Eyes of Vesuvius

Everyone has heard of Vesuvius, but few know what Monte Somma is. This other mountain actually gave birth to Vesuvius. But that's a long story. I enter it on a tour bus loaded with evidence of the Babylonian confusion – people speaking to each other in at least fifteen languages.

The woman assigned to us as a guide speaks English with a strong Italian accent. But we won't be listening to her story for long. Vesuvius is located just nine kilometers from Naples. We've barely left the city when we turn off the highway and climb the serpentines to the top of the famous mountain.

Along the way, we learn that life on the edge of an active volcano is literally flourishing. Although, according to the guide, it is forbidden to plant vegetation in the endangered zone itself, we drive past houses with extremely lush gardens dominated by evergreen, Mediterranean vegetation. As in Naples, here, at the foot of the volcano, the rules are only a non-binding suggestion.

GET THE BOUQUET

I think about how the area in ancient times, at least according to the stories, was full of giant, fiery bandits, giants, sons of the Earth. And they were defeated by Hercules. A much more lasting mark was left by a story from Roman times, according to which Vulcan, the god of fire, the Roman version of the Greek Hephaestus, has a workplace here. His underground forges cause earthquakes and eruptions. Not to be left out is Disney's witch Magikarp, who lives on the edge of the crater and stirs up her magic potions.

Instead, through the window I see Pulcinella, a carnival character from the Neapolitan national theater. What would humor be here if it didn't poke fun at mortal dangers?

The author of the 45-ton basalt sculpture is local artist Lelo Esposito. He called it "Gli Occhi del Vesuvio" - the Eyes of Vesuvius.

An artistic attempt to look at the Bay of Naples through the eyes of a volcano, reduced to the harmless mask of Pulcinella.

A little further on is the place where the bus drops us off. We will have to climb the next two kilometers on a gravel road. If there is any fair compensation for walking on a hot day to the crater of a volcano, then these are the landscapes that the eye absorbs and keeps forever in the vault of beautiful travel pictures.

The Bay of Naples and the city that stretched out like a lazy lady with luxurious dresses made of stone lace.

Black rocks from which brightly colored flowers sprout.

Death sleeps, and beauty takes hold.

Vulcan is ugly, but his wife Venus is beautiful.

An elderly couple comes towards us. Judging by the melody of the dirge, he is from somewhere in Dalmatia. He says he is too old to climb the hills, what's the point of that?

As a counterargument, I pick a few flowers and arrange them in a Vesuvius bouquet. It was worth climbing up here for.

On the ascent, the interweaving of the languages ​​of this world is repeated. It would be worth asking a simple question to all of us – what brought us here? Certainly, Vesuvius is probably the most famous volcano in the world. But that is not enough, nor is tourist marketing or the Instagram frenzy – hunting for a picture with the crater.

I suspect that the human urge that drives him on such excursions is somewhat more complex. Isn't it the incredible power of the volcano, which in 79 AD – almost two millennia ago – destroyed four surrounding ancient cities, that fascinates us? The volcano is currently dormant. But it can do this for hundreds of years and then shows its true face again. Fiery giants appear, Vulcan overheats his forges and a river of molten rock flows from them.

And it tickles our imagination. We climb the belly of basaltic death itself, right up to its gaping jaws. We console ourselves that it is asleep. But recorded history, folk memory in stories, and scientific findings tell us – it will wake up.

Vesuvius is now barely 1,300 meters high. Before its famous eruption, it had a much larger peak. It is actually the result, not the cause, of the explosive destruction of a huge mountain massif.

Both old and young are climbing towards the top. An old man with a cane. Teenage girls. A father with three children. He's carrying one in a baby carriage – people used to use the word "sepet" (a basket).

It all looks like a bizarre pilgrimage.

A VOLCANO OLDER THAN MAN

The word Vesuvius itself is older than the Latin-Greek world and has its roots in the oldest Indo-European linguistic substrate. It is associated with meanings such as fire, flash, burning. Fiery would perhaps be the closest translation.

Geologists say that the volcano is located in the subduction zone between the African and Eurasian plates. The circumference of the volcano itself is 80 kilometers at the base. The history of volcanism here begins 400,000 years ago, in the Pleistocene.

This means that what we are looking at is older than anything human.

