On learning that Vesuvius is overdue for its next eruption, we decided to go visit the famous volcano. Who knows, it may be only weeks before it next erupts!
Getting to Vesuvius is a multi-step process. You drive to a “parking area” (which is really one lane of a two lane road allocated to parking) at 800m elevation. You pay for the parking.
Then you pay for a shuttle to take you to a foot trail entrance gate at 1000m.
Then it becomes challenging. Entry is by pre-sold tickets available online only. This is a popular trail in a national park, and the park limits the number of hikers on the trail. The tickets are sold out weeks in advance, but there is a “last minute” ticket mechanism, limited by the number of people on the trail at the moment. They release ten tickets every half-hour or so, and to get one you must request, be approved, and purchase them on-site.
But there is no ticket agent at the gate to do this. It is done online only. We are near the summit of the volcano in a mountain wilderness area with limited cell phone connections and we need to go online somehow to do this.
Recognizing this situation, the park set up a local wifi. There is a poster at the entry gate (in Italian) that helps to connect to it. Fortunately, I have my personal translator available. This is the beginning of a lengthy process that included the following steps, nearly all of which required entering and re-entering your name, address, and email:
- Register to gain wifi access.
- Register to the national park system. After doing so, confirm by responding to the email they send.
- Register to the ticket vendor. This is a separate third party from the national parks. Create a password and respond to another email to confirm.
- Register for tickets. Request a date and time. This page was very confusing; it was unclear how to do this.
- Provide payment- credit card credentials.
- Tickets are then issued. But the web page does not display them. Some other web page or background email contained links to them.
We needed assistance three or four times to get through these gauntlets, with Poldi speaking Italian with the park entry attendants and playing the “we’re old and don’t understand” card.
Eventually, we got it, and the ticket image with its barcode appeared on my phone, but then, presenting it at the gate turnstile, with its scanner, I could not place the phone in the correct position. Once again, the attendant had to hold my phone in the right spot for me. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to be a retired computer pioneer.
