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| | | | Tuscany from the comfort of a caravan
The usual image of a holiday in Tuscany is a stylish, secluded villa set in the picture-postcard scenery of the Italian hills.
But a villa is not to everyone's taste. They can be expensive and isolated, with nothing for children to do and only available in weekly packages.
So put aside your pretensions, pack your shorts and head for a caravan in the hills.
Of course you're not allowed to call them caravans but that's what they are - even if they don't have wheels.
The poshest have fully-equipped kitchens, two or more bedrooms, shower room and dinky wooden decks outside, with dining table and parasol.
The campsites are well planted with lots of trees so you aren't immediately aware of sharing your Tuscan idyll with 1,000 or more caravans and tents.
Your holiday home is billed as a "modern living space with an open air feel".
There's certainly a feeling of the outdoors - in reality, there is little privacy. You are living your holiday in a Big Brother bubble.
Walking past a row of caravans is like hospital visiting - you don't want to look at other people but can't help a sneaky peek into their personal lives.
On a holiday parc (as they are called) you can hear your neighbours chatting and eating and you see their washing on the line. But if you like people and you like the outdoors, that's not a problem and you can't help but make friends along the way.
Travel Guide: Rome
Rome isn't seen in a day
Turning out a cupboard recently, I came across an old diary, an account I'd written of falling in love with Rome. Just 19, I had escaped for a week from a grim university gap-year job. After the rigours of teaching in Switzerland, arriving in Rome was like falling into a champagne bubble bath.
I bought frivolous clothes in the Via Condotti (a linen dress for not much more than £1!); hammered the sights, fending off lascivious postcard vendors; watched incomprehensible Italian films; and discovered, to me, the brand new joys of pizza and mozzarella.
I seem to have remembered bits of Julius Caesar in the Forum and to have coped with Roman buses: 'You have to battle your way to the door at least two stops ahead, shrieking "Permesso" and sticking your elbow into people's chests while treading on their toes.' An English boarding school education had clearly not been entirely wasted.
Rome had had much the same effect on my husband, who first visited the city as a student. Last month we decided to make the most of a long weekend and head back together.
But first we took a vow. To imagine that you could do Rome in one weekend would be sheer folly. Pavement pounding was out. Instead, we would spoil ourselves. We would stroll in the late autumn sunshine, each choosing one or two favourite places to revisit. We would eat good, carefully chosen meals. We would take taxis if we felt like it. And if the Via Condotti designers' alley proved short of £1 dresses, at least we could enjoy window-shopping.
Travel Guide: Rome
Enjoy all the comforts of Rome
The last time I visited Rome was with an orange rucksack, two school mates and about 50 lire.
That was 18 years ago and my fortunes have changed. This time my girlfriend and I stayed at the lovely four-star hotel Locarno in the city centre and I was even able to buy a square meal.
Unlike myself, Rome has worn well. Its best attractions are more than 2,000 years old and age cannot wither her.
I spent four nights in the art deco Hotel Locarno which opened in 1925 but looks 50 years older. It had a lovely sheltered outdoor courtyard as a venue for breakfast and lunch. A large double room cost e200 (£132) a night. It was worth the money.
Just around the corner was the five-star Hotel du Russie where George Clooney and Brad Pitt stayed during the filming of Ocean's Twelve recently.
There is no doubt the adoption of the euro has equalised prices in Italy. But Rome, always more expensive than rural towns, used to offer some bargains for fans of designer clobber.
Those expecting cut-price designer clothes from Gucci and D&G in the eternal city will be disappointed. For instance, the cheapest Fendi handbag I saw was e580. That's about £385 (and it was the size of a pint glass).
St Peter's Basilica is rightly famous and, in my opinion, the single most impressive building on the planet. It is impossible to describe the richness of its marble, paintings and sculptures (including Michelangelo's Il Pieta) in a few words. It must be seen.
Free guides will escort you around the Vatican building where the bones of Jesus's right-hand man lie about seven metres below your feet, found in 1942 by archaeologists. Unlike many other holy "relics" it appears they really are the remains of the Apostle crucified after AD 64.
The Pope is very frail now and rarely says Sunday mass in St Peter's Square.
Unlike Paris, Rome hasn't been ruined by traffic. The Piazza del Popolo has been pedestrianised and the three main shopping streets leading from it have restricted access to cars.
It means the air is cleaner and you can shop in peace. Eating dinner and sipping coffee al fresco is so much more enjoyable there (in temperatures of 30C) than in the UK.
Travel Guide: Rome
Rome's darkest age
From the Mail on Sunday
We were 50 feet beneath the earth in catacombs off the Appian Way, looking at a small stone coffin a few feet away in the gloom.
Some 1,700 years before, St Sebastian - the one you see portrayed pierced by arrows - was originally laid to rest in this casket, not far from where the bodies of the disciples, Peter and Paul, were secreted briefly during an imperial persecution.
So where was he now? The archaeological guide pointed directly upwards, to the altar high above us at ground level in the baroque basilica. 'I can assure you,' she said firmly, 'that the bones that were here are the ones that are there, right over our heads.' The cheery African nun by my side gasped, and made it clear she thought it was time to head for the light of day.
Rome's dark corners have that effect on you. Out of nowhere you feel yourself touched by the heady blast of history. The Eternal City is full of stories, as befits somewhere continuously inhabited for almost three millennia.
Tales of early martyrs, and the vivid signs of their lives which we can see and touch today, often take a back seat to Rome's glitzier attractions.
It's a shame. There are characters here that make Hannibal Lecter look like Bob the Builder . . . and you find them in the most unexpected of places.
The Arch of Constantine, a wonderful piece of triumphant architecture by the Colosseum, is a good starting point for a black tour of Rome.
