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This emperor (69–79) ended civil war and the Jewish revolt, and started construction of the Colosseum.

“The Queen of Roads” was completed in 312 BC by Appius Claudius, also the architect of Rome’s first aqueduct. The most pastoral part begins at the circular Tomb of Cecilia Metella, which was made into a fortification in the Middle Ages. Starting here, you’ll see more tombs and fragments of tombs, as well as grazing sheep and the private gates to fabulous modern-day villas. As you walk along, look to the east to see the arches of an ancient aqueduct marching towards the city (see Appian Way on a Sunday).

This lazy curve of a street sports a number of belle époque grand hotels and canopied pavement cafés. It enjoyed its famous dolce vita (sweet life) heyday in the 1950-60s, when movie stars supped, sipped and simpered here for the paparazzi. Today, the allure is sadly limited for anybody other than tourists, but every visitor to Rome should come at least once to take a stroll here.

Rome’s largest green space is made up of 688 ha (1,700 acres) of public park, landscaped gardens, statuary, fountains, groves, pathways, pavilions and a water clock. There are also three world-class museums: the Renaissance and Baroque art at Galleria Borghese, ancient Etruscan artifacts at Villa Giulia, and modern art at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. It’s all thanks to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who in 1608 turned these vast family lands just outside the Aurelian walls into a private pleasure park, opened to the public in 1901. In 1809–14, Giuseppe Valadier had turned the adjacent space within the city walls into the terraced Pincio gardens, a favourite passeggiata destination studded with statues of great Italians. There’s an elaborate tea house and an obelisk commissioned by Hadrian to honour his lover.

Peruzzi’s sumptuous villa (1508-11) was built for papal banker Agostino Chigi, whose parties were legendary - he would toss silver platters into the Tiber after each course. In a downstairs room, Peruzzi painted Chigi’s horoscope on the ceiling, Sebastiano del Piombo painted scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses , and Raphael painted the sensual Galatea . Peruzzi’s upstairs hall features a trompe-l’oeil balustrade overlooking hills. The 1527 graffiti by Charles V’s troops is now historic vandalism, protected under glass. The bedroom contains Sodoma’s Wedding Night of Alexander the Great (1517).

A different panorama, near Rome’s observatory above Piazzale Clodio, taking in the city and hills beyond from the northwest.

Poet and propagandist (70–19 BC). His epic The Aeneid tied Rome’s foundation to the Trojan War.

De Sica (1901–74) was the founder of neo-realism, with films such as Shoeshine and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow .

The first Grand Tourist, German author Goethe (1749– 1832) rented rooms on the Corso, now a museum, between 1786 and 1788 (see Casa di Goethe). His book Italian Journey laid the blueprint for later tourists who came to Italy to learn from its history and to complete their education.