Mt Vesuvius

            We made it to the top of the volcano, Mt Vesuvius.  It is the only active volcano on the European continent and approximately 3 million people live on or near it!  I think it has the highest population of any volcano in the world..how crazy is that?! And don't forget about Pompeii!
          Since, things seemed to be quiet on the mountain, we ventured out to hike to the top.  There were at least 1,000 tour buses there (I might be exaggerating a little but not much..ugh) After carefullly driving around all the buses (picture us in a large Ford station wagon on a, sometimes, narrow, curvy, and sometimes steep road maneuvering past huge tour buses!) okay, so, with that, we made it to the parking lot.  Phew!!
    Lots of crowds of school groups and tourists and an elevated entrance fee (when we first got to Naples, the advertised price was 6 1/2 Euros, we paid 10..ugh) didn't deter us from hiking up.
    We were reallly glad we went but we were disappointed with the increase of price and the inundation of souvenir shacks at the beginning, middle and end of the trail. Really?!  oh well...it's all good. It was a fun adventure and the views were wonderful.