In the 4th Century Constantine turned pagan Rome over to Christianity and paved the way for the power of the Catholic Church. He built the first basilica to honour St Peter. His mother, Helena, visited the Holy Land, supposedly bringing back fragments of the true cross and staircase which Jesus climbed in Pilate's house, both of which can still be seen.
So why is one of the fathers of the modern church who founded Istanbul as his own capital, Christian Constantinople, hardly known today? Because Constantine was also a brutal human being who had his son executed, probably for little reason, and ordered his wife to be smothered to death in her baths. Apparently he was unfailingly kind to Christians though - more than can be said of his pagan predecessor Valerian.
Walk from the Colosseum to the stone boat which marks the entrance to the park of Villa Celimontana and you begin the most shocking martyr's journeys in the world.
Travel Guide: Rome
An audience with the Pope
While I'd like to say that my 10-year-old son's desire to visit Rome was prompted by his flying start to Latin, unfortunately, I know where his knowledge of ancient Rome - special subject: slaves and fighting - came from.
It started when Cosmo saw the film Gladiator five times on a long-distance flight.
I spent six months hanging out in Rome as a gap-year teenager and find that whenever I return to the city I still know all the bus routes, the cafes, the cut-price shoe shops (little changes in the Eternal City).
My son's must-sees included the classic sights - the Forum, the face-that-bites-your-hand-off (aka the Bocca della Verita) and the Coliseum. But he also wanted to see the Pope.
As we swept in from the airport on the high-speed train, Rome positively sparkled - a result of massive grants to polish up the city for the Millennium.
When I last visited the Piazza del Popolo, it was like Hyde Park Corner without the traffic lights.
Now, it's a pedestrianised square, so you can cross the piazza to see Caravaggio's two paintings in the Santa Maria del Popolo more safely.
We were staying at the Hotel de Russie, which has been brought back to life by Rocco Forte and his sister, Olga Polizzi, who created its classically cool look.
Open for just three years, this is a world-class hotel - something that Rome has been missing since the glory days of the Hassler.
As soon as Cosmo checked out the Russie, he abandoned his rugby training kit and changed into a uniform of blue shirt, chinos and blazer and refused to wear anything else for the next four days. Dressed to his satisfaction, we hit the streets.
Travel Guide: Rome
A slice of history
Rome is like a big cake with all its mouth-watering layers of history. The Colosseum, where the real gladiators slogged it out, is awesome and the Forum is fascinating. We loved the spooky catacombs, too.
Everywhere you go in Rome, you're falling over bits of its magnificent past.
The Vatican is impressive, but no sign of the Pope. You can't go into St Peter's unless you're well covered up, so I went in with a cardigan on, but my boyfriend in shorts had to stay outside. The Sistine chapel was crowded, but it's a must-see, so we gritted our teeth.
We got a bit history-ed out after a while - like eating too much cake, really.
We found eating out was pricey - even a cup of coffee is expensive, especially in more fashionable pavement cafes. But as our feet were killing us, we splashed out around £3 for a cappuccino, a long sit down and people-watching session.
Travel Guide: Rome
A Roman holiday
From the Mail on Sunday
Visiting Rome is always an intoxicating experience. But as the city gears up to celebrate next year's 50th anniversary of Roman Holiday - Audrey Hepburn's Hollywood debut with Gregory Peck - it can be even more romantic.
Following in the actors' footsteps through Rome is relatively easy: filming was at a few key sites in walking or Vespa-riding distance of each other.
Hepburn's Princess Ann (on a tour from an unnamed European country) stays at an ambassadorial palazzo.
I settled for the comfortably decadent Hotel Majestic on the Via Veneto - a grand, but amiable, five-star affair with a huge chandeliered salon perfect for receiving heads of state.
Peck plays Joe Bradley, a US journalist who has a flat at Via Margutta, 51.
Most people would give their right leg for that address now. (The artist Caravaggio and Federico Fellini, director of La Dolce Vita, were previous residents on the tranquil street between the Spanish Steps and the Piazza del Popolo.)
There are a couple of three-star hotels down the street if you really want to recreate the film's atmosphere.
Either Hotel Forte (http://www.venere.it/roma/forte/ tel: 00 39 06 320 7625), a 17th Century palazzo at number 61; or Hotel Manfredi (tel: 00 39 06 320 7676) would provide the right location.
To do the film justice, you will need to hire a Vespa. Scooter Hire on Via Cavour 80a (http://www.scooterhire.it tel: 00 39 06 481 5669) has prices starting from 20.50 euros per day (£12.90).
Our screen idols meet when the bored princess escapes her entourage at a reception, sees the city and settles down to sleep on a wall overlooking the Forum, where Bradley finds her.
Travel Guide: Rome
A Magnificent Roman holiday
From the Mail on Sunday
As we stagger, dripping, into Piazza Navona, it is dusk and the black cobbles look damp with perspiration. The ancient buildings, their facades washed in wonderful shades of orange, ochre and red, appear to be sagging in the heat.
I am carrying my two-year-old daughter on my shoulders and her ice cream is dripping on my head. We were warned that we should on no account come to Rome in August. But we have. And we're loving every minute of it.
It must be the most monumental city on earth. The ancient emperors left their great columns and arches. The popes turned the place into a gigantic religious stage-set, while 19th-century planners and Mussolini, that failed heir of the Caesars, added grand avenues and monstrous constructions, like the marble monument to King Victor Emmanuel, which seem to have no purpose other than to overwhelm with their sheer scale and splendour.
Everywhere you're reminded that you're in the home of one of the great religions, a place that was for eons the centre of Western civilisation. But you don't have to go into every church and every palace. You don't have to go into any of them. The mere fact that they're there gives the place an atmosphere that is like nowhere else.
