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Although some experts believe that this magnificent structure served a military purpose in Roman times, others hold with a mythological origin. Walking along the unusual wedge-shaped walls, pierced at intervals with shafts of light, creates a decidedly hypnotic effect on most visitors, as if in preparation for an encounter with the great oracle herself in her grotto (see Cumae).

Another phenomenal geothermal playground that will fascinate budding geologists. This congealed lava cap plugging up a dormant volcano is an expanse of hissing, fuming, bubbling terrain like nothing you will have seen before. There’s also a campsite with restaurant right on the spot – you get used to the sulphur smell in a day or two (see Solfatara, Pozzuoli).

Few know that there’s a pleasant alternative to the crowded main beach at Positano, with its rows of sunbeds and umbrellas. To get to Fornillo, head west on the path past the ’O Guarracino restaurant, around the cliff. It’s a rocky beach, overlooked by two towers, but there’s a café-restaurant and facilities (see Positano).

The famed Costiera Amalfitana lives up to the highest expectations in every way. The winding corniche road offers striking panoramas, and some of the towns seem to defy gravity clinging to impossibly steep slopes. Beauty and history are everywhere, tastefully blended with the vita mondana (sophisticated life) of Italian resorts. There’s not much in the way of beaches, but on the whole, this perpendicular paradise never fails to delight.

What is known as Virgil’s tomb is a Roman burial vault that dates back to the Augustan age. It is a typical columbarium , the “dove-cote” style of burial, with niches for urns containing the ashes of the deceased. The Romans later took to burying their dead in sarcophagi (coffins), as the fashion changed to belief in an afterlife, perhaps adopted from the Egyptians. Next to the tomb are a tufa quarry and a crypta (tunnel), built as an underground road in the 1st century.

Few places present such a stark contrast to the visitor as this one. The contemporary squalor of uncontrolled urban blight hides, within its depressed grime, imperial splendours of the ancient world. The town is infamous these days for its crime and poverty, yet just two blocks from the train station lie the beautifully preserved ruins of one of the most sumptuous villas to have been preserved by Vesuvius’s eruption (see Herculaneum, Oplontis & Stabiae).

This town has been home to coral artisans and cameo manufacturers for centuries, a craft that continues to draw admirers today. Yet its rough streets are among the area’s worst for violent crime and, to add to the tension, it lies in the direct line of fire from Vesuvius, last suffering destruction in 1794.