Natural disasters in Venice (not Pompei)

My little man is currently fascinated with natural disasters and loves to discuss their various forms.  I’ll be driving through the city streets of Europe, trying to avoid all manner of hazards on the road, and he will call out ‘Mum, what is your favourite natural disaster out of floods and tsunamis?’.   I say it’s floods.  He says ‘why?’. I clench my teeth and swerve to avoid a pedestrian. He says ‘muuuum’….

Of course whilst being fascinated in natural disasters Hamish is also quite scared of them, and we have been told which countries we can and cannot visit depending on which natural disasters occur there.  Sadly China and Japan are now off our list of possible holiday destinations (due to risk of earthquake, mudslide and tsunami of course), but the good news is the United States is back on, as long as we stay on the East Coast.  Phew.

Anyway, due to the little man’s intense interest in natural disasters, I thought he would be fascinated to see how the Venice we visited last week which looked like this:

now looks like this:

In actual fact he was more interested in the game of gladiators he was playing with his 4 year old sister (apparently it’s not a flood…and hence a natural disaster if nobody dies (insert shaking my head in bewilderment icon here)).

Lucky for us we visited the sinking city of Venice last week, and spent this week avoiding another natural disaster down in Pompei.  I told Hamish that Mount Vesuvius was extinct, but did you know it is considered the most dangerous volcano in the world due to the 3 million people who live within the effective range of the volcano and the fact that it’s well overdue for an erruption? So strange why anyone would want to live sandwiched between the ancient ruins of the Romans and the still active volcano that destroyed them.

Our first day visiting Pompei was not quite as wet as for the poor guys in Venice…but it wasn’t far off – here’s Miss Zoe looking suitably drenched:

So we packed up the van and headed further south until we found a beach and some warm (if rather windy) weather.

We then visited Pompei again on the way back up north, and as you can see the weather was much kinder to us by then. Here are Hamish and Zoe posing as gladiators in the arena:

We then jumped in the van and headed to Rome – where it proceeded to rain some more. Lucky for us we’re now out of the van and into a lovely dry apartment just a few hundred metres away from the Colosseum. We will be here for 10 more days so there should be time for more updates before we leave. For now though – it’s arrivederci from me!