I first visited in 1973, on a Three Cities In Seven Days air-and-coach tour, with my mother and sister. Each city seemed more amazing than the last and, after the canals of Venice and the quaint lanes of Florence, everything about Rome was epic and Biblically enormous: the Colosseum, the great basilica of St Peter's. Yet the climate of the place was tropical, sensual, romantic.
To my 16-year-old mind, full of Pink Floyd and bad poetry, there was only one word for it - cosmic! I remember wandering off from our party one night, getting lost by some palace gardens and a man on a moped giving me a lift back to civilisation along boulevards lined with glittering cafes straight out of La Dolce Vita.
Our hotel was miles out in the suburbs and I remember catching a bus back there one day, staring at three local girls, who all stared back with the biggest, deepest, darkest eyes I'd ever seen, as the bus careered around the hillsides, with the Eternal City spread out in a white haze below.
Travel Guide: Rome
A capital idea for the baby minded
We've just come back from a weekend in Rome with our 10-month-old son. Apart from Arthur being called 'panettone' by one witty Roman - he's a little on the tubby side - we all had a wonderful time.
Arthur had his first taste of Italian ice cream and pizza, and rode his buggy round the Centro Storico like a charioteer, waving imperially at passers-by.
He was deluged with attention everywhere. His most ardent admirers were young male bartenders and waiters, who on catching sight of our son's cherubic features, would exchange nudges and winks that I imagine were normally reserved for leggy blondes.
Our theory behind this behaviour is that the poor men are deprived of babies to ogle at. The whole weekend, we didn't spot one other family of tourists with anyone anywhere near as young as Arthur.
The main reason for this, I suspect, is that most accommodation in cities takes the form of conventional hotels and is therefore pretty unsuitable for families.
In a hotel, you're likely to be all holed up in one bedroom, with no one getting a decent night's kip. Also, there will be nowhere to heat a bottle of milk or prepare meals or even simple snacks.
But there is a much more civilised way of doing things: by renting an apartment. We booked one in Rome through Venetian Apartments. Palazzo Velabro - a former monastery - is in a good, central location, just below the Forum, a short walk from the Centro Storico and the trattorias of Trastevere.
The block is what is often called an 'aparthotel' in that it offers some hotel-style services and facilities, such as a reception desk manned around the clock, daily cleaning and bed-making and breakfast.
Our one-bedroom apartment felt rather like a smart hotel room, except that it was much more spacious - akin to a massive suite - and the living area had a kitchenette, with sink, fridge, hob and cooking and eating utensils.
Feeding Arthur his fruit and cereal for breakfast or pasta for tea was so much more straightforward than it would have been in a hotel. We'd brought a bolt-on table seat for him, which worked very well.
We had breakfast in the apartment each morning and also ate in each evening. We could put Arthur to bed in a cot in the bedroom, while we had supper in the living room.
One of the pleasures you're normally denied on a city break is being able to shop for food with intent. Our trip to the local supermarket wasn't much fun but essential - our only gripe about Palazzo Velabro being the lack of basics such as washing-up liquid, salt, pepper and olive oil, which are wasteful to buy for a few days.
But every day we wandered down to the famous market in the picturesque piazza of Campo dei Fiori for fruit and vegetables, and popped into a couple of Rome's mouth-watering little delicatessens for fresh pasta and pesto, Parma ham and salami plus a bottle of chianti. We felt a little less like tourists, a little more part of everyday life.
Travel Guide: Rome
An Italian beauty
Ask any Italian about the island of Ponza and he'll say 'che bella, che bellissima' - how beautiful, how very beautiful! But he's unlikely to have been there.
This is all very typical of the Italians, a people utterly convinced that their country is the most beautiful in the world with the finest wines and most delicious cheeses.
Well, all these rave reviews of a place hardly anyone seemed to have actually visited made me incredibly curious to discover just what this tiny, mysterious Mediterranean resort is really like.
So when I recently planned a trip to Rome, the natural starting point for visiting the island, it was impossible to resist the urge to set aside a long weekend for a Ponza expedition.
And I have to say that I should never have doubted this bubbling Italian enthusiasm, for Ponza is not just stunning visually, surrounded by a crystal-clear turquoise sea, cheap to stay in and packed with excellent value trattorias serving the freshest fish imaginable, it is also one of those rare destinations that can honestly claim to be utterly unspoilt.
Unlike the far more famous islands on this part of the Italian coast such as Capri, Ponza is deserted most of the time, except in July and August, when it is invaded en masse by Italian families on their summer holidays and should be avoided.
Getting there is no easy task, which explains why it remains undiscovered, but as soon as the ferry sails into sight of the island's craggy white cliffs and pulls into a quiet harbour tightly encircled by whitewashed houses, you know the journey is worth the effort.
Although tourist brochures may tell you that a rapid hydrofoil service operates from either Rome or the historic port of Anzio to Ponza, half the time they don't actually leave because of choppy seas or a lack of passengers.
We set off for Anzio, which is certainly worth a visit with its excellent Second World War museum, but after wasting a day there waiting for the elusive hydrofoil to depart, we jumped on a train to Formia to catch the old-fashioned ferry, which always leaves on schedule.
There was time before the boat left to grab something to eat at the nearby waterside restaurant Zi'Anna.
Travel Guide: Rome
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| | | | Stop being a snob
This really is a holiday for families, especially those with small children, known as toddler families.
But with families comes equipment. Most sites have buggies, cots and high chairs. Some take the children off your hands while you unpack.
And there are kids' clubs split into different age groups and pools suitable for small children, although you have to wear horrible swimming hats.
Holiday parcs have got wise that visitors need more than a caravan and running water.
They have swimming pools, a gym and spa, a good restaurant - reasonably priced - a pizzeria and, importantly, a takeaway and a supermarket which isn't a rip-off.
Sites are busy and crowded but have a welcome siesta when no cars are allowed to move and shops are shut. It also gets very quiet after 10.30pm.
