Rome [antikvár]

Areas of the city Rome's ancienf heart is the Román Forum, dose to Piazza Venezia (its modern centre). Via del Corso strikes north to Piazza del Popolo, with the busy Piazza della Rotonda and (left) the side of the Pantheon shopping streets around Piazza di Spagna to its east. Corso Vittorio Emanuele II runs west to St Peter's, bisecting the core of the medieval city (or centro storico). Trastevere, a quaint area of restaurants and small streets, lies across the Tiber on the river's west bank. Testaccio, south of the old city, is an increasingly trendy area of bars and dubs. Prati (north of St Peter's) and the area around Stazione Termini in the east are predominantly 19th-century creations. Romé, more than most capitals, is a city of extremes. For the first day or so, particularly if von visit during a busy time, the nőise, bustle and traffie can seem almost Third World in their intensity. Arrival at Fiumicino airport or, worse sti 11, the seedy eonfines of Stazione Termini, can be enough to make you think of turning tail for home. The streets appear places of confusion and wanton crowds, the city a labyrinth of belching cars and groaning inefficiency. Tackle the sights against this backdrop, and in the heat of a summer afternoon, and you will alwavs *j emerge unenchanted, battered rather than enraptured by what - with the right approach - can be one of the most romantic cities in the world. For if you start slowly, and restrict yourself to a few sights, Romé reveals itself as the city of the Caesars, of languorous sunny days, the city of la dolce vita, of art and a galaxy of galleries, of religion, churches and museums, of fountain-splashed piazzas and majestic mönuments to its golden age of Empire. To uncover this beguiling, but ever more beleaguered, face it is worth ignoring - at least initially - sights such as St Peters and the Colosseum (both likely to be besicged by visitors); start instead with a stroll around the Jewish Ghetto or Trastevere, or enjoy a quiet cappuccino in Campo de' Fiori or Piazza Navona. Or you might wander into somé of the city's greener corners - the Villa Borghese and Pincio Gardens - oases of calm well away from the traffie and streams of people. Better sti 11, start with one of the lesscrknown churches, such as Santa Maria del Popolo or San Clemente. Only with this type of quiet beginning, and reassured of Rome's potential for enchantment, can you begin to uncover a city that keeps its magnificent past hidden beneath a brash and initially unsettling present.