Today we’ve got a short hop from just north of Amalfi to up to Pompei. We also need to do some shopping and possibly even fit another visit in while we’re at it (turned out to be Vesuvius).
As we left the site we were just at the wrong time for the bus… I.e. we didn’t want to be doing the windy stuff while the bus was coming the other way. So we sat at the site entrance/exit for a couple of minutes, which turned into 15. We did a bit of planning while sat there. So it wasn’t a waste.
Once we got going we wound our way back out of the Maiori valley and then back down the Naples side of the mountain towards Angri 😡…
The roads are tight, twisty and full of blinds bends and hairpins. But the views are stunning and with the window half open you can listen for oncoming vehicles honking their horns!
We got almost to our Villa Julia campsite destination and then dived into the local Coop.
Not the best selection of groceries but, as always, a completely useless (to us) massive pasta selection…
Then on to the Villa Julia campsite. After a dead end! We took the Maps suggested route, only to find that the road about 100m from the campsite was closed due to an archaeological dig! We’d expected archeology on this bit of the trip, but not in the middle of the road.
You never really know what you’ll find when you turn up to a campsite. And the initial reaction to this one was mixed. The place looked neat and tidy, but also didn’t look very open.
The guy on reception was really helpful though and we were told to just find a pitch. Once we were through the car park we could see the hidden campsite. It’s very spacious and had hedges between pitches. Very different to some site where you struggle to open your doors without hitting you neighbour.
The loos are clean, there’s hot warrr wherever you might hope for it and there’s loo paper and skooshy!
And we’ve got a great view of Vesuvius over the hedges…. And the washing!
And that was us settled, by about noon. Sue put a wash on and so we sat and tried to decide what we wanted to do in the afternoon.
We want to do Vesuvius, Pompei, Naples and Serrento while we’re here. All of those are all day things with the exception of Vesuvius.
So we decided to take the bikes to Pompei Station (Porta Marina) then get the EAV bus to Vesuvius.
So off we rode as soon as the washing was done.
And boy was that a cycle ride! They really don’t expect to see bikes on the roads round here. It’s pretty hairy stuff with the scooters flying by, delivery vans hooting their way around the blind bends and the almost complete lack of appreciation about who should have right of way. People pull out in front of you without batting an eyelid. Roundabouts are a cross between a slow motion ballet and a (mostly) contactless demolition derby.
But we got to the pompei bus station area with a few minutes to spare. However, like everything round here, just ‘cos there’s a timetable and a map, doesn’t mean that’s what will happen.
We got to the main Pompei station area and thought we’d lock the bikes up at the autostrada entrance, ‘cos that seemed to be the pickup point for the bus. But as I was locking the bikes up Sue asked at the tourist office (after some guy tried to charge us €10 for answering Sue’s question about where we could park the bikes) and found that we needed to be up a road/ramp and actually be outside the train station. We only had a few minutes before the timetable said the bus left, so we rushed to the station. I locked the bikes up while Sue went to talk to the bus driver.
Which meant I rushed locking the bikes to a post outside the station, didn’t get both bikes locked on the high security lock and I didn’t take a picture!. I was not at all happy that the bikes would be there when we got back.
And in the end the bus driver had left his bus to show a passenger something about the train station, so we had plenty of time before he got back to let us on the bus.
The bus we got on was the Pompei-Versusius-Pompei bus. Not at all what I could find on the timetables website, but hey-ho, gotta go with the flow.. and the digital display on the front of the bus was exactly what we wanted, so we hopped on and paid our €3.80 each.
The bus does a bit of round the houses first and then takes the autostrada to Vesuvius. The last section is off the autostrada and up the side of the volcano. Lots of hairpins and horn honking again.
Then you get dropped off in a dusty volcanic sand car park with buses and minibuses, taxis and tourists all milling around.
I thought I’d done my research on going to Vesuvius, but I hadn’t factored in the Italian’s love for chaos.
Normally you’d get to a place like this, be presented with a ticket office, buy some tickets and do your trip.
But, nooooo! That would be way too un-chaotic.
Firstly, there’s no ticket office. Nothing.
Then there’s also not really anyone to ask what you’re supposed to do. Though we did find one helpful guy who clearly spent the whole of his working life doing the next steps for people.
What you’re supposed to do… is see the signs at the edge of the bus drop off zone and to scan two QR codes.
The first QR code gets you access to a free WiFi service. Because clearly some IT consultant sold the Vesuvius people on an internet based ticket system without checking if there’s actually any cell phone signal at the top of the mountain – which there isn’t, at least not for us!
Then once you’re on the WiFi you scan the second code that takes you to a website. The website is full of really useless information and gives you no idea about how you buy a ticket.
By this point we’re getting quite stressed because we got there at about 2:30, the last bus home is at 5, and the website says it will take 3 hours to do the 3km walk to the summit!
