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There is much to attract in this area of the Alban Hills. Swim in Lago di Albano, or visit Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, a Baroque complex designed by Bernini in the 17th century.

The gastronomic temple of Rome since 1932, this shop is piled high with packaged and prepared speciality foods from countries the world over, such as Japan, Greece, India, China and the Middle East.

Dr Silvia Viviani is the guiding genius of this loving undertaking, but what makes it work is the volunteers’ enthusiasm. Tourists are welcome to visit the veterinary clinic, and are also encouraged to adopt one of the cats. The sanctuary has a “no-kill” policy.

The burial tunnels of Rome’s early Christians are like a honeycomb beneath the consular roads out of Rome, especially along Via Appia Antica. Grave niches stacked like shelving along dark corridors are carved into the tufa, with some precious remnants of fresco and engraved marble slabs (see Beyond the City Walls).

This is the largest catacomb network in Rome. Many of the tombs from the 1st and 2nd centuries have no Christian connection; burial of this sort was practised by several religious sects. The chambers have frescoes of both Classical and Christian scenes, including one of the earliest images of Christ as the Good Shepherd (see Exploring the Catacombs).

Rome’s first official Christian cemetery, on four levels, features some rooms decorated with stucco and frescoes, and special crypts to early popes and saints that you can also visit. The rooms and connecting passageways were hewn out of relatively soft volcanic tufa. The niches, called loculi , were designed to hold two or three bodies.

Underground cemeteries outside the city walls were created in accordance with laws at the time, not a response to suppression (it was thought ghosts of the dead could interfere with the living). However, the remains of saints Peter and Paul may have been moved here, further away from the centre, during one of the city’s periods of persecution. There are also several 4th-century mausoleums, some with exquisite frescoes.

This religious house, next to the botanical gardens in Trastevere, is a bit characterless but clean and well organized, and there’s a lovely garden. Curfew 11pm.

The necropolis of this 6th-century BC city is still quite intact, complete with streets, houses and frescoes.