We arrived in Naples on the Sunday night, and spent the night on the ship. The next morning we went ashore. We weren’t leaving again till six o’clock that evening, so we had the day to see Naples. Well, we walked around the streets a bit, and looked at this and that. And then I wanted to see the ruins of Pompeii, of course. I saw a taxi, and we stopped it, and asked the taxi-driver to take us to Pompeii. He said something, and shook his head. We couldn’t understand what was going on. You know what taxi-drivers are alike, all over the world. Eitherit’s too far, or too close, or the wrong dis- trict, or they’re just going home to dinner, or they don’t know the place you are talking about, or they can only take you there if you pay a special rate. I tried to find out what the reason was this time, but I’ m afraid my Italian isn’t as good as it should be. Anyway, in the end he agreed to take us and finally we got there. He was right all along, though. Pompeii was closed. Apparent- ly everything in Italy closes on Mondays. It was a pity, because we only had Monday there, but never mind, I thought, we’ll go some- where else instead. "Take us to see Vesuvius, then," I said. The taxi-driver shook his head again. "Don’t tell me the volcanoes are closed as well," I asked. He nodded vigorously. Apparently they were.