You can do this holiday flying but it's much easier to drive, especially if you have children's stuff. You'll also need to take your own towels.
You will need a car for sightseeing. The Norcenni Girasole Club is set in Chianti country and good for visiting Pisa, Florence, Rome and Siena.
Within an hour's drive is San Gimignano - a stunning hillside town which has a medieval festival in June.
You can arrive any day so you're not tied to Saturday-to-Saturday holidays. And you can stop off at camps along the route to break up the long car journey.
So this is a flexible, outdoor holiday which will delight your kids and do away with any pretensions or snobbery you may be harbouring.
A three-night stay at the Norcenni Girasole Club with Eurocamp is from £67 by car. Details 0870 366 7552.
A city of beginnings
October, often claimed to be the best month for Rome, turned up trumps. We found balmy, no-need-for-jackets weather and the spring and summer crowds of visitors reduced to a trickle. The majority seemed to be middle-aged British couples like ourselves. Rome remains walkable, which is lucky; few cities offer such grand scale combined with such intense detail.
The streets smelled of traffic fumes and incense and coffee, the rotting whiff of the Tiber mixed with the scent of the season's first roasting chestnuts. We lurked beside pushchairs at crossings as the best tactic for avoiding the swarms of motor scooters, apparently hell-bent on pedestrian destruction.
We reclaimed our memories, walking through the narrow medieval alleys that join square to light-filled renaissance square, each with its fanciful fountain or solemn statue. Fragments of classical masonry poked everywhere, like old bones, through the surface of the city. Cats patrolled tumbled arches, peeling stucco glowed with earthy, edible colours; apricot and mushroom, saffron and ginger.
'What does this building say to an architect?' I asked a Chicago student, who was attempting to sketch the perfect dome of the Pantheon. 'I can't begin to explain,' she replied. 'This is it. It's the beginning.' Rome piles up beginnings, layer upon layer.
We revisited San Clemente, where a fourth-century basilica and a medieval church are stacked above a Roman temple. What happened to the lightheartedness in Christian art that gave San Clemente's dazzling mosaics their charm and intimacy? We traced the 17th-century architect Bernini from the water-spouting Tritons of his splendid fountains all the way to St Peter's, feeling just in the mood for the baroque flourishes that help make Rome the gorgeous show-off of a city it is.
Take in some art in the park
If you're not on a tight budget, Rome's restaurants must be tried. Italy is rightly famous for its pizzas, which are thinner and tastier than here, and its pasta, which comes in seven main types.
Expect to pay about £45 for a meal for two with wine and desserts. But be warned — many eateries don't stock thirst-quenching rose wine and the selection of beers is limited.
Sadly the Colosseum is still surrounded by a busy road but at least it is so large and imposing that you forget the hustle and trinket sellers outside.
Named after the colossal statue of Emperor Nero that stood outside (and was melted down) it is a must-see. It costs just e8 (£5.30) to go in, with an audio tour costing e4 (£2.60). Built in AD 72 it has been a fortress, stadium and quarry in its time.
If you fancy winding down with a walk or jog in the park, I'd recommend the Campo Marzio which features the amazing Villa Medici full of renaissance paintings. I went for three runs around it in the evenings when the temperature dropped to about 25C.
It is full of trees, boasts a zoo, a fabulous view over the city, and a large hot air balloon designed like the Montgolfiers's famous craft.
Costs of travelling to Rome:
- Ryanair flies to Rome from £35 per person from Stansted.
- You can leave your car at Bishop's Stortford Football Club park-and-ride for £32.
- The four-star Hotel Locarno in Rome has double rooms at e190 (£125) and superior doubles at e200 (£132) per night.
- Single journeys on the Rome underground cost one euro (66p).
Site of grisly martyrdom
Imagine it is August in the year 258, 50 years before Constantine conquered Rome. A Spanish Christian, Lawrence, is handing out money to the poor from the church's coffers.
Vlaerian, ever on the look-out for some money, wants his share and sends his aides to ask where the riches are. Lawrence greets them and points to the poor, saying, ' Here are the treasures of Rome.'
We can still follow in St Lawrence's footsteps. The guards dragged him to his trial through the cryptoporticus, the long corridor that runs through the ruins of the Palatine hill. In the church of San Lorenzo in Fonte you can see the cell where he was imprisoned and the font he used to baptise his fellow captives.
San Lorenzo in Panisperna was built on the site of his grisly martyrdom. Here he was roasted to death over a barbecue, an event portrayed in a fresco. He lies buried in the catacombs at San Lorenzo fuori le Mura.
In a small chapel in San LOrenzo in Lucina, off the Via Corso, is a barzier which looks like it's from a Roman feast. It was on this cruel mechanism, legend has it, that San Lorenzo expired, after joking with his executioners to turn him over because he was done on one side.
The Via Corso jeans shops seem inappropriate after this, so hop on a bus to Trastevere, accross the river - a weekly ticket takes you on any tram, train or bus.
In the lanes to the south lies the pretty church of Santa Cecilia - a nobleman's wife who lived in a mansion on this spot. When her Christian husband was martyred she tried to bury his body and was sentenced to death by smothering in the baths of the house - a fate favoured for patrician women.
Cecilia failed to die, and still survived the maximum three blows of an axe which the law allowed. Mortally wounded, she sang hymns, converting many with her courage and became the patron saint of musicians. She was buried in what became the crypt of the church.
In 1599 her tomb was opened and her body found to be miraculously well preserved. The sculptor Maderna made sketches of the shrouded figure, then carved the effigy of a young human figure in a delicate shroud which now lies beneath the high altar, with three clear axe marks on its neck.
Pasta-eating technique
We caught a bus to the Forum. But when we arrived, it was clear that this was not what Cosmo had expected.
