You can get a guide book to Pompeii which overlays photographs of the actual ruins with transparencies recreating how the place looked in Roman times. But you hardly need it when archaeologist Gillian Shepherd is your expert guide.

Listen to her amid these magical ruins, and streets are once again thronged with shopkeepers and senators, fast-food sellers and soldiers, graffiti scribblers, prostitutes and errand boys, overburdened slaves and wealthy merchants borne aloft on sedan chairs.

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You can almost smell the stench as she describes how fullers used to collect the ammonia needed to bleach linen by having large pots where passing men could lift their togas and make a donation of urine.

And you can easily picture the worshippers in the temples, the wild beasts in the amphitheatre and the convivial gatherings in the baths.
All the vitality of this affluent little town in the Bay of Naples was snuffed out savagely one August afternoon in 79 AD when Mount Vesuvius erupted with catastrophic violence and buried it beneath volcanic ash.
It lay hidden and largely forgotten until its rediscovery in the mid-18th century, and has slowly revealed its secrets in the 250 years since then.

The sheer scale of the site - probably a mile from end to end - makes a guide essential. You can, of course, do your own exploration with books and audio equipment or join a day tour, but our expert was provided by our tour operator, Andante.

For Shepherd, a lecturer in classical archaeology at Birmingham University, this is the perfect job.

"Archaeology," she explains, "combines languages, art, science and history. I love the tiny details, especially domestic ones, which you can still relate to.

"At the same time, though, you can never quite know the whole story. There's always something tantalising, always an element of mystery."
That's the spirit which has driven Andante since its launch in 1985. Owned and run by archaeologists, it takes travellers to ancient monuments all over the world, with current tours to Jordan, Egypt, Peru and Mexico.

Pompeii, however, is consistently popular probably because Roman life is such an endless source of fascination to so many: from the 1934 novel and 1970s television series I, Claudius and Academy Award-winning film Gladiator to the celebrated best-selling book Pompeii by Robert Harris.

Even cult TV sci-fi series Dr Who has filmed in Pompeii, supposedly on the eve of the eruption. What better place for an archaeological beginner like myself to start?

The town is undoubtedly the highlight of the week, with a full day devoted to it, but the tour tries to give a wider picture of the area and the era: the trip is in fact called Pompeii, Herculaneum and Classical Campania.

Andante believes its trips are best enjoyed in the company of like-minded travellers who get to know each other and develop a camaraderie during the journey.

Its groups are relatively small (usually about 19, top limit of 24), with coach travel kept to a minimum so that there aren't hours spent staring out of the window or chatting only to the person in the next seat.

Everyone is also encouraged to eat and drink together in the evenings.
You don't need vast amounts of prior knowledge, only interest and enthusiasm, though I did feel rather daunted when a reading list of 30 titles arrived with my holiday details.

However, the package also includes excellent 'field notes' distilling key facts into a few pages. Although some members of the groups were extremely well-read, others confessed to only being familiar with Harris's novel.

It also helps to be reasonably fit, as there is plenty of walking often in heat and humidity, and frequently over rough terrain. And although the pace is gentle - Andante, after all, means 'slowly' and there is plenty of time to stand and stare and absorb the atmosphere - there is much to cover, literally as well as figuratively.

Of course, time is occasionally set aside for a quick swim in the hotel pool and bit of shopping, but basically archaeology is what you see and what you get all day, every day. It's not for the half-hearted, though the company's Bare Bones division offers a more leisurely blend of expert guiding and free time.

For me, the all-embracing intensity made it memorable. My fellow guests, including a marine biologist, a lawyer and business people as well as teachers and academics, were congenial. My learning curve, though steep, was hugely enjoyable.

Other days featured visits to Vesuvius, Herculaneum and Pozzuoli, which has the 40,000 seater Puteoli amphitheatre - one of the best preserved in the world.

In Naples, the spectacular National Archaeological Museum houses the beautiful statues and other artefacts collected from the sites, including extraordinary mosaics made from tesserae (tiles) so tiny that the effect is almost like painting.

Equally fascinating, for different reasons, are the contents of the recently re-opened gabinetto segreto (or secret cabinet) which houses the erotica of those ancient times. So that's why some UK pensioners were showing their passports at the entrance, confirming they were 60-plus and thus entitled to free entry!

On two evenings, Shepherd added to what she had told us on-site with an hour's illustrated lecture at the hotel.

Slowly, key components of the story were pieced together like a neat jigsaw. Prevailing winds and the lie of the land meant Herculaneum perished in a different way from Pompeii.

Whereas the latter was showered with ash and pumice, its neighbour was filled from the bottom upwards by the pyroclastic flow of volcanic matter, which subsequently set like concrete to depths of up to 70 feet.

So although less of Herculaneum has been excavated - the theatre and forum, for example, still lie beneath the modern town of Resina - some of it is better preserved.

The 500-degree heat carbonised wood and other organic materials, and at the antiquarium in nearby Boscoreale there are blackened but entirely recognisable foodstuffs such as nuts, seeds and a loaf of bread, as well as a dog and a pig.

The curious counterpoint to these are the grey plaster-casts in Pompeii where Giuseppe Fiorelli, one of the first proper archaeologists to go there in the 1800s, had the brainwave of pouring plaster into the spaces within the volcanic material caused by the decomposition of the bodies.

The result is a poignant, frozen-in-time reminder that this was above all a human disaster.

Later, in a pleasant pavement cafe in the square of Cava de Tirreni near where we were based for the week, we sat and watched the Italians' evening promenade.

Ask me now about Roman architecture, food, house design, wall paintings, the staging of games and the organisation of brothels, and I can probably give a good account of myself. I might even sprinkle in a few well-chosen words of Latin.



TRAVEL FACTS

:: Liz Gill was a guest of Andante Travels, which offers eight-day escorted tours to Pompeii, Herculaneum and Classical Campania for £1,375, from March until mid-October, including BA return flights into Naples, all meals (with wine and water) and entry to sites and tips, local travel, guide lecturer and tour manager.
:: Andante arranges connecting flights to Heathrow from Manchester and Glasgow, for about £100 return. The company also offers 2009 packages without flights, from £1,220.
:: Andante reservations: 0172 271 3800 and www.andantetravels.co.uk