With delicious food, sunny weather and some of the world’s most famous Roman ruins on offer, the Year 7 and 8 Latin trip to the beautiful Bay of Naples was a huge success.
Highlights included our tour of the bay of Baia in a glass-bottomed boat, where we were treated to sights of mosaic floors, the outlines of palace rooms, and ancients statues lying on the seabed. On the following days, at Pompeii, Herculaneum and Pozzuoli, our adventurers walked Roman streets as well as ancient sewers, and enjoyed visiting amphitheatres, forums, grand Roman townhouses and seaside villas. Most haunting were the plaster casts of the bodies of the ancients who met their fate under Vesuvius’s ash in AD 79, an eruption which we all understood much better when the group braved mists and wind and, finally, glorious sunshine in order to climb to the top of the volcano and peer into its still-smoking crater.
Needless to say, pupils were rewarded with a gelato or two for their curiosity and engagement in exploring this extraordinary part of Italy. A guided tour of the Naples Archaeological Museum wrapped up our busy tour and we were left hugely enlightened and impressed by the extraordinary achievements of the Romans!
