Vesuvius today. We book a ‘tour’ – bus and entry ticket which, for us, is a bit of a first. We must be getting old. It was brilliantly organised but, boy, did it take some tracking down. Italian trains might run on time but it too an extraordinarily large amount of internet searching to discover that there are two train lines that run on the Circumvesuviana line – some that stop (frequently) at Ercolano Scarvi and others (the ones you come across most frequently) that don’t. Gosh they make it hard. A chance discovery of a sophisticated blog suddenly made it all clear. Perhaps we should start one…no, don’t think about it. Ed.

So we used it to get to Herculaneum. Quite different to Pompeii. Buried under 20-30 metres of mud and ash, it was discovered by accident – a farmer digging a well -in 1738. Much more low key restoration than Pompeii, but much smaller. It was quite near the sea and, when the eruption happened, people tried to flee into the sea. Their boathouses, now 30m down from current ground level and some way from the sea, were found to contain around 300 skeletons. All very moving.

So, the restaurant. It’s located away from the ‘tourist’ areas – so finding a bar for an aperitif wasn’t straightforward (we managed) but once inside it was simply fabulous. Friday night. It seemed everyone was (1) beautiful and (2) knew the owners. For those regulars plate after plate of food arrived and was effortlessly consumed, with lots of hand clasping, hugging and kissing. A ‘guitarist’ arrived and ‘sung’ a couple of local songs well-known to the assembled cast. The noise level rose. The food? Excellent. Three courses, 3 large glasses of local wine and a limoncello. Under £100. There was a back room, much quieter, where those guests must really have felt out of it. Bit like ‘Siberia’ at The Ivy (you know the one, the original…Ed).

Restaurant Mattozzi – we’ll make a bee line for it the next time we’re in Naples