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All roads lead to Rome

Jonathan Ray

Wednesday, 9th April 2008

Jonathan Ray walks his socks off on his first visit to the Eternal City

Then to Piazza Novona, a vast bustling square once used for chariot racing, now filled with the same crap painters and paintings that you find in Montmartre and along the Green Park railings on Sundays. Its pizzerias were crammed with red-faced tourists, so we stuck to Elizabeth’s itinerary and ducked into the alleys west of the square and made for the church of Santa Maria della Pace. Here, in a secluded first-floor cloister, we found the enchanting restaurant she recommended. We were the only foreigners there and we smugly sipped prosecco (me) and Aperol (Marina) like the true Romans we had become.

Over the next 48 hours we walked our socks off following the sainted Elizabeth’s impeccable directions. Down to the Forum, the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus; over the river to Trastevere; back past the Trevi Fountain, Trajan’s Column and Temple of Hercules; up to the Borghese Gardens and so on. Although excellent pit stops and restaurants were marked for us along the way, I like to think that we weren’t completely idle, managing to rootle out one of our own: Hosteria La Lampara, a stunningly fine, brand-new fish restaurant near the Pantheon.

At the end of the weekend, as we nursed our throbbing feet with a revitalising bottle of prosecco in Buccone, a wonderfully well-stocked enoteca in Via di Ripetta, Marina and I voted on our worst and best of Rome.

Worst was our trip to the fabled Antico Caffé Greco near the Spanish Steps. Here we were served coffee and grappa by a miserable, sullen old git in a grubby tailcoat, and were charged £35 for the privilege. It made me want to nick their fancy teaspoons.

The best was harder. We agreed that the majestic Forum, bathed in early spring sunshine, was a sight worth waiting all these years to see, but it was edged into second place by Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s extraordinary sculptures Apollo and Daphne and The Rape of Proserpine in the Galleria Borghese. These extraordinarily fluid works — how could marble be made to look so soft and pliable? — Bernini’s first solo commissions, date from 1621 when he was barely 23. They alone were worth the trip.

Jonathan Ray Is Wine Editor Of The Daily Telegraph