The hip hopper guide to Hadrian's Wall

The luscious green hills of Northumberland roll past the window as we sit clutching our Roaming Roman's Quiz on bus AD122 - named for the year in which Emperor Hadrian ordered the building of his famous wall "to separate the Romans and the Barbarians". It is a hop- on hop-off service covering the 73-mile length of the wall between Newcastle and Carlisle, stopping at all the main Roman sites, as well as local accommodation.

We arrive by train in Newcastle Central Station, the starting point for the AD122, which carries us off towards the more scenic forts of the rural central sector of the wall. First stop, Chesters, with its remains of a real Roman bath house, and where the boys have an excellent game of hide and seek. One of the wonderful things about the Hadrian's Wall sights is that there is almost no restriction on movement: you can walk anywhere, examining, imagining or just playing.

We wander along the once porticoed walkway of the fort HQ to the arched strong room (still intact) where the soldiers collected their pay. Just beyond is a well and, to the amusement of the boys, a paving stone engraved with a large penis. This is not pornographic graffiti, but a perfectly respectable Roman symbol to ward off evil spirits.

A few miles on, in a commanding hill-top position, stands Housesteads, the most intact fort, with numerous buildings and the surrounding wall still giving a sense of its original size and shape. Housesteads is famous for its latrines. The seats are gone but the communal loo, where Roman soldiers sat and chatted, is still here - with two massive hand basins and a gully for rinsing your bum sponge.

Less than a couple of miles from the wall, the bus stops at Vindolanda, an extraordinary place, not to be missed. It was here in the 1970s that digging beneath the known stone fort revealed the first "Vindolanda tablets". These slivers of wood, written on in ink, are Roman postcards that really bring the fort's residents alive.

Back on the bus, we made a brief stop at the Roman Army museum, the highlights of which were two films - an eagle's-eye view of Hadrian's Wall, and a fun "recruitment film" for the Roman Army. Then on to Birdoswald. By this time, the kids were forted-out, so we went for a delightful walk along the wall towards Gilsland, passing remains of a milecastle and a Roman bridge-end in a gorgeous river valley. Finally, we reached Carlisle. The Roaming Romans quiz had been largely forgotten, but we had most certainly Roamed the Romans.

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How to get there

The AD122 (01434 322022; hadrians-wall.org) runs until October. The author travelled with GNER (08457 225225; gner.co.uk) and Virgin Trains (08457 222333; virgin.com/ trains), and used Walkers' Baggage Transfer (0870 990 5549; walkersbags.co.uk).

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