'I knew the buildings wouldn't be standing in one piece, but I can't even imagine what it would have looked like,' he said as he gazed at the ruins.
Fortunately, a cheap guidebook helped us out. Published by Vision, it reconstructs how the Forum would have looked by overlaying a plastic sheet, which has a picture of the missing bits, on to an illustration of the site as it is now.
Cosmo became so gripped, we had to look at every building from the Forum of Augustus to the House of the Vestal Virgins.
Armed with our new book, we joined the queue for the Colosseum. Cosmo thought it was just fantastic and loved investigating the tunnels in which the animals were kept before being unleashed into the arena.
After all this excitement, we had lunch in Dal Bolognese, a traditional restaurant in Piazza del Popolo, where we had the perfect tagliatelle con funghi and the head waiter polished up my son's pasta-eating technique. It's all in the wrist, apparently.
We decided to combine eating ice-cream with visiting the glorious Piazza Navona, the site of the old hippodrome track.
The wonderful thing about Rome is that it's like an open-air museum. While my son refused to cross the threshold of the Capitoline Museum, he adored the way in which we 'bumped' into monuments and statues on our 15-minute walk to the square.
We saw the Mausoleum of Augustus, which looked like a hill fort surrounded incongruously by Roman apartment buildings.
As the winding streets opened to the Piazza Navona (filled with street musicians, buskers, second-rate artists and conjurers), we headed for Tre Scalini, an old favourite of mine.
Cosmo ate tartuffi - balls of ice-cream covered in a hard layer of chocolate - while I gazed at the square's two masterpieces of Baroque art: the façade of Borromini's St Agnese and Bernini's extravagant fountain.
Battling for space
Don't attempt a nap here now - the Via dei Fori Imperiali, which Mussolini had built to connect Piazza Venezia with the Colosseum, is usually roaring with traffic.
Bradley takes the young vagrant home and late next morning the cynical hack realises that the biggest scoop of his life is still asleep on his couch.
The princess sets off to celebrate her freedom and decides to get her hair cut.
The barbiere at 85 Via della Stamperia by the Trevi fountain is now a leather shop run by a man who has evidently been asked about the film once too often.
Bradley, in furtive pursuit of the princess, tries to steal a camera from a schoolgirl by the Trevi fountain.
He would be luckier today as, at the same spot, there is a stall selling disposable cameras.
A short while later, the pair run into each other again on the Spanish Steps. The baroque staircase that curls down from the church of Trinita' dei Monti to Bernini's Barcaccia fountain now heaves with tourists.
It is difficult to feel princess-like while battling for space, but persevere (having bought your ice cream at the cafe opposite) and wait for your Bradley to show up.
Ann tells Bradley that she has run away from school. He persuades her to spend the day with him, doing things she's always wanted to do, like 'sitting at a sidewalk cafe and looking in shop windows, walking in the rain, having fun and maybe some excitement'.
They start with the cafe. Rocca's on the Piazza della Rotonda by the Pantheon is a 15-minute walk away - or a quick zip on your scooter.
The cafe is a trendy clothes shop now, but you can sit outside a nearby restaurant, Rotonda 6, and sip Prosecco at £3.90 a glass.
Singing on the Steps
Not surprisingly, I've had a warm feeling for the place ever since. Now I'm back with my own family in tow. We're not staying out in the sticks this time, but bang in the centre, at two of Rome's most splendid hotels.
The D'Inghilterra is a luxurious old-world establishment, just off Via Condotti, the Bond Street of Rome, stamping ground of the Gucci and gold handbag brigade. Many famous names have stayed here down the centuries, from Liszt and Mendelssohn to Ernest Hemingway, and our room with its heavy mahogany furniture and amazing marble bathroom suggests the place has barely changed in 100 years.
The Hotel de Russie, a stone's throw away down Via Babuino, is an old palace, elegantly refurbished, with palm-laden, terraced gardens that become a restaurant by night. After dark, the area's narrow streets are crowded with visitors window shopping at the designer boutiques, with everyone converging on the Spanish Steps, a huge marble staircase flanked by rose-coloured mansions, which is perpetually packed with a perspiring mass of international youth.
I was one of them on my first visit and thought it was the most romantic place on earth. Now I find the youthful hordes frighteningly green and gauche - sitting there singing, chatting each other up in a dozen different languages or just staring into space. But it's all quite wholesome - like a big youth hostel kitchen - and our daughter loves it. Every night as we're trying to whisk her off to bed, she keeps bawling to be brought back to 'the music square'.
The Italians love children and Rachel, with her blonde curls and big blue eyes, is feted wherever she goes. Machine-gun-toting policemen give her little waves, Gucci-clad women point her out to each other and complete strangers rush up to be photographed with her.
Walking into a rough-looking bar in search of a lavatory, we find the crowd parting as they notice our grimy, tousled offspring, her face smeared in chocolate ice-cream, and the whole place dissolves in a chorus of cooing and sighing.
Most memorable seafood
The place looked like a tacky pizzeria, but I had one of my most memorable seafood meals ever in Italy - everything from marinated anchovies, clams, prawns and mussels to baby soles, red mullet, calamari and scampi, accompanied by an excellent chilled bottle of Greco di Tufo white wine, all for the grand total of £10.
This guaranteed arriving at Ponza in just the right mood.
Ponza is the largest of an archipelago of volcanic islands that rise steeply out of the blue waters of the Mediterranean.
The Romans found it a convenient place to banish Christians, 18th Century Italian Bourbon kings built most of the town you see today and the present population of just over 3,000 is made up mostly of fishermen, whose colourful boats crowd the harbour.
The first impression on arrival is more of a Greek island, with brightly painted houses offset by dark green vegetation clinging to the mountainsides and brilliant-white jagged cliffs sheltering narrow inlets and bays perfect for scuba diving or just snorkelling.
