Once in a lifetime: On the Vesuvius – journey

Vesuvius near Naples is a mighty volcano, 1281 meters high, at 12,000 years old a youngster among his peers, a teenager with a double peak and yet so mild and accessible. Until 79 AD there was only one peak, Monte Somma, then the volcano erupted, a new crater formed and, as is well known, an ancient city disappeared.

We had spent a hot vacation day among the ruins of Pompeii when we saw a bus sign at the exit: “Vesuvio”. We got on spontaneously. The road wound up the mountain, surrounded by fertile, green landscapes, below the glistening Gulf of Naples and above the rather barren crater. From the destination, a tarred parking lot, which is at an altitude of 1000 meters and has nothing to admire apart from other buses and sales booths, you should be able to hike up to the crater rim in half an hour and from there see Pompeii, Naples, Capri and Ischia . And into the abyss, of course, and thus into history. Is it[called

If you want to hike up from the parking lot, you need a ticket, said the sign there. Only: tickets could not be bought from him, said the strict inspector, only in advance on the Internet. At most, we could quickly look online to see if there were any left. There was no cell phone reception up there. The only way to get online was via the souvenir sellers’ “free” wifi. All we had to do was buy something from them.

There were no more tickets. And so, with the world’s ugliest fridge magnet in our pocket, we took the next bus back to Naples in the evening sun. Too tired to explode. But seething.

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