Don't miss this opulent jewellery show at the V&A

I feel a lot better about the super-rich when they have impeccable taste, buy good stuff, then share their collections with the rest of us.  Enter Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani, Qatari prince, CEO of that country's investment juggernaut Qipco, and modern-day Lorenzo di Medici.

In addition to completing a spectacular, historically-accurate and reportedly tasteful restoration of one of Park Lane's historic mansions (great Vanity Fair article about it here), he's turned a passion for the bling of the Indian maharajas into one of the best jewellery collections in the world. And now he's sharing it with us mere mortals at the Victoria & Albert Museum until 10 April.

You know you're in for something special from the first moment, when you step into a dark entry vestibule to be greeted by a single item. It's the Maharaja of Nawangar's turban jewel (pictured above): a 152.64-carat explosion of diamond-difused light, with a cheeky little spray of ostrich feathers coming out the top to lighten the mood. It is, quite literally, jaw dropping ... and that part of your anatomy is likely to be lowered for most of the show.

Everything here is magnificent, however the displays manage to captivate you. They may grab your emotion, with their innate appeal to the human love of beautiful, sparkly, shiny things. They may impress you with their sophisticated craftsmanship or elegant design. The fiscally intrepid will enjoy calculating the net worth. The thoughtful may ponder what they say about the history of India, and India's influence on the West. I thought about all of those things but, ultimately, I was just a girl blown away by a lot of highly desirable jewellery.

Diamonds take centre stage, of course. You'll see them in complex, traditional European cuts that refract light to glittering excess. In fascinating contrast is the traditional uncut Indian approach, where surfaces curving like a river-washed pebble give off a subtler sheen.  Demonstrated by the front of another turban jewel shown at left. But the maharajas were equal opportunity jewellers. You'll find lots of spinels, which are indistinguishable from rubies to an amateur's eyes, though their chemical composition is different. They're hanging from the bauble at left.  Emeralds and sapphires both make starring appearances; my favourite pieces used them together. I found emeralds carved with designs or sayings particularly fascinating, and there's a modern uncut sapphire and diamond brooch at the very end where the blue is so beguiling it's as if someone has managed to contain and distil the sea above a coral reef as the sun shimmers upon it.

There are some opulent swords and daggers to keep the boys interested, along with some loot Clive and his troops brought back from India. The jewelled bird and lion's head from Tipu Sultan's throne are here, on loan from the prince's good friend Queen Elizabeth II. I've seen them many times at Windsor Castle, where they tend to fade into the general magnificence of the place. Here, isolated in a pool of light in an otherwise dim room, you can properly appreciate them.

The maharajas loved enamel work almost as much as gems, and there are some fine examples of what's known as "Kundun setting" here. Front-facing gems are set in 24-carat gold, while the backs or bottoms of objects are covered in enamel. Look at the back of a similar turban jewel to the one I talked about above (now at right) to see the level of craftsmanship lavished  on something only the owner would ever see, to get a sense of just how rich and powerful these people were.

My only complaint with the whole show: a video showing how this stuff is made is at the very end, when you'd appreciate the objects much more if you saw it at the beginning. Or, just watch it on the web now.

In the late 19th century, the European world fell in love with India and the Orient. The last section of the show demonstrates how famous jewellers like Cartier, or whole movements like Art Deco, took their inspiration from the maharajas. While I loved everything, these are the pieces I'd want to take home with me. (Though how you'd be brave enough to wear any of this without an armed guard at your back, I have no idea.) Most spectacular in this section is the peacock brooch the curators selected to be the emblem of the whole show. With good reason. It's practically alive, as its eyes glint at you and its unusual curved shape (made to wear over a shoulder, or rounding the top of a pile of upswept hair) makes the feathers seem to move. The story behind it ... of a travelling maharaja falling in love with a teenaged Spanish dancing girl, and commissioning the piece in Paris as part of his campaign to sweep her off her feet and make her his wife ... is rather spectacular, too.

She said yes. Bewitched with that kind of jewellery, most girls would.

Get eye-to-eye with unique Renaissance treasures at The