There aren't too many proper hotels on the island, but you'll soon discover that just about every single inhabitant has some kind of accommodation to rent, ranging from basic budget rooms to comfortable, well priced apartments.
There are also some seriously exclusive properties where you can spend a luxurious week lazing at the poolside.
The narrow island stretches for five miles, with tiny villages linked by a series of spectacular winding roads and, though there are places to stay all over Ponza, the best plan is to book a place where you get off the boat and which has easy access to the maze of back streets of the main town that surrounds the port.
This is where you will find all the best restaurants, bars and shops. It is also the ideal place to rent transport, be it a car, scooter, bike or boat.
Having dumped your bags, grab a table and sit out on the shady promenade above the quay at the aptly-named 'Welcome Bar' sipping a cocktail as the sun sets.
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| | | | Walking down the paths of youth
Mostly, we enjoyed the spectacle of Rome going about its business. We woke each morning to the sounds of shutters banging open, of church bells, wedding klaxons and archaic plumbing. We sat in the Piazza Navona, watching the world go by: school trippers, jugglers and Rasta footballers, trendy lay sisters in mini-habits and black leather jackets.
We climbed the Spanish Steps and looked down on a skyline alternating splendid domes with tiny rooftop gardens, where families lunched among potted lemon trees in a crazy forest of television aerials.
In the Campo de' Fiori, housewives pinched the breasts of plump chickens, stocking up on aubergines, rocket and the fat brown porcini mushrooms that perfume October pasta. Old men in black gossiped on the steps of the Portico d'Ottavia synagogue, by a church tucked into the remains of a Roman gateway. At Trattoria da Giggetto next door, we ate the specialities of the ghetto: flattened artichokes fried in batter, aubergine flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies.
Crossing the last remaining Roman bridge over the Tiber, we found ourselves in Trastevere. Rome's hip and happening quarter buzzed with music, crowded restaurants and, on this Sunday morning, a lively flea market. We dipped into Santa Maria in Trastevere for a final fix of mosaics and found it, like other churches there, much more packed with Romans burning candles and banging chairs about than with rubbernecking tourists such as ourselves.
Much too soon, time ran out. Our younger selves had got it entirely right. Rome has always been it.
Stand in awe
On the Clivus Scauri, a road near the Colosseum, is the church of John and Paul. The two soldier martyrs-were supposedly beheaded with a friend in their house over which the early church was built.
For centuries this seemed as hazy a tale as most of those surrounding the martyrs. Then in the 19th Century the foundations were excavated, and in the lower levels - open with permission today - was found a dwelling that had once been a place of Christian worship.
There were three graves that had been the subject of some reverence. John and Paul, it seems, were no mere myths. Some historians, however, argue that there is no hard evidence to suggest that St Peter - whose prison 'chains' can be seen in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli - was crucified in Rome or was the first Pope. Even ardent Christians would find it hard to understand why anyone would engineer their own excruciating end.
Look at the walls of Rome for an answer. Try the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in the piazza of the same name which lies at the head of the Via Corso and houses one of the finest Caravaggios.
In this depiction of Peter's martyrdom, as he watches his executioners struggle to erect the cross on which he will die, he shows no fear - he knows that the raising of the cross is the raising of the foundations of Christianity. As theologian Tertullian put it a century later, 'the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church'.
It was a prophetic message. A century after he died Constantine set the seal on Christianity as the official Roman religion, and that of the Western world to come.
Whatever your religious persuasions, it is hard not to stand in awe at the mark these sacrifices make almost two millennia after they were made.
TRAVEL FACTS:
Italiatour (01883 621900) offers short breaks to Rome.
David Hewson's new novel, Lucifer's Shadow, is published by Harper Collins, price £9.99.
Lashings of gold
The next day we crossed the Tiber to the Vatican. If there is one thing my son is impressed by, it's size.
And St Peter's is not only big, the interior has lashings of gold. Like many pilgrims before him, Cosmo was initially silent with amazement, before he was able to utter the words: 'How much do you think it cost?'
This became a mantra the whole way through the Vatican museums as he toyed with a list of the top three objects he'd like to take home.
The big disappointment of the afternoon was the Sistine Chapel. Because of the crowds, Cosmo could barely see a thing, even though the prime exhibit was on the ceiling.
It was then that we had a stroke of luck. As we were coming down the steps, a magnificent old black Mercedes drove slowly past and stopped alongside us while a pair of gates was being opened.
My son, who had been admiring it from afar, peered in for a better look at the upholstery and there, sitting opposite a red-clad cardinal, was the diminutive figure of John Paul II.
It wasn't quite the audience my son had envisaged - but he was very impressed with the car.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Hotel de Russie,Via del Babuino 9, Rome (http://www.roccofortehotels.com tel: 00 39 06 32 8881). Kirker Holidays specialises in packages to European cities (tel: 020 7231 3333).
The architectural serenity
Bradley's friend, Irving the photographer, turns up and slapstick ensues as Bradley attempts to keep his real intentions secret from the princess.
Instead of causing a fracas, today's romantics should admire the architectural serenity of the Pantheon, the 2nd Century temple which is now a Catholic church.
From Rocca's the team set out to see the sights. The princess, on the back of Bradley's Vespa, visits the Colosseum, now overrun with as many tourists each hour as it once held spectators.
Here my own Bradley, a charming driver hired by the hotel, organises photos.
A little later, Princess Ann and Bradley (now falling in love) visit the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin down by the Tiber, where they dare each other to put their hands into the Mouth of Truth.
This is a medieval drain with the face of an open-mouthed gargoyle. Legend has it that if a liar's hand is inserted it will be bitten off.
During filming, it's said, Peck yanked out his hand and jokingly hid it up his sleeve.
Hepburn screamed in shock. The scene wasn't scripted, but they kept it in the film.
