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Thick Neapolitan-style pizza in a modern room or on the roof terrace, with red lamps to click on for rapid service. Lots of pastas and desserts as well. No bookings and long queues so arrive early.

Own your own piece of ancient Rome. Choose from a range of objects, from simple oil lamps to exquisite painted vases.

Modern ice cream parlour with more than 100 flavours of gelato plus semifreddi (half-frozen mousse) and frozen yoghurt. It’s open late and constantly thronged with Rome’s young and beautiful. Mere steps from the Pantheon.

A triple-chocolate bomb with a cherry in the middle and topped with whipped cream is the famous tartufo produced by this café. If you get it “to go”, it’s a bargain, but it’s probably more romantic to sit inside and share one – as long as you don’t fight over the cherry (see Tre Scalini).

A windy piazza hosts the prototype Counter-Reformation church. Enormous and ornate, it’s meant to convince the wayward of the pre-eminence of the Jesuit faith. The façade is elegant, but the interior is the major dazzler – first impressions are of vibrant gold, bathed in sunlight. Then there’s the vision of angels and saints being sucked into heaven through a miraculous hole in the roof. The tomb of Ignatius, the order’s founder, is adorned with the world’s largest chunk of lapis lazuli.

Saunter around arm-in-arm in this elegant park and take in a traditional puppet show, perhaps buy a puppet or two, check out the carousel, but most of all enjoy the views, considered by many to be the best in the city. If you happen to be here at noon, get ready for a shock when the cannon booms – a daily routine.

This long ridge separating Trastevere from the Vatican offers some of the best views of Rome (see Romantic Spots). Its two equestrian monuments celebrate Garibaldi and his wife Anita, who is buried underneath.

The Eternal City is laid out at your feet from a lover’s lane perch across the Tiber.

The house of the late fashion designer never compromises the clothing’s flamboyant cuts and garish use of colour.