Vesuvio

There are many volcanoes in the world; they have incredible power; the human response to that power can only be described as awe; I had an early introduction to this power when Mt. St. Helens erupted when I was five years old. We were close enough to the mountain to know people affected or killed, and at one point I remember rising for school only to realize that it was still dark outside--when my Mom flipped on the porch light, it looked like snow was falling. It took a few days for me to realize that this snow wouldn't melt, it was forever, and that centimeter of ashfall that we received is still there, a layer in the dirt still reminding us of the awesome power of geology.

Over the years I have visited other active volcanoes, in Costa Rica and Cameroon and Sicily, though these were slow-moving lava eruptions rather than explosive ones like Mt. St. Helens. My awe has never diminished, even as I have had the fortune to watch Mt. St. Helens evolve and the nearby environment renew after the devastation of that 1980 eruption.

Part of this trip is for fun and part is for school. Part is meant to bring the world to our kids and part is meant to bring them to the world. And maybe part is meant to throw a little awe their way, whether it is to stare up at the Sistine Chapel or down at an active volcanic crater. Part is meant to bring history to life. For all these reasons, a visit to Vesuvius and the Roman towns at its base was an early entry on our itinerary.

The kids knew a bit about Pompeii. There's a pop song named after it. They all read a Magic Treehouse book when they were younger in which the kids go back to Pompeii on the day of the eruption and barely escape. They knew the city was buried in a volcanic eruption in the Roman era, and with a little luck they might have guessed the correct year of the eruption, 79 CE (we are using CE and BCE for our date convention).

We spent five days in Naples while staying in modern Ercolano (ancient Herculaneum), on the west slope of Vesuvius, and visited both excavated Herculaneum and Pompeii. In between, we took the bus most of the way up the slope of Vesuvius and climbed the rest of the path to the summit. In preparation we read Pliny the Younger's letters to Tacitus on the eruption and the death of his father, Pliny the Elder (this is the Pliny who had written about the Laocoon statue, so the kids were already familiar with him; it was also the Pliny who said "Fortune favors the Brave!" as he sailed across the bay into the eruption zone, where he perished). In all, the kids got to see the natural side of the volcano, its destructive power, and the historical aspects of the eruption all in one quick visit.

The mountain

Climbing the mountain is a spectacular experience, even if you bus most of the way to the top. Naples and the Tyrrhenian sea are laid out before you, with a smoking crater waiting on the other side. The tourist mafia was in force, so we had to purchase a bus/entry ticket in Ercolano to get in (though, to be fair, it would have been a miserable drive up the mountain for us).

It was a great success as a field trip, though. The kids loved it. Climbing, the outdoors, nice weather that was not too hot, these are the elements of success. After visiting Herculaneum and watching the steam vents, they certainly came away with a bit of awe and maybe a little bit of fear, given that we planned to sleep in Ercolano for three more nights.

Modern Naples behind Katie. The promontory at the upper left of the photo is where ancient Misenum was and from where Pliny the Elder sailed to Vesuvius in an attempt to rescue victims of the eruption. 

Looking into the crater. The mountain has erupted repeatedly over the centuries, and continues to off-gas to the present day. There is a small vent behind the kids letting off steam (not in the photo).

Crater to the boys' left, slope down to Pompeii on their right.

With the crater behind. The boys' grimaces may have resulted from the fact that they had nasty colds this day.

Pompeii and Herculaneum

We visited the Roman cities on days either side of our trip to the summit. It was a bit hot and so everyone was a bit grumpy, and, although outdoor activities usually go over pretty well with the kids, both of these visits were truncated a bit more than I would have preferred.

Visiting these cities, however, is incredible in so many ways. You have preserved houses where we know the names of the owners, you've got theatres and forums and temples, and, yes, the remains of the victims. They recently unearthed a horse nearby, and the plaster cast is in the Pompeii museum. 

Anytime you consider an historic disaster, there is an instant temptation to wonder what one might do if one found oneself in a similar circumstance. As adults, we usually learn to keep these thoughts to ourselves--we know through reason or from a study of statistics that we would probably make the wrong choice, or no choice, and that our fate would be left to chance. The kids don't have this filter, though, so when we have considered the Titanic ("I'd swim over to one of those boats and climb in!") or the plague ("I'd keep a lot of cats around!") or the 79 AD eruption ("I'd run jump in the water") they immediately start shouting out ideas for saving themselves. In a way, it is the charm and the optimism of youth; for the first decade of life everything they set out to do--walk, run, throw a ball, climb a tree, read a book, learn an instrument--after a bit of practice, they do. It is hard for them to conceive that sometimes there is no solution, no out, no way to escape. Katie is beginning to feel this, and occasionally laments that such-and-such is a thing that she will never do because she is already too old, or too tall, or whatever. The boys have none of that yet, but after our visit to Vesuvius, even they seemed to admit that if they had been caught in the lahar they would not have made it. So maybe we've done them a disservice. My hope is that they take away the awe but not the despair.

Theatre at Pompeii. The kids are there (look for orange shorts).

Mosaic at Herculaneum.

Some shopkeepers serving us lunch.