A few blocks up from the entrance stands the Forum, the central square of any Roman city. Around the edges stands what was once a two-story colonnade, its 470-foot length oriented so that scenic Mt. Vesuvius serves as a natural backdrop. At the northern end of the eastern edge is a small room with a countertop embedded with bowl-shape depressions of increasing sizes. The Forum was also a central marketplace, and to forestall arguments between buyer and seller, these were used as the city`s standards of measure.

Just past the measuring table is an enclosed building with plaster casts of bodies. During the early excavations, archaeologists realized that the ash had packed around dying Pompeiians and hardened almost instantly. The bodies decayed, leaving just the skeletons lying in people-shaped air pockets under the ground. Holes were drilled down to a few and plaster was poured in, taking a rough cast of the moment of death. Some people writhe in agony. A dog, chained to a post, turns to bite desperately at his collar. One man sits on the ground, covering his face in grief.

A 2nd-century BC theater that could seat 5,000. Under the stage lay a reservoir so that the scene could be flooded for mock naval battles (some suggest the water also helped amplify the acoustics during performances).

Odeon or Teatro Piccolo
A much smaller theater (seating 1,000) used mainly for concerts.

House of Menander has painted scenes from the Trojan cycle in some rooms, and a floor mosaic of the Nile in the peristyle (the family who lived here were all found together, huddled in one room, killed when the roof caved in on them). House of D. Octavius Quartius with lots of good frescoes and replanted gardens; and the House of the Marine Venus, with a large wall painting of the goddess stretched out on a clamshell.

A huge open space shaded by umbrella pines where the city`s youths went to work out and play sports (many came here seeking shelter from the eruption; their skeletons were found huddled in the corner latrine)to the Amphitheater. Built in 80 BC, this is the oldest amphitheater in the world, and could hold 12,000 spectators.

A series of baths with stuccoed and painted ceilings surviving in some rooms and a few glass caskets with more twisted plaster cast bodies of Pompeii victims. These give you the best idea of what Roman bathing was like. There are richly decorated vaulted rooms for a good steam (the men`s section considerably richer than the women`s) – plus a swimming pool and exercise yard.

This brothel left nothing to the imagination. Painted scenes above each of the little cells inside graphically showed potential clients the position in which the whore of that particular room specialized. Until a few decades ago, only male tourists were allowed in to see it.

One of the most luxurious mansions in town (it belonged to two trading mogul brothers) and in a wonderful state of preservation. Behind a glass shield at the entrance is a painting of a Priapus, a little guy with a grotesquely oversized male member shown weighing the appendage on a scale.

Built around the 2nd century BC, this villa was converted into a center for the Dionysian cult, and the walls are gorgeously and skillfully painted with life-size figures engaging in the Dionysian Mysteries of an initiate (though these paintings have helped modern scholars guess at the nature of these rites, we still don`t know exactly what was involved). The scenes play out against a background of such deep, intense red that the color used is still called `Pompeiian red.` (This villa is located five minutes ouside Pompeii).

Some frescoed chambers (like this one at the Villa dei Misteri) survived the ages intact. This was not meant to be lewd, but rather was a common device believed to ward off evil spirits and thoughts. Painted putti and cherubs dance around the atrium while the rooms are filled with frescoes of mythological scenes and characters. Don`t miss the Sala Dipinta, where a black band around the walls is painted with cherubs engaging in sports and in the various trades in which the Vettii probably had investments.

This is among the best-preserved private houses and features the famous `Beware of the Dog` mosaic at its entrance and it was the one that Edward Bulwer-Lytton chose as the home of his hero Glaucus, in his engaging 1830s romp The Last Days of Pompeii.

Bulwer-Lytton`s villain in The Last Days was a priest of the Egyptian goddess Isis, and her temple is one of the most vividly preserved in the whole town. It was visited by the young Mozart in 1769, and gave him ideas for The Magic Flute.

One hundred and fifty years older than the Colosseum, it`s the earliest amphitheatre to survive anywhere in the world. It is very far from the entrance, but worth the effort.