense into its boot) and, pausing only to get lost in Pompei city (de rigeur for any drive we do in an Italian city) we fled back to the sanctuary of our nice homely tent. We were so looking forward to being cosy and warm. The rain had turned our tiny patch of grass at Camping Pompei into a puddle. (Another black mark for Camping Pompei.) Thank goodness for the brand new North Face Tadpole tent. Its water proof capacities were well tested and we got through the night mostly dry. Unfortunately our sleep was somewhat disturbed by the rest of the inmates. Someone thought it would be a good idea to shout intermittently around 1:30 in the morning. Someone else then thought it would be a good idea to open both tent flaps and let in a pack of mosquitoes. After a few nasty stinging sensations I spent 30 or so grumpy minutes hunting down mosquitoes and shining the torch vengefully into the eyes of my “sleeping” tent mate, who was trying to pretend he didn’t know I was hunting instead of slumbering peacefully. After committing a couple of gruesome murders (sadly not one of my victims was a noisy neighbour) I retired back to my sleeping bag and willed myself to sleep.