By Karlie Marrazzo
I had been waiting for this day, Friday the 13th, for many years. This was the day that I was finally going to walk up to the mouth of the sleeping monster, Mount Vesuvius. I have a very distinct memory of being around seven years old and finding a book at my elementary school that fascinated me. It was full of stories about ancient and faraway lands, and the stories that stuck with me most were about Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. Ever since that day it had been a huge dream of mine to see those incredible places. I visited Pompeii on my first trip to Italy and had seen Mount Vesuvius from afar, and now I would finally walk on it.
In order for us to get there without a rental car, we first took the metro to Garibaldi Station. I couldn’t help but laugh as the metro pulled up. It wasn’t sleek and new like in countless other cities in the world. Perhaps they are for other lines, but the one we hopped on was an ancient, slow Trenitalia train. Once we got to the main station, we bought tickets for the infamous Circumvesuviana line. A lot of travelers worry about catching the train at Napoli’s main train station and taking the CV because they are afraid of being pickpocketed. While this can and does happen, as long as you stay aware you shouldn’t have any problems. We didn’t. The station was quite busy with 95% tourists heading to Pompeii. Everybody was smoking. We happened to be standing beside two young British men and witnessed a funny encounter. An Italian man was going around with a small box of lighters trying to sell them to people, who would wave him along and that would be the end of it. He managed to engage these two guys and have a little bit of back and forth, neither of them really speaking the language. Eventually, after several minutes, the Italian was able to sweet talk them into buying a lighter with a kitten on it for one Euro. Continue reading Hiking Mount Vesuvius: Fulfilling a lifelong dream