Europe Cruise - Part 2

My favorite day on the Cruise we got to climb to the top of Mt. Vesuvius, a live volcano!  You can see the crater here is still hot and steamy. 

 

 Abby climbed up to the rim herself.  She took a lot of rest stops to play in the dirt though.  There are a few tiny rock piles on the trail left by Abby.  Matthew wanted to go, so Mommy took him ahead.

 There she is...close to the top!

 We actually pulled into the Port of Naples before visiting Vesuvius and Pompeii.  I just liked this picture.

As you can see, Abby and Matthew got VERY dusty while exploring Pompeii.  They apparently made an early version of Pizza in Pompeii at ovens like these.

Most of the inhabitants have been taken to a museum in Naples, but they left a few pots and things out in one spot to let Pompeii visitors see what they have found. 

The ash that covered Pompeii was not actually that deep, so there have been many scavengers here before it became protected, and many things were stolen.  Apparently, there is a nearby town, Herculean, that was covered by boiling mud.  That town is just now starting to be excavated, and no one has touched it.  Someday, I want to go back and see all the amazing tiles and art found there!

Matthew loved this crosswalk.  Pompeii streets were nasty with horse and human goo, so they built crosswalks.

This is the main gate entrance. The best part about seeing Pompeii was that instead of seeing isolated ruins in the middle of modern day buildings like in Rome, we were seeing the actual layout of a town!  You could see the bakeries and shops in the marketplace, the hotels located on one street, the large homes nestled next to smaller merchant homes and then regular people homes.  The local bathhouse and the main square are all there.  It was really neat to see.