12 Tasks for kids on the Bay of Naples

Perseus fresco

I know, I know! "Tasks" doesn't sound like a holiday word. But it's always good to have a few fun goals when you go on vacation, even if it's getting your grandmother one of those tiles she likes so much or sourcing the best local dessert.

So here are 12 child-friendly tasks for you to do in the Bay of Naples. They range from easy to challenging and you will have to get your parents to help!

1 Sorrento is famous for its lemon groves; try a lemon sorbet or - if your parents are agreeable - get one of them to order limoncello after dinner and ask for a sip, but just a sip! It is very strong.

rope marks on the well-head

2 Visit Herculaneum and find ancient rope-marks on one of several marble well-heads by the impluvia (rain-water pools) in some villas.

3 Have Sanbitter (a bright red, non-sweet, non-alcoholic Italian aperitif) and nibbles on the terrace of the Hotel Bellevue Syrene in Sorrento; ask if you can see the Roman rooms downstairs first, to help make the cost of your drink worth it!

funny ducks mosaic in Naples

4 Find the funny ducks mosaic at the National Museum of Archaeology in Naples (right).

5 Visit the so-called Villa of Poppaea AKA Oplontis (at Torre Annunziata on the Circuvesuviana Sorrento-Naples train line) and look at the cake-like layers of tufa (hardened ash) and papilli (light volcanic pebbles) that Vesuvius laid down.

6 Find the public water spouts in Castellammare di Stabia and taste one of seven different types of mineral water.

7 Go all the way into the Blue Grotto in Capri.

Villa of Pollius Felix (model)

8 Visit the model of the Villa of Pollius Felix in Piano di Sorrento (left).

9 Swim in the secret cove of the Villa of Pollius Felix on the Capo di Sorrento. (OK, then, just take a photo...)

10 Find the little fresco of Perseus with the head of Medusa (top of this post) at the Villa San Marco at Castellammare di Stabia. You'll have to get a taxi at Castellammare di Stabia, but it's worth it.

Temple of Mercury, Baia

11 Visit the flooded so-called Temple of Mercury at Baiae. It used to be part of a bath-house but the flooding is caused by a phenomenon known as bradyseism. (Look out for the upside down fig-tree growing in a cave-like vaulted room next door!)

12 Take a hot mud (fango) bath in the oldest spa on the island of Ischia. Or visit one of the modern baths like Negombo.

These "tasks" are adapted from the Roman Mysteries Travel Guide: From Ostia to Alexandria with Flavia Gemina, now available on Kindle. And if you want some good reading, try the three Roman Mysteries set on the Bay of Naples: The Secrets of Vesuvius, The Pirates of Pompeii and The Sirens of Surrentum. Buon Viaggio! 

Odysseus by Waterhouse

The story is so familiar to us that we forget how bizarre it is.

The Greek hero Odysseus is on his way home from the Trojan War. He has been warned that the Island of the Sirens is deadly to sailors. No man can hear their beautiful music - their 'siren song' - without wanting to go to them. But their island is ringed with deadly rocks and all who try to reach them are shipwrecked and drowned.

Clever Odysseus thinks of a way to hear their song and not die. He tells his sailors to tie him to the mast. 'No matter how much I struggle and beg,' he says, 'don't untie me until the Island of the Sirens is beyond the horizon.' He then tells the sailors to plug their ears with wax and row for all they are worth.


They do. Odysseus, tied to the mast, hears the song of the Sirens. It is so beautiful that he forgets everything he did and everything he wants. He doesn't care if he dies, if only he can be with them a few moments more, surrounded by that beautiful music. He struggles and shouts and rages at his sailors: 'Untie me! Let me go!' But they stare resolutely ahead, pulling on their oars, their heads filled with the sound of their own deep breaths and their hearts pumping. The Sirens are enraged. Why is this ship full of men not falling into their trap? They rise up off their deadly rocks and flap closer to see, for they are monsters: birds with the heads of women.

They fly as close as they dare to the boat, making their song as beautiful as possible. Odysseus writhes in the ecstasy of their song and the agony of his bondage. The sailors see these terrible creatures and pull harder on their oars. Waterhouse has shown them with bandages around their ears to double the effectiveness of the wax.

Finally they will escape and Odysseus will claim that he was the only man who heard the Sirens' song and lived.

Waterhouse has chosen to show the Sirens as bird-headed monsters. He almost certainly got this idea from the famous red-figure vase (above) showing Odysseus and the bird-woman Sirens. We know he knew this vase because he puts it on a tapestry - reversed - in one of his paintings of the enchantress Circe (left). You can see it behind her head: quite murky, but recognizable if you know the vase.

Some say the Island of the Sirens is Capri, the beautiful island off the Amalfi Coast on the Bay of Naples. The Bay of Naples is one of the most beautiful places in the world and I have chosen to set two books near there: The Pirates of Pompeii and The Sirens of Surrentum. In the second book the seductive patron Pollius Felix describes the struggles of bound Odysseus as ecstatic.

Don't listen to his 'siren song', Flavia!

J.W.Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite was on at the Royal Academy in 2009 but has now FINISHED. For more Waterhouse check out my blogs on Adonis, Ariadne, Circe, Hylas, Narcissus, Odysseus and Orpheus.