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Try packing this little sampler into three days: start with the obvious choices of the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museums and St Peter's Basilica. Catch your breath over a leisurely lunch around Piazza Navona. Pass by the Pantheon before exploring the Roman Forum and Colosseum in the afternoon. Make a night of it in lively and atmospheric Trastevere.
Spend a morning at the market in Campo dé Fiori and the Capitoline Museums. Let the ancient wonders at Palazzo Massimo alle Terme captivate you, before plumbing Rome's multilayered history at the San Clemente Basilica. Wander through Villa Borghese and visit the magnificent, and hopefully prebooked, Galleria Borghese. Or get some retail action at the swish designer stores around Via Condotti. Naturally, spend your evenings on a passeggiata (stroll) - with gelato - from Piazza di Spagna to the Trevi Fountain. Check out 'Il Campo' for fun after dark, or stay out far later than you should in Testaccio.
A Top Day in Rome
Vowing never to touch a bottle of wine for at least another five hours I emerge onto the noisy and painfully bright streets in search of sugar-laced caffeine. I find a bar and wolf down an espresso before heading off to the Museo e Galleria Borghese. I've booked my ticket and before long I'm standing before a Bernini sculpture wondering how he made such hard, grey marble seem so soft. Not being a Baroque genius I give up and move on to the Caravaggios. Sated on art my thoughts turn to lunch. I know a good, old-fashioned trattoria near the Pantheon where you can get great pasta and a very drinkable house white and still have enough money left for a coffee at the Caffè Sant' Eustachio. It's a long walk, past the five-star hotels and touristy restaurants on Via Vittorio Veneto down to Piazza Barberini and busy Via del Tritone. By the time I sit down I'm famished. Fed and watered, I jump on a tram for Trastevere and make my way slowly up Via Garibaldi to the Janiculum Hill. I love the view from the top and pass a pleasant half hour trying to work out which dome is what. By now the heat of the afternoon's giving way to the cool of the evening and I feel my energy returning. I'm going to need it for the night ahead - an aperitivo, dinner in San Lorenzo and then...well, then, whatever.
Author: Duncan Garwood
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