Climb to the crater of Mount Vesuvius

What would Naples be without a visit to the mighty volcano Vesuvius at its side. Following long winding roads, I drive out of the dense suburbs of Naples through fertile olive and lemon groves, which soon give way to a bizarre lava landscape. The road ends at about 1,000 metres above sea level in the ‘Valle del Gigante’, where the remains of the 1945 eruption can still be seen. From the car park, the crowds trek up a gravel path to the Gran Cono, which rises to 1,281 m above the sea.

Once at the top, you look down into the current crater; plumes of smoke rise from the rocky edges. The path circles the crater in a semi-circle on the southern side, facing the sea and the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, while to the north, the crater walls rise steeply to the (inaccessible) summit.