Italy: Day 6 - Mt. Vesuvio

Today we had a bit of a slow morning. Stayed around the house in the morning. In the afternoon, once the kids were done with school - we all piled into the Chevy Suburban and headed for Mt. Vesuvio. It is about 40 minutes from where we were staying. We went up a fairly steep road with lots of switchbacks. At the top we came to a parking lot - several tour buses were just leaving (good for us). We paid our money (this is a national park - so Italians don't need to pay).
The hike up to the top is steep for the first 1/2 mile or so. It then levels out for the next 3/4. You can see down into the crater of Vesuvio. It is incredible to see the steam still rising from various points inside the crater. The surface of the trail is a red pumice just as you might expect. The mountain is constantly monitored for movement. There were several stations with very modern instruments shooting lasers across the crater.
Here are some of my pictures that I took that day:


Here we are unloading all 6 kids from the Suburban. Driving a vehicle the size of this generates very strange looks throughout Italy. Remember - in Europe - the average size of a car is what we consider a compact. There are very few SUVs in all of Europe.

Mt. Vesuvio is still an active volcano. We could see steam and smell sulphur as we hiked around the rim of the crater.

Here we are driving back to our house. This picture shows how much of the mountain was removed in the eruption.