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Pompeii is presumably the best known town, which was buried by the Vesuvius in AD 79. This is surely due to this area was not build on later and thus the whole town could be laid open, or respectively was already laid open to 4/5.
Interestingly at this place are not individual 
buildings, but the whole
context. Apart from Ostia there is no roman town, to become such an idea about a
roman town.
The houses are preserved to
a height from some meters.
One
walks through the original streets and sees a lot of houses on both sides. These
flats are in a multiple way preserved up to the first storey. Somewhere in the second
floor the wall stops. This is completely enough for an other impression, than
with the usually preserved foundation walls.
Naturally one gains also an excellent insight about the roman life.
Among the mural paintings and other equipment of
the houses',
plenty of temples attract attention. Also a lot of thermal springs are existing.
Other public buildings are the
theater, an odeon, the amphitheater, the
palaestra, the
forum
and the
basilica.
There are surely places, where these buildings are better and impressively
preserved.
However also here applies, that the context, respectively the position in the
town can be make out, much better. Just because the other buildings are to be
seen too. Furthermore no modern building mar the picture.
In front of the town gates - in particular the Nocera gate -
many
necropolis are to be seen. From the
grave monuments are also some details preserved - like statues.
Less known might be, that the town sustained great damages at a big earthquake
in AD 62
. During the outbreak of
the Vesuvius these were not repaired completely. Furthermore the place was covered by pumice stone. This
cover stratum is not very hard, thus the town was plundered still in roman time,
last at the time of Alexander Severus (AD 208 - 235). After that it kept calm, up to
the discovery in the 16th century.