We got up bright and early to take the train to Pompeii Scavi for our first visit to the town which disappeared after the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD. We had a small hiccup prior to leaving home - Garth's new phone spat the dummy and was completely dead. After a bit of fiddling, it eventually resurrected itself, but it caused Garth some heartache!! Not the time to lose all your contacts, emails, guidebooks, . . .

We caught the Circumvesuviana train to Pompei Scavi (ruins) . It was a very old local train that stopped at many stations, disgorging students and workers plus the odd tourist or two. Pompeii was a prosperous city of more than 20,000 people in AD79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted without warning, burying Pompeii and other towns in up to 16 metres of lava, rock and ash. Most of the residents fled in the nick of time, but about 2,000 stayed behind to protect their livelihood, and these were all killed. Pompeii was rediscovered in the 16th Century, but excavation did not start until 1748. Imagine what it must have been like to find a complete city under the lava!

When you arrive at Pompeii, the first key feature to look at is the Roman Forum which dates from the 2nd century BC. The forum was the city's main square, surrounded on all sides by religious, political and business buildings. Alongside the forum is the Basillica, which was the building for the administration of justice. It also dates from the 2nd C BC.

From the Forum, we rushed over to the tiny Brothel (to beat the hoards crowding into each small building) with its fabulously suggestive mosaics advertising the types of business service provided . The service rooms were like little cells with stone beds (hopefully they had a soft mattress on top of them else there would have been some pretty sore knees afterwards). Then we visited the Great theatre which held up to 5,000 spectators, with lower seats covered with marble for important people. Then onto the Public Baths, which had a series of rooms for warming up, exercise, tepid wash, steam bath etc etc.

We also visited a couple of very large, expensive houses, such as the House of the Faun and the House of the Tragic Poet - these houses each covered an entire block, with many small rooms, courtyards, wells, mosaics and paintings.

There are some very sobering plaster casts of bodies that were buried under the lava. As the bodies decomposed in the lava, they left hollow spaces conforming to the shape of their bodies. Archaeologists filled these gaps with plaster, creating plaster casts of the original bodies. There is something quite disturbing about looking at casts of people in their death throes!

At various places, there are archways that capture a perfect view of the twin peaks of Mount Vesuvius - showing the bit in the middle of the two peaks that exploded when it erupted, covering Pompeii. It is quite sobering to see all the houses that are now built up the side of the volcano, obviously by people who are not very concerned about a sudden eruption. It has been estimated that 2.5m people will have to be evacuated if (when?) the volcano erupts again.