More than 18,000 years ago – scientists claim – there was an eruption that ejected volcanic debris into a 20-kilometer-high column. A layer of over six meters was deposited about ten kilometers from the volcano. Several such events have been recorded by volcanologists - people who can read the earth, its scars and layers like text.

I knew all this before the climb. All of this can be experienced in clever documentaries and good books. But without thinking, I continue walking up the slope of Vesuvius's cone, as if the answers to questions I didn't even know I had asked were waiting for me up there.

I look back and take in the distance I've traveled. The entrance to Vesuvius National Park now looks like a model. And the other half of the mountain that formed Vesuvius stands before us like a black wall.

We stop a few times to catch our breath. The younger ones overtake us. Then we happen to meet them somewhere near the finish line, catching their breath. It's as if the volcano is saying – approach me slowly, with respect.

We have all heard about the fate that befell Pompeii. The chronicle of eruptions inexorably indicates that death descends from this place among people periodically. The so-called Plinian eruptions are named after Pliny the Younger. As a witness to the eruption in 79 AD, he described a black cloud descending the slopes of the volcano. Now we know that this is the most dangerous form of volcanism. Nothing can survive in the mixture of gases, crushed lava, stones, volcanic ash. Temperatures from 300 to 800 degrees guarantee a quick death to all living things. There is no shelter. The cloud moves at a speed of up to 700 kilometers per hour.

Four millennia ago, one such eruption left its mark as far as 15 kilometers from the volcano. It destroyed all Bronze Age human settlements in the area. In the 1970s, Italian construction workers, digging for a highway, found the remains of a Bronze Age village covered in volcanic ash.

UNDER THE VOLCANO

The long periods of volcano dormancy have always deceived people. The fertile volcanic soil, suitable for growing the best fruits – especially grapes – has attracted settlers after each disaster. Due to the proximity of the metropolis of Naples and the surrounding, densely populated area, three million people live in the potentially dangerous circle around the volcano – the black zone.

I look at the Bay of Naples and think about the direction of the wind that decided that Naples would be spared and Pompeii would be destroyed. I remember the cult book "Under the Volcano", by British writer Malcolm Lowry and the film masterpiece of the same name by John Huston. It was under another volcano in Mexico. But the warning is relevant.

Here on Vesuvius you can see it more clearly than in other places – the problem is not volcanoes but people.

True thoughts arise in motion, at a height. Perhaps their flow is actually the meaning of the climb to the edge of the crater. On Vesuvius we realize how small we are. How fragile the thread that binds us to everything we know and love is.

A few more steps and we're finally here. The last time Vesuvius erupted was in 1944. Since then it's looked this calm, almost harmless. But we have to believe the scientists that deep inside it there's enough magma. I also notice the measuring stations with sensors. Visitors leave stickers on them.

My companion, irritated by the heat and the climb, asks a rhetorical question above the crater: "Did we go through everything to see this - hole?"

That's right. Hovering for a moment over this subcutaneous ulcer of the earth's crust, over this ugly, dangerous acne, we will be able to joyfully return to our ordinary lives and pretend that volcanoes don't exist.

Still, every time a good Campania or Sicilian wine slides down my throat, I will silently thank the god Vulcan who donated his ashes to the vine.

LEMON LIKE QUINCE

I took a pebble and put it in my pocket. At home, it will hang out with the same material from Cochem or from the Empress's Town. What could these stones tell each other if they could talk? Or maybe they can, but they do it mostly at night. We just can't hear?

The descent was more dangerous than the ascent. As if on clay, the sneakers slipped. We descended to the starting point without falls or breaks. We did not meet either the fiery giants, or the lame Hephaestus, or the Magick the Witch. But I saw the images of the Virgin Mary on the black wall of the crater. People who live with the volcano have learned to pray.

I waved to Pulcinella from the bus. Before descending the mountain, we stopped at a limoncello producer. It was enough for him to show us his giant lemons. The size ratio between the lemons that grow on volcanic soil and the ones we buy in the store is the ratio between a large quince and a small chicken egg.

We tried his drinks – lemon liqueurs with mozzarella or pistachios. It's easy for him to be a boss and an artist when Hephaestus fertilized his orchard.

We refreshed ourselves at a restaurant on the slope of the volcano. Over a margarita pizza, we had a view of the entire Bay of Naples.

It's good to sometimes hover over a volcano, to look at its crater. Nietzsche would say that – if you do it long enough – you can feel the crater looking at you.

So you're lucky to be alive. And that the volcano is sleeping.