In the same weekend, I toured the ruins of Pompeii and hiked to the summit of Mt. Vesuvius. I got to experience firsthand the destruction the volcano caused and then faced it head on, peering into its gaping crater.

Pompeii was one of the activities I was most looking forward to on this trip. Something about the preservation and tragedy of the city draws me in. We were all split into smaller tour groups so we were all a little easier to manage and our group had the best tour guide, Sergio. He seemed amused at having a group of 30 college girls to lead through this ancient city. Any time we take a guided tour, I always walk right up front by the tour guide so I can hear them clearly and ask questions as I think of them. I always want to get the most out of my experience, especially for Pompeii.

We walked through the ruins for about two hours and listened to Sergio tell us all the interesting and terrible facts about the city and its destruction. Throughout the tour, Sergio would point something out and ask us if we thought it was original or new. I couldn’t believe that almost everything we were looking at was original. Even the roads we walked on were the same stones the people of Pompeii walked on every day. The grooves in the stone from where cart wheels ran every day amazed me most. I had to keep reminding myself that what we were walking through was an ancient city and not something built recently, that’s how well-preserved everything is.

One portion of the tour that made everyone blush a little was the brothel. I don’t think Sergio knew how to handle this topic around all of us giggling girls. He tried so hard to keep a straight face as he explained to us that you can still see explicit paintings on the walls that were a sort of “menu” of services offered at the brothel. None of us could keep our cool. You would think we were a group of middle school boys!

The only thing I was slightly disappointed in with the Pompeii tour was that we didn’t get to see many casts, which is what Pompeii is so famous for. I’d always heard stories of how you can see these people in their last moments of life frozen in time forever and I was really looking forward to seeing the casts. We got to see two adult casts, one of a child, and one of a dog (our group thought that one was the saddest). I would have loved to see even more to really grasp how horrific the volcanic eruption was.

At the end of our tour, Sergio said there is still about a third of Pompeii still to be excavated. I would love to come back when it has all been uncovered to see even more.

A few days later, we were set to hike to the summit of Mt. Vesuvius, which I was also very excited for. I’ve done a decent bit of hiking on our summer trips in different national parks and was looking forward to seeing how this compared.

We took a bus up a very narrow, winding path (cue nausea for just about everyone on the bus) to a certain point on the mountain and then hiked from where the bus left us to the top. I had read online that portion of the hike only took about 20-30 minutes, which I can easily do even though I’m not the most athletic. What they failed to mention was how steep the incline is on this gravel path for those 20-30 minutes. When we got off the bus, we were told we were short on time so we had to be quick and make it up and back in less than an hour.

I started out strong, practically dragging my begrudging roommate with me because I was so excited for the hike and about 20 steps up the incline, I was having a hard time catching my breath. I was still a little sick so that didn’t help either. My roommate stayed just ahead of me on the trail and would pause for me to catch up to her. Each time I would mention that maybe I wasn’t meant to make it to the top of this volcano, she would say, “Nope! Let’s go. We’re doing this,” and back up the mountain I would go.

At one point, one of our staff members from the school in Florence, Max, came up from behind me while I was taking a breathing break, looped his arm through mine, and took off running. To my surprise, running was actually a lot easier than walking up the path and I kept pace with Max for a short sprint. All was good until I stopped running and had no breath whatsoever left in me. I tried to get the motivation up to run again because my body felt so much better doing that, but I couldn’t muster it up so I kept on with my slow and steady pace.

Not knowing how much longer I had to the top, I stopped at this little hut that sold snacks and trinkets where a small group from our tour was sitting to take a breather. Just up ahead of us, a large group of people were gathered, but we figured it was just a break spot on the way to the summit. Yeah, we were wrong. Just ahead of us was the summit! Once we figured that out, I chastised our group for taking such a long regrouping break when we could have been spending that time enjoying the incredible view!

The view was breathtaking (not that I had any breath in me left to take) and the wooden railing was right up against the edge of the massive crater. I guess I expected it to be a little more volcano-like in the center, but it was just lots of dirt and some grass, which was probably safer.

While it took us about 30 minutes to get to the top, it was only a quick 10-minute walk back down the mountain. Going back down was much more slippery on the loose gravel though. I may have struggled to get to the top and realized just how out of shape I am, but once I was at the summit, I could not have been more grateful for the chance to see such amazing sights.