Vesuvius Erupting!

 Our first day in the flat in Posillipo was unpacking and getting to know the neighbourhood again. 

Scott found a small grocery store a few steps toward town for some essentials, mostly breakfast and supper stuff:  we planned to eat lunch out and graze for dinner during our time in Naples.

The flat had a Nespresso machine, an improvement over the little moka we had in the last flat.

It worked for one cup of espresso and one cup only. We had one of those years ago in the flat in Venice. So analogue. And rather like a tiny little Vesuvius itself: water boiling up to percolate the coffee grounds.

Nespresso is infinitely superior.*

There was a large flat screen television on the wall in the living room.  

Wherever we travel, it’s rare that the television ever gets turned on. But we were in the midst of a fascinating Italian series on the reunification of Italy, as told from the point of view of a Sicilian Prince, The Leopard. We’d been watching it at home and wanted to finish it before setting sail for Sicily in two weeks’ time.

Another new discovery was Lacrima Christi, a local plonk from the very slopes of Vesuvius. Deliciously dry and white.

I’m going to do a little sidebar here about a book I’ve been reading (hard copy!) called Volcanic by John Brewer, a very readable history of how Mount Vesuvius influenced the great and good and the not so good, especially during the heyday of the Grand Tour.

Vesuvius was a favourite spectacle, visited by tourists from all the over the world in the late 18th - early 19th centuries, even North and South America and Japan.  The mountain was quite active at the time and guides would entice visitors up to the top for a look-see down into the roiling lake of lava.  

Today the old girl is pretty quiet.  The last eruption of note was in 1944 but there wasn’t even a little smoke rising while we were there.

Until that first night.

Yes, I’d really enjoyed that Lacrima Christi wine (Latin for tears of Christ), and as I toddled off to bed, I was about to close the curtains before looking out one last time at the mountain and behold!

Rising slowly out of the old crater was a bright golden blob! My God I thought, is Vesuvius really erupting?? Could I believe my eyes?

I ran into the living room to tell Scott, and then ran back. How exciting to be a part of history!

Well, no.

It was a very full moon rising just exactly above the crater. 

I was relieved.

And a little disappointed.

* I was not paid to say that.