Mount Vesuvius

Hiking Mount Vesuvius was an incredible way to spend a day in Italy — an actual active volcano, the same one that buried Pompeii in AD 79, and still sitting there over the Bay of Naples looking almost peaceful. The trail starts at Piazzale Quota 1000, already 1,000 meters up, and switchbacks up loose volcanic gravel and ash for less than a mile before reaching the crater rim.

The crater itself is the whole show — a huge, steep-walled bowl of black and rust-colored rock, with wisps of steam still drifting up from vents here and there, a quiet reminder that this mountain is dormant, not dead. The trail follows the rim for a stretch, giving a series of different angles down into the crater and out over the Bay of Naples and the sprawl of the city below.

We paired the hike with a visit to Pompeii earlier in the day, which made the whole thing hit differently — walking through a city frozen by this exact volcano, then an hour later standing on the rim of the thing that did it. So much history packed into one mountain, and a genuinely awesome day being able to hike to the top of it.