A once-in-a-lifetime experience: Climbing Mount Vesuvius

The story of Pompeii and the volcano that destroyed the city in 79 AD has clearly impressed the seven-year-old; that much is obvious. "If Vesuvius were to erupt again now, could it reach us?" the child asks one afternoon at the counter of an ice cream parlor in Naples, another in the evening at the SSC Napoli stadium, and the next morning in front of a Caravaggio painting in a church in the old town. At midday on the dirty city beach, and again in the evening over pizza.