VesuviusI woke up and my whole body ached. I still felt bad, and Geoff had courteously developed sympathy symptoms, although not as bad as mine. We were due to leave the hotel that morning, but considered if we shouldn’t stay. It was going to be our one chance to go up Vesuvius (no rain forecast), and this enticed me out of bed. The thought and smell of food made my stomach heave, but we made it to the train station and on to Ercolano (Herculaneum) where the Vesuvius bus leaves. Our Rough Guide is a little out of date, so we walked through Ercolano to the ruins to get the bus, only to find that the bus leaves from the train station. Modern-day Ercolano is a dump. Full of rubbish and dog crap. The route up to Vesuvisus is a national park, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the municipal tip. On arriving at the car park you have to pay to walk to the crater, another 800 metres, which is definitely worth it. It’s still smoking. The crater is a proper caldera and the views over the bay of Naples, Capri, etc. are breathtaking. We only got just over an hour at the top before the bus departed again and had I been feeling better we would have had more time on top, rather than me having to slowly drag myself up the hill and wasting time because of it.

We got down and went to Naples to find our hotel. It was near the train station, which is the seedy part of town. The Hotel Garibaldi was a 3 star hotel, so nice, but we got there and I went straight to bed. I still couldn’t face any food and we both slept for about 14 hours straight, so we missed any sightseeing in Naples.

See photos of today.

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