Rome

Rome is an open-air city. The Colosseum still stands at the end of the avenue, and the Roman Forum spreads its columns and paving stones below, where the empire was argued over. The Pantheon has barely changed in almost two thousand years, and daylight still drops through the hole in its dome. In the evening the crowd gathers at the Trevi Fountain, where the water cracks against white stone. Across the Tiber, St Peter's Basilica dwarfs everything around it, and the Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel lead to Michelangelo's ceiling. The stone pines of the Villa Borghese cover the walks of the park, and the gallery hidden inside it lines up Bernini's marbles and six Caravaggios. The food is plain and very good: peppery pasta, fried artichokes, ice cream at any hour. The river is crossed again for dinner in Trastevere, under the washing lines and lamps of the cobbled lanes.