The setting for the day's finale, before they both have to return to their real worlds, is a barge on the Tiber by Castel Sant' Angelo.
A jewellery box of surprises
But Rachel is finding all this - and the heat and the high culture quotient - hard work. And children have a way of making what's hard work for them even harder work for you. Which is how I come to be lying on the floor in the Villa Borghese, doubled-up behind a marble plinth, surrounded by colossal heads of Roman emperors, playing at sweet shops. It's the only way my wife can get the chance to look at the place.
The villa is like a great jewel box: every ceiling a tumbling riot of nymphs and angels, the walls lined in multicoloured marble, everything opulently gilded and the whole place packed with priceless works of art.
It was built by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, son of one of the great families who fought over the Papacy in the 16th and 17th Centuries. The Borghese, the Barberini, the Farnese and the Pamphili - these are the people who created the Rome we come to see today, who built the churches and palaces and amassed the great art collections that still fill them. They were rich beyond belief and they were utterly ruthless.
To catch the atmosphere of that strange world, you should go to the Palazzo Doria Pamphili, a huge, pollution-blackened building on Via del Corso, Rome's main shopping street. Entering through an anonymous side door, you step from noise and grime into a world of hushed, deep-velvet magnificence that positively vibrates with a sense of the dodgy dealings of the past.
On the audio commentary, the present prince describes how his ancestor, Pope Innocent X, was propelled to power by his sister-in-law and mistress, who raised a fortune running protection rackets on the city's brothels.
Yet these people were amazingly cultured - fully conversant with theology, literature and philosophy. Composers such as Handel and Scarlatti lived and worked in this house. The Spanish painter Velasquez immortalised Innocent's imperious sneer in the magnificent portrait that still hangs here.
Wild, natural landscapes
It is difficult to imagine a more idyllic spot on the whole of the island.
The one big surprise is that there are no beaches here - the wild, natural landscapes are dominated by sheer cliffs dropping straight into the sea.
But don't be put off. Just walk down to where all the fishing smacks are moored in the port and you'll have a dozen sea captains offering to take you off in their boat.
The perfect introduction is to take a day trip round the island.
You'll have enough time to stock up at a nearby delicatessen for a picnic - comprising the most wonderful locally produced mozzarella, ripe tomatoes and thinly sliced Parma ham - and then be off in a traditional flat-bottomed boat with a dozen other tourists, who will probably be Italians, already stripped off to micro-bikinis, working on their tans.
You'll soon discover that what Ponza lacks in beaches it makes up for with hundreds of peaceful creeks where the boat drops anchor and everyone dives off to swim, undisturbed by a soul - unless you count the shoals of multi-coloured fish that swarm round when anyone drops a few crumbs of bread into the water.
This trip will give you a proper feel for the geography of the island and from then on most people hire a boat for themselves for the fun of exploring without a guide and making their own discoveries.
There is another organised tour worth doing, over to the nearby uninhabited island of Palmarola, which is even more spectacular than Ponza.
But you have to go in a group as the boat owners don't let tourists sail that far on their own.
It is easy just to want to spend all your visit on the water, but reserve at least a day to drive around the island, too.
There's not much traffic apart from the local bus. Every so often park the car where you see a sign for one of the footpaths that weave their way right down to the water's edge, where you can swim from a narrow strip of sand or in a 'piscina naturale', a deep, hollowed-out rock pool.
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| | | | Raise a glass
This imposing museum was built as Hadrian's mausoleum in the 2nd Century, but, like most things in Rome, has been reappropriated countless times and used as a fortress or prison by a succession of popes.
Sadly the barges are no longer there, although you could visit Baja, a boat moored further up river on the Lungotevere Arnaldo Da Brescia (nearest metro: Flaminio), which, as a trendy new 'ristodisco', provides food, drink and dancing until 2am.
Try not to get into a fight, however, as our heroes do with the secret police who finally find their princess.
It may end in you jumping into the Tiber, as they do, which is not advisable.
I decided instead to cool my heels at a Via Veneto bar and raise a glass to Hepburn's closing words.
On being asked at a Press call the next day which of the cities on her European tour she enjoyed the most, she replies, in a departure from the traditional regal script: 'Rome. By all means Rome.'
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Kirker Holidays (http://www.kirkerholidays.com tel: 020 7231 3333) offers short breaks to Rome.
Romance on a scooter
But for all the pomp and grandeur of Papal Rome, with its vast basilicas and splendid avenues, the city doesn't feel as though it's got much of a plan. It doesn't quite fit together and it's very easy to get lost. But that doesn't matter, because around every corner there's something to delight you, whether it's a dark old baker's shop piled with loaves looking as gnarled and ancient as the surrounding buildings, or Caravaggio's stark and passionate paintings that you stumble upon in churches all over the city.
Most of Rome's art is still in the churches and palaces for which it was created. It's just part of the everyday fabric of the place. Stepping off Via del Corso, you enter a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys that has defeated town planners for 2,000 years.
The gloomy portal of the Pantheon looms over the hubbub of the surrounding restaurant tables, looking substantially as it did when St Peter was brought to Rome in chains. This round church was built as a pagan temple and, as you step inside, a great shaft of light passes down through the darkness of the dome and you have a shiver-inducing feeling of walking directly into the past.
The streets around are a haphazard tangle of buildings, most of which could date from any time over the past two millennia. Everywhere there are great gateways, some standing open with views into magnificent courtyards, others firmly bolted, guarding the secrets of centuries.
As evening descends, the air begins to cool, colour drains back into the world after the blazing, deserted afternoon and the streets are filled with the whine of motor scooters. Homeward-bound commuters - cigar-chomping businessmen and mini-skirted secretaries - all ride their Vespas and Piaggios with an amazing nonchalance, as though they were on kitchen chairs that just happen to have wheels.
