Sean dropped us down to the port in Civitavecchia, and we got on a bus and went on a big cruise ship called the Silhouette.
First we had to go up to the big cafeteria, because they had to make up the rooms. We kept going almost every day to the same cafeteria for breakfast, lunch and dinner, because the buffet there had all the foods I liked, it was great.
Then we went to our room, and then we met Arnel, who was the man who looked after the rooms in our area of the ship. He was really nice, and has a son who is 11 years old.
Our room was big, with a veranda and a bathroom and two beds, and a couch and an HD TV, and a tiny fridge.
A while after that, the ship started moving. We went and had some dinner, then after that we went to bed.
When we woke up we were in Naples, Italy! We could see Mount Vesuvius, it was humungous!
We went down to the wharf, then we got into the taxi Mummy had organised, to drive us to Pompeii.
Pompeii is an old Roman city, that got covered in ashes and lava, in 79AD, when Mt Vesuvius erupted. Before it erupted, the mountain was five times bigger than what it is now. Some people managed to get away from the eruption, but most of the people died.
After the eruption, people forgot where the city of Pompeii had been. It was not rediscovered until about 1700 years later, when someone accidentally found it, and realised what they had found. Pompeii had used to be near the sea, and there were wharfs and bridges. When the eruption happened, the shore of the sea ended up being miles away.
There were a whole lot of ruined buildings and temples. Archeologists have uncovered about 40% of the city, so you can walk around looking at the houses and temples. They are still working on uncovering the rest of the city.
A lot of the buildings are almost completely still there, they have just lost their roofs, because they were made of straw and reeds. They have found a lot of the houses still have their mosaic floors and walls, so they still look a lot like they did when people were living there. A lot of the rooms still have their painted pictures on the walls, in red and yellow and blue and green.
When they were uncovering the buildings, they found a lot of places where people had been covered in ash. When the ash set hard like clay, and the bodies rotted away, there was an air space left in the shape of the body. The archeologists filled in the spaces with concrete, and broke off the hard ash, so now you can see the shapes of the people and animals that died there. You can even see the shapes of the clothing and shoes they were wearing. Some of the bodies still have bones and teeth and fingernails and toe nails still there. One man’s teeth were perfect – they must have cleaned their teeth really well, and had good dentists!
They also discovered lots of vases and furniture that they used in Pompeii, which you can see.
The Romans were really clever and had machines and things like plumbing and water pipes, that are as good as the ones we have nowadays.
After that, our driver took us to Sorrento, where we looked around, and he took us to a restaurant, where I had the best ravioli I have had in my life! Our driver, Nico, was born in Sorrento, so he knew the good places to take us.
Then Nico took us back to Naples, I fell asleep in the car. When I woke up we were back at the ship.
When we were asleep that night, the ship moved on to somewhere else.
To be continued……………
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