Thursday, July 14, 2011

Beautiful view . . .

. . . isn't it?

Monte Vesuvio

From a Sorrento patio at night, Monte Vesuvio (Vesuvius) is certainly a captivating sight.   It also appears very benign. 

It's not.

The most famous eruption, which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum was almost 2,000 years ago - 79 AD.   However, the most recent was in March, 1944, and destroyed three villiages - San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Massa di Somma and Ottaviano.  San Georgio a Cremano was also partially destroyed.

An Italian coworker and friend lives in San Georgio, which is still a thriving, growing community - notwithstanding the obvious risk.  I guess the time lapse of a generation tempers memories.

Vesuvio is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, because of the long delay since the last cataclysmic eruption and the 3,000,000 nearby residents.

Counting Mrs. B and me, make that 3,000,002.

With only 20 months to go in Italy, perhaps we will escape, and not look like this:


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If I absolutely knew that I was trapped and about to be turned into one of those Pompeii body cast things I really hope I would have the presence of mind as my last earthly act to grab hold of something completely bizarre like a ukelele and shove it down the front of my pants and put a flowerpot on my head so it looked like a hat.

Imagine how much it would mess with archaeologists' heads when they finally unearth the bizarre outline of my poor dead body and then discover the array of weird things about my person. I'd be famous for thousands of years and idiots would debate the meaning and significance of a flower-pot hat for eternity.

Yes, I *am* that evil...