Rome

The city's own tourist board sends people to Rome in spring or autumn. We went in January and would not swap it. It was quieter, the cold rarely gets as far as freezing, and on a lucky day the sun is out, which is all a city seen on foot really asks. The rain mostly falls either side of it, in November and February. The month to avoid is August, for the heat and for the week around Ferragosto on the 15th, when a good share of the restaurants shut, and eating is the first thing we would tell anyone to do here.

Stay in Centro Storico. We were just off Piazza Navona and could not have asked for better: the Pantheon is five minutes' walk, Campo de' Fiori barely more, and around the piazzas the centre is largely closed to traffic, so walking is how everyone gets about. Navona itself follows the outline of Domitian's stadium, and the ancient city turns up like that all over, among streets that are still lived and worked in. Termini, round the main station, is for the night before an early train.

Two days are for eating, and for walking through the history in between, provided the big sights are booked. The Colosseum runs on timed slots, and its ticket covers the Forum and the Palatine Hill for twenty-four hours after; three or four hours sees them properly. The Vatican Museums sell timed entries on their own site, and the queue without one can run to two or three hours at the busiest times. In between, the walk from Navona carries on to the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, twelve and thirteen minutes from our door. Armando al Pantheon is where we booked. Armando Gargioli founded it by the Pantheon in 1961, his family still runs it, the cooking is Roman, and tables are booked online or not at all.

Then cross the river. Trastevere, on the far bank of the Tiber, has its own restaurants and its own evenings, with few monuments to get in their way. Above it the Janiculum Hill looks out over the city to the dome of St Peter's, and after two days of timed entries it is a relief to find somewhere with no closing time. The dome will still be there after dinner.