So, now you’re on the Vesuvius website. What you’re supposed to do is register for a Vesuvius account (name, email etc). Then verify your account with an email verification process. Then once you’ve jumped through that hoop you’re asked to verify your mobile phone with an SMS message code. Fortunately, international texting is a lot better than it used to be and the code came through straight away. So now you have a Vesuvius account. Whoopee!
Then you have to go back to the website you got from scanning the second QR code and now login… where you’re given an option for ticketing. Then, half way down a page there’s a picture that has “last minute” written in it, and you’re supposed to know to click the picture. That’s not how the internet works!!! If you want someone to click something, then it needs to say “click here” or “click to do xyz”. Grrr!
We wouldn’t have got anywhere near figuring all this out if I hadn’t overheard a guy in a vaguely official uniform advising others what to do. It is totally bonkers. One of Italy’s most iconic landmarks and its chaos! FFS!
I know, I know, we should probably have tried to book in advance. But we did this on a whim and by the looks of the many, many, very confused people, so had many others! FFS!
With all this going on, we’re still trying to decide if we actually have time to do the walk.
But it’s a 3km walk and we’re supposed to be reasonably fit (and in my case reasonably determined), so we figured the 3 hour suggested time was rubbish.
So we bought the tickets and decided if we hadn’t got to the top in an hour, we’d bin it.
But, there’s little to fear. We were probably doing the walk faster than anyone we met, but even so, we got to the rim in about 15 minutes! From the start of the walk around the rim to about 1/3 of the way around the crater, is another 10 minutes.
There’s a couple of places you can buy drinks and souvenirs, but we weren’t interested in that (and didn’t have time… so we thought)
Here’s some pictures at the top…
There was a small amount of cloud at the top of the volcano while we were there. But unfortunately it almost completely obscured the view down into the Naples plain. But it was the view of the volcano we’d come so see, and that was epic!
Then we were back down the hill in time for the 4 o’clock bus… that had been cancelled… and had turned into a 4:50 bus and not the scheduled 5 o’clock either.
We had done the 3 hour route in an hour. You’d need to be pretty fit and determined to do it in that time, but it’s perfectly possible… and also get some decent viewing time at the top.
So we stood and idled away half an hour or so in the car park, watching the world go by. And Sue interrogating the bus drivers about when the next bus would be.
Then all of a sudden one bus driver decided to open up the bus 45 minutes early so we could sit on the bus instead of stand in the car park.
Sitting there watching all the buses, taxis and courtesy mini-buses coming and going was hilarious… seriously… hilarious!
It seemed to be a design feature of the car park that it was 20% smaller than it needed to be. But, that I suspect is the wrong way to look at it. The Italian desire for chaos dictates that any given road, car park, beach, ferry port, train station, will attract people willing to sell their services in the chaos, just so the place is 20% too small for the chaos it produces. If theyd have made the car park 20% bigger, then I’m sure there would have been 50% more coaches etc to make the car park chaotic again. It’s bonkers! It sort of works, but it’s a frustrating as f*ck if you don’t actually know what’s supposed to be happening (like 90% of the tourists who visit).
We must have seen a dozen buses pull up to the car park while we were sitting there for 45 minutes. And there were only 4 bus parking spaces. So, there was a lot of shouting, hand gestures, buses shuffling, mini-buses shuffling and tourists standing in the way of all of that happening! Hilarious!
And at almost exactly 4:50 our bus pulled out. Somehow the 3 buses in our way parted and we were off down the hill again.
The bus was standing room only, and we weren’t entirely sure we were on the right bus. But there were other people we recognised from the trip up, so we assumed there was a good chance it was heading back to Pompei station.
And then we got to Pompei… and promptly drove past the stop we were expecting to make. But there was no on-screen display to tell you where the next stop was, not a timetable that seemed to exist online, there was no stop-list written on the side of the bus… chaos.
When the bus finally stopped a few hundred meters past where we wanted it to. The driver announced, next stop Pompei station, and so we and a bunch of others that were cutting our losses and getting off… got back on.
And not unsurprisingly, the bus dropped us off where it had picked us up, outside Pompei train station.
The bikes were even where we’d left them… and the wheels were still straight, and we both still had a saddle!
We did some investigation at the pompei entrance (prices, guides etc) and then headed home into the Naples rush hour traffic.
Once we were back at the van we got some tea ready (chicken and salad, again… but yummy).
I saw a snake basking on the terracotta tiles outside the loos. Probably a two footer. Sue thinks I was dreaming!
Then did some planning. I think, of the three things now left to do round here for us, we both want to do Pompei the most. And the weather isn’t looking great for the day after tomorrow (Thursday) or the day after that. So, we’re going to do Pompei tomorrow and dodge showered in Naples and Sorrento.
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