A well-built young man draws up beside us, asking for directions and, when we shrug, a pretty young woman offers assistance. After a few abortive sorties into the surrounding alleys, he's back. She gets on his Piaggio behind him and they're off. We chuckle. How very Italian!
Twenty minutes later, we spot them again, deep in conversation, before they exchange phone numbers and go their separate ways. In Rome romance is not dead. Women, I've noticed, still return appreciative looks. But although they're all just as elegant as you'd expect, they've grown worryingly thin. Do Italian women still eat? What are they doing with all that pasta I see them ordering in restaurants?
Roman men, on the other hand, know how to wear a good suit and their skin glows in a way that makes you want to go out and spend a fortune on face cream. If I lived here, I'd end up wearing perfume; it's that kind of place.
Glorious golden light
This is great walking country, too, as long as you bring the right shoes, though I'm not sure I'd advise hiring bikes as the island seems to be one massive hill climb after the next and most of the cyclists I passed looked utterly exhausted.
Leaving Ponza proved as inconvenient as the arrival, having to get up in the early hours to catch the 6am ferry in order to be sure of getting connections in Rome.
But, standing on the deck of the boat as it slowly chugged out of the port, the morning darkness was suddenly broken by the rising sun, throwing a glorious golden light over the island.
But then, places like Ponza don't stay unspoilt for nothing and if getting there was easy, it would have been discovered and descended upon by the usual crowds of tourists a long time ago.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Where to stay:
For an ultra luxurious villa, try the Casa Fontana which sleeps eight - contact Italian World (tel: 020 7591 2811). The most pleasant hotel, overlooking the port, is the Hotel Mari (tel: 0771 80101)
To find out more, contact the tourism office (0771 80031.).The code for Italy when calling from England is 0039.
Getting around:
Agostino Pilato (tel: 0771 80447) provides off-road vehicles, cars, scooters and bikes at very reasonable rates.
There's little difference in price or service among the different boat owners at the quayside, though you can't miss the venerable Signora Concetta, who can be very persuasive.
Where to eat :
The best restaurant in town is Acqua Pazza (tel: 0771 80643), whose chef complements creative dishes like a delicate puree of fava beans topped off with tasty sliced squid with a simple plate of grilled deep-sea prawns caught that day.
The restaurant serves the surprisingly good white wine from the island's vineyards but not usually for sale to the public.
For the most romantic evening, try the Ristorante Eea (tel: 0771 80100), high above the port, whose terrace tables have the ultimate panoramic view over Ponza.
For simple 'cucina casalinga isolana', island home cooking, go to the friendly Il Capriccio (tel: 0771 80729), which also rents rooms above.
How to get there :
British Airways (http://www.ba.com tel: 0845 7733377) flies to Rome from Heathrow and Gatwick. easyJet/Go has return flights from Stansted to Rome http://www.easyjet.com tel: 0870 6000 000.
A train from Rome will get you to Formia in two hours and a three-hour ferry service to Ponza operates from here daily (tel: 0771 22710).
The hydrofoil from Anzio only takes one hour and 15 minutes, but is not always reliable (tel: 0698 45083).
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| | | | Corridors to God
Rome is a city where you cannot and should not try to see everything. But everyone must go, at least once, to the Vatican. It's a city, a country, a world unto itself, where everything is ancient, ornate and huge. There are nine Vatican museums in the old Papal apartments, laid out along two corridors that show up on maps as longer than most streets.
It should be easy to find your way round, except that there are signs everywhere pointing to the Sistine Chapel, which lead you through endless rooms of Greek vases and Etruscan funeral ware, only to deposit you back where you were in the first place. Crowds of hot, bewildered visitors push back and forth along the corridors, which are lined with cupboards, their doors all fabulously painted and filled with great collections of everything under the sun.
Most are not on show, which is just as well because you're already reeling from the vast roomfuls of Greek and Roman sculpture: the statues that inspired Michelangelo, the images that were considered the last word in beauty for a thousand years. Or was it two thousand? The scale of everything is so vast that after a time it hardly seems to matter.
Finally, a tiny passage leads into the Sistine Chapel and, as the great ceiling opens out above you, with its familiar images of Adam and the Creation and the vast fresco of the Day Of Judgment beyond, you can understand why Michelangelo was thought by his contemporaries to have achieved something super-human - the equivalent in his day of putting men on the Moon. The beginning and end of the world, Greco-Roman reason and the modern idea of free will - it's as though the artist were trying to get the whole of human experience up there in his heroic muscular images.
But we end our trip to Rome as we should have begun it and as everybody should probably begin theirs - at night. When flood-lit and seen from a moving vehicle, the monuments and domes and the white marble statues - of which there are an unbelievable number - take on a new life.
Incomprehensible traffic systems carry you through the vast, brick gateways of the ancient city, plunging into underpasses overhung by the ramparts of palace gardens, past the curving colonnade of St Peter's with its skyline of gesticulating saints. You get glimpses into the half-lit streets of the Forum, with views through the broken walls and foundations into the baths and the central-heating systems of the ancient world.
You end perhaps, at the Trevi Fountain, where Neptune on his chariot comes careering out of a wall, his plunging white horses filling half of the square below. Tourists crowd up to the railings, throwing in coins, as they have done for centuries, to ensure that they return to Rome.
And what purpose does this preposterous, space-consuming fountain have - other than to make you gasp? None. It's just a spectacle, part of a performance that's been going on for more than two thousand years. That's Rome - and it's one long-running show that no one should miss.
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| | Available rental properties in Rome |
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| |  | | Flat in Viale Manzoni
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|  | | Domitilla apartment
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Charm and leisure, luxury and design... in Rome!!! Apartment with garden, parking and fireplace, just 8 miles to the Colosseum! All inclusive! Last Minute! Long stays discounts! Free internet!
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