My first visit to Rome was a typical one. I was fourteen years old, and one of the oldest students on a school visit. Two teachers assigned to 60 adolescent girls would now strike me as the holiday from hell, especially when one takes into consideration the fact that we were all tweens, and, as far as we were concerned, the main aim of the trip was: Boys, with a capital B.

Our group leaders had a completely different aim. They wanted to show us the Rome of the tourists, the historical Rome, the monuments, the churches, the Vatican. All of this is anathema to your regular spot-breakout teen. Their aims were enough to put us off for life. This was the eighties and as far as I was concerned, travel meant shopping. While everyone else was gawping at the beauty of the Vatican, I was at the Standa branch around the corner, spending my mother’s money.

Then, in the early nineties, when my feet were just too itchy, and I wanted to get away from this island as much as possible, I stopped over at a friend’s on my way back from a hell-raising trip around the Greek islands. Lorenza showed me a totally different Rome, the Rome of the Romani; of the rich ones, in fact. Her dad was totally loaded (and still is, the last I heard). My time was spent ‘jetting’ around the city on her 60’s vintage Vespa (the coolest form of transport, later immortalised by the great Nanni Moretti in Caro Diario), hanging around at street corners gossiping with film producers and directors, and shopping at the latest, coolest, second-hand shop for vintage leather and fallen-off-the-back-of-lorries Burberry’s macs. It was the Rome of the Parioli, the richest and most boring district, packed to the gills with luminaries such as Maurizio Costanzo, Raffaella Carra and the latest top-model complete with matching dog.

This year, I returned. Rome hasn’t changed much, but it is surprising how every visitor sees a different city, and how returning shows you a different facet every time. These are the reasons why I won’t wait another ten years to return:

 

The Proximity

If there’s one thing that really makes this a popular destination, it’s the fact that it only takes a little over an hour to get there.

For all those who have a fear of flying, the shorter the trip, the quicker the holiday can begin. It’s take-off, maybe a snack, then landing; you hardly have time to get going on your book. The flight is also usually one of the cheapest on offer, which is good: keep your money for when you get there.

 

The Hotel

Finding a decent hotel-room in Rome has got to be one of the most difficult things to tackle. Whatever you do, don’t go for a room close to Stazione Termini, unless you’re totally desperate. At night, the area is still as notorious as it ever was and not exactly a place to hang around unless you’re particularly masochistic and appreciate having your pockets picked. One thing I learnt about Rome from its inhabitants is the clear delineation they make between Roma Nord and Roma Sud, the latter part being anywhere around the Colosseo and Termini area. It's snobbism but who the hell cares? You're on holiday, not writing a social treatise.

This time, we struck lucky with the most beautiful room in the chicest hotel I’ve ever seen in Rome. The Hotel Barocco is located in the lovely Piazza Barberini, which places it firmly on the right tourist map: five minutes away from the Fontana di Trevi, another five from the Piazza di Spagna. The metro stops opposite, the bus stop is one minute’s walk away. You can hardly get any better.

Inside, it’s boutique all the way. Boutique hotels  preferable to huge chains because of the personal service and the home-from-home feeling. The rooms here are super-comfortable with huge beds both in the normal rooms, and the suites. The bathrooms are spacious, and the furniture is mostly walnut. The rooms are quiet and sound-proofed from whatever is going on outside, which in Rome is always 'quite a lot'.

In the morning, be prepared for the best breakfast I’ve ever had in Italy. Even in very expensive hotels, the Italians do not, unfortunately, believe in breakfasts. Here, I literally gorged myself on prosciutto crudo, Italian ricotta and a great selection of fruit and breads. It’s the breakfast you wish everyone would serve, but they never do: fresh, light and more-ish. All of this is to be partaken in the lovely breakfast room, laid every morning with fresh linen and silver. Oh yes, and I forgot the perfect cappuccino…

The Linen

While we’re on the subject of linen, we might as well get down to sheets. Like Paris, which retains its village feel due to the myriad of small specialised shops, Rome has its fair share of shops you should avoid (any chain, really) and others which are a must.

One such shop is the Frette linen shop on the Via Condotti. Frette stocks the height of luxury in sheets in the kind of cotton which feels like silk. ‘Why don’t you take the linen, Madam? Once you sleep on linen, you’ll never sleep on anything else.’ The expert salesman tried to entice me into parting with around €250 for a fitted sheet, top sheet and a couple of pillow-cases. ‘That’s exactly why I’m getting the cotton’ I insisted. The whole thing came to around €100 which might seem extremely extravagant to some. But then, don’t we spend these amounts on a jacket or a pair of shoes? Why should I sleep on anything else?  Unfortunately the sheets turned out to be of less resilience than those bought from JB: the fitted one developed small, later gaping, holes after a couple of washes. Complaints to Frette went ignored.

In the case that sheets aren’t your thing, Frette also stocks a great selection of luxury towels, the kind which make you want to take 15 baths a day, as well as bath-robes. They also stock a ridiculous-looking style of underwear in linen. If I were you, I’d stick to the sheets and towels. Ok, maybe just the towels.

