The Launder's big adventure

Thursday 22nd February
Mount Vesuvius

Jon’s birthday, with a lack of planning and forethought I organised the boys in the morning to draw cards and then we commenced a quick walk to the supermarket to buy Jon a continental breakfast and a birthday cake. On the way Max was knocked over by two large dogs and his legs were scratched in the process. There are a lot of strays in Pompeii and although most of them seem quite docile, however these took umbridge to Max putting something in the bin and jumped on him. They were quickly scared off by my clapping and shouting and no real harm was done.

We walked across the road to the bus stop to Mount Vesuvius, it was 5 minutes before the bus was due to arrive and we were informed we needed to buy the tickets from the railway station 10 minutes walk away. Jon ran and got the tickets and we then proceeded to wait for an hour before the bus arrived!!

We walked up and looked into the crater, pleased we could point out sulphurous gas escaping into the atmosphere. I think the boys were disappointed that there was not lava flowing out but were quite happy when allowed to buy postcards showing this occurrence instead.