Can there be any better way of immersing yourself in what life during the Roman Empire was like than strolling through the Forum in Rome?

Or perhaps walking the cobbled - and volcanic dust preserved - streets of the likes of Pompeii and its near neighbour Herculaneum in the sun-soaked Bay of Naples?

Well now you can add to the list a three-day tour of east Kent.

Granted, there's nothing quite as breathtaking as the Colosseum or being able to look up at the dramatic, and still active, Mount Vesuvius. But instead you will get a fascinating insight into the Roman legacy on our very own doorstep.

And, notably, get to witness both the site where the Roman invaders first landed in AD43 and, almost 400 years later, left as they retreated after being subjected to waves of attacks from both home and abroad.

From next year, one of the county's leading historians will be leading the tour which will take in some key sites and paint an intriguing picture of how the Romans not only helped shape the county - and even its road network - but also how its remains are still visible today.

Simon Elliott, who lives in East Farleigh, near Maidstone, is an honorary research fellow at the University of Kent and author of a number of books on the Roman Empire. In addition, he's frequently popping up as an expert on a variety of TV shows.

More used to guiding tours around classical sites in Italy, he's looking forward to taking groups from around the world on a jaunt of east Kent's key sites - among them remains in Dover, Richborough, Reculver and Canterbury.

He explains: "I've worked for Andante Travels for a few years doing lecture tours and they were asking for ideas for future trips. And I thought Kent is the most amazing place in a Roman context.

"It's where you get the highway which links Roman Britain to the continent, in terms of the Channel, and it's got a huge Roman presence.

"There were people during that time living around Watling Street and down the valleys of the Darenth and the Medway and Stour.

"Then you have all the industrial activity too - Roman London was built from the county's ragstone quarries.

"I thought I'd put together a tour to get people interested in Roman Kent, because it has such an amazing story. They'll be able to touch and see things and enjoy being there - but we can tell a story too."

The cornerstones of the tour will be the Saxon Shore forts - a string of Roman-era fortications built in the 4th century, on both sides of the Channel, to guard against increasing waves of barbarian attacks.

Explains Dr Elliott: "Most Saxon Shore forts are built either side of a major waterway to control access to an estuary or a river to prevent people using them to attack the Roman provinces.

"The English Channel and the North Sea had been overrun by piracy after the Roman Empire suffered a huge economic crisis and its navy disappeared and never came back.

"Unable to build a navy on the same scale as before they have this false economy and build the Saxon Shore forts.

"Their job is to protect - but clearly they don't as Roman Britain ends and Germanic invaders settle there instead.

"So this economic investment in the Saxon Shore forts is a failure. They would have been better off actually rebuilding the fleet.

"The beauty for us, though, is that the forts are still here. So as an archaeologist and guide lecturer, I can take people around these sites and use them as pointers as to what's really happening in Roman Britain or Roman Kent at that time."

Key on the tour will be the forts at Reculver, near Herne Bay, and Richborough, near Sandwich.

They were originally built at either end of the Wantsum Channel - the waterway which once separated Thanet from the mainland.

And while today the Wantsum is a shadow of its former self, once it was a "busy highway" which the Romans and merchants heading to London used as a short-cut to avoid the perils of the Goodwin Sands off the east Kent coast - the sand banks which have claimed thousands of vessels.

Adds the historian: "Most of the goods that are going to be distributed around the South East came in on big merchant ships to London and then get broken down into small bulks that go on other merchant ships. They would then go around the coast and the rivers supplying everywhere with fish sauce, wine, olive oil or whatever.

"All this is going through the Wantsum Channel."

But perhaps the most significant site is at Richborough where the Romans first landed and where some of the most dramatic monuments and architecture once stood.

Explains Dr Elliott: "Richborough is incredibly important to the Romans and I think it's the most powerful place in Roman Britain.

"It is the beginning and the end of their occupation. It's the place the invasion, ordered by Claudius arrived. They landed around Richborough or to the beaches to the immediate south.

"Then you have the invasion ditch and defensive ditches which you can still see.

"So it's a place of landing, then it becomes a port. It's where Watling Street starts - the Roman M1 I'd argue. It follows what is the A2 today - going from there to Canterbury then on to Rochester, to London then becomes the A5 and up through Britain.

"It's where the Emperor Domitian builds a grand monumental arch [to celebrate the Roman conquest of Britain] and you can see the footings of the foundations today. It was as fine as anything you'd find in the Forum in Rome. Clad in Carrara marble.

"The area also had a watch tower which we know as you have these three defensive ditches you can see today dug around it. It would have been built to keep an eye over the Channel for people coming across.

"At some point all the stone in the port and the arch gets taken down and reused for the Saxon Shore forts.

"You can see bits of reused stone in the wall. You can see bits of the marble from Italy, you can see half of a grand sculpture of a lion which would have been on the arch, which has been smashed in half, and the rear half - the bottom and the hind legs - are actually in the wall and if you know where to look you can see them.

"Richborough also had an amphitheatre too."

The tour will then head to Dover, which Dr Elliott describes as a "time machine".

"It has the fort, the Painted House and a museum with a great Roman display. Plus there's the Roman Lighthouse at Dover Castle."

And during the tour, those taking part will be based in Canterbury where they will get guided walks of the streets to picture life in Roman times.

"My job is to paint a picture of what is happening here but in the context of what happened in the past,” the historian says. “To explain, to illuminate and I can do that with anyone of any level of knowledge.

"I just love passionately talking about Kent's past and in particular, its Roman past.

"We frequently have local people attending and they are blown away learning of the history which took place around them."

The tour details can be found at andantetravels.co.uk.