Mount Vesuvius, Portici Live Cam

This camera looks east from Portici over rooftops and treetops to Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that rises behind the Bay of Naples. The whole cone is in frame, with the lower jagged crest of Monte Somma on its left.

Vesuvius is a stratovolcano about 1,281 metres high, and its last eruption was in 1944. Portici lies on the coast at its western foot, some eight kilometres from the summit, in a densely populated part of Campania with the city of Naples a short way to the north-west.

The view is fixed, and the mountain sits low in the picture beneath a large expanse of sky. That makes it easy to follow clouds drifting over the summit or haze settling on the slopes, while the town below it fills the bottom of the frame, with a slim mast standing at the right.