Mary Beard: where I'm going in 2013 Mary Beard, professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, looks forward to another trip to Italy If I had a spare minute, I would be planning a seaside holiday, somewhere in that vast and beautiful space between Naples and Sicily. And, in my fantasy, it would be without a car, and far enough from any Greek or Roman ruins, museum or famous art work that it could not possibly turn into a working holiday. A few years ago, we spent a week of heaven in a hotel near Tropea in Calabria - and hardly strayed outside the grounds. Dream on. Realism suggests that we'll take a long weekend in Naples again (pictured below) and potter round Pompeii during the day, brave the Naples Archaeological Museum when we can face it (rather deficient in café facilities) and spend the evening over a bottle or two of falanghina and a pizza. Not quite so close to heaven, but not all that far. Confronting the Classics by Mary Beard (Profile Books) will be out in spring.