The Pizza

How can we talk about Rome, or any part of Italy for that matter, without talking about la pizza? Don’t be fobbed off with pale imitations purchased from silly American chains which have sprouted all over. The best places to find really good food are the work areas where offices regularly disgorge amounts of workers on the lookout for their midday snack.

I can’t recommend the Pizzeria Florida (Piazza Torre Argentina) enough. It’s one of those pizzerias, staffed by the owner and his wife, which amaze and entice with their fantastic pizza toppings and their soft but crisp base. Try and get there before the office breaks, when the tiny place packs up and spills out onto the pavement.

Toppings include fiori di zuccha (courgette flowers) and anchovy, potatoes-cream-pepper-parsley, al bianco (how can a piece of pastry with just a sprinkling of sea salt and olive oil taste so good?), and rocket, mushroom and parmiggiano. It’s enough to make your mouth water. It’s also enough to make you never want to look at an inferior product as long as you live.

And the rest of the food, of course

Cucina Romana is not for the faint-hearted. It makes ample use of animal innards and offal. This harks back to the times when, in the Amatrice areas in the Abruzzo, shepherds provided meat and work for the rich of the Capital, while having to make do with whatever they left of the animal for their own needs.

This meant that the Amatrici developed their own particular brand of food, making the best use of pieces like the guanciale (cheek) which they use in the salsa all’Amatriciana. One taste of this sauce – alla gricia (with no tomatoes) or the regular type – creamy and sticking to fresh pasta, and you’ll never try the local version again. That’s always the problem with tasting the best: how can you ever go back to anything else?

For main course, the Romans specialise in the agnello (lamb) which they roast with herbs and serve with a salad or sauteed potatoes. I totally forgot what we had for dessert, and can only remember that first it was really good and second I was about to explode but still stuffed the whole thing down, then polished it off with some limoncello bello fresco as described by the only waitress on hand: manning 20 tables, and still managing to smile constantly.

Which restaurant was it? Well, sorry, I’ve forgotten. I only know I crossed the Piazza Barberini from the Hotel Barocco, went into the opposite street, the turned right. As with any other country in the world there’s always a way to find the real thing: stick to the one place where you can’t hear any English, and all the diners are speaking the vernacular.

To top it all off

Like many other cities, Rome has also been tainted by the effect of globalisation. Therefore, ‘Gelati Artigianali’ on huge billboards will usually be a spot-on indication that you will get the factory-produced item.

One place all Romans head for, and which they’ve been heading for for years, is Giolitti’s. Somehow, this popularity – any Italian will point you in the right direction to it – has not meant that this famous gelateria serves anything less than the genuine product.

Apart from the usual ice-creams, made with fresh cream and tens of different fruits, ranging from fruit-of-the-forest to mango, Giolitti is extremely famous for its Champagne ice-cream. This is more like a rich sorbet really, but it sets your tongue tingling with its fruity aroma. Heaven on a cone.

What’s more, here you don’t pay by the flavour, but by the size of the cone. If you’re silly enough, you can try and cram 5 flavours on a small cone, but if you try and be reasonable, it means that you’re paying normal ice-cream prices for the genuine thing.

The Public Transport System

With totally chaotic traffic (which has got a little better over the years, if that’s any consolation) and a great quantity of smog produced by all the cars and motorcycles, it makes sense to have a great public transport system.

One way of avoiding the overhead madness, is to head for the Metro, which is pretty well-organised, efficient, and clean: it has really improved greatly. But when you’re on holiday, and you want to see the most, the buses really are best. Contrary to anything local, they’re efficient, the driver and the vehicle are clean, and just in case that wasn’t enough, they’re free.

Naturally, this is not intentional. Nonetheless in a week’s visit, and copious bus-rides (including a hell-ride to the Vatican), we did not see a single inspector. The method goes like this: you are meant to have a ticket which you buy prior to alighting. Once you get on the bus, you’re also meant to stamp it. But since the locals buy a seasonal ticket which is not stamped, there’s no way for the driver to check whether people should have actually stamped their tickets. This means that no-one, whether they’re Romani, or turisti pay a dime to ride around.

The Café Life

And so it’s back to the food. The coffee, to be precise. Starbucks would just not kick-off in Italy, where the real cappuccino and espresso are a work of art. I remember Lorenza taking me to the oldest cafeteria in Rome, where the best cappuccino was to be partaken.

It was a creamy concoction of frothy milk and coffee, with no separation between the two. It wasn’t boiling, just tepid. It went down in seconds, while we stood, as the locals do, by the marble-topped bar, staring at ourselves in the mirrors opposite.

It was the best coffee I’d ever had. It cost 45c. It’s one of the many reasons why I keep going back.

 

How to get there:

Air Malta has daily flights to Rome: http://www.airmalta.com

Where to stay:

The Hotel Barocco is on http://www.hotelbarocco.com. Contact them on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more details.

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