At about 3 o’clock in the morning on the 30th March, four members of staff and twenty students in Years 10 and 11 from Burgess Hill School for Girls were preparing to leave for their Classics and Art trip to Rome and Sorrento. Although it was a rather early start this didn’t stop the girls and staff being excited! Whilst in Rome for two days, the group visited the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps and some amazing churches before they took a trip to the Vatican the next day where they viewed many famous pieces of artwork such as Michelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine chapel and the fantastic architecture of St Peter’s Basilica. The girls saw the world famous Colosseum and took a walk through the rather spectacular Forum Romani. They also took a trip to the Capitoline museums before heading south to the beautiful Sorrento, where they all learnt how mozzarella cheese is made and had a yummy lunch; -pasta as always on this trip- before everyone took a walk down to the beach for a paddle and to enjoy the last rays of the Sorrento sunset.
The next day the party was able to go to Pompeii. Here they saw many ancient Roman shops, the Forum, some beautiful mosaics, the theatre and best of all good old Caecilius’ house (the man from the old Latin text book)! In the afternoon everyone retired for a relaxing afternoon shopping in Sorrento where staff and students bought gifts for friends and family and checked out the local Italian trends. By now the favourite phrase of many of the girls was “Ciao Bella” meaning “Hello Beautiful” and a great deal of the party had bought shirts, varying in colour, with this printed on them.
On the following day they visited Herculaneum, a town that was affected very differently from Pompeii by Vesuvius’ eruption in 79AD. The people of Herculaneum were richer than the people of Pompeii and they set foot in quite a few large houses, some even with two floors! They also explored the Roman bath house and all its individual rooms.
Then they got to go up Vesuvius itself- maybe not the safest place in the world at the moment, but technology was on their side this time and it was great once they were up there and looking into the steaming crater that had once formed a huge volcano twice the size that it is now. Vesuvius is still pretty high though and through the mist there was an amazing view of the whole of the bay of Naples including that little town known as Pompeii, which wasn’t far away at the bottom of the hillside.
Then it was time to leave Sorrento and head back to Rome for a little bit of shopping and the flight back. The whole group had a wonderful time thanks to all the brilliant guides: the coach driver Pasquale, the rather lovely EF tour guide Manila and, of course, the teachers who organised the trip and kept everyone safe - even on the manic roads of Rome!
Written by Emily Mansfield, Yr 10 student.
17/5/07
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| Rome and Sorrento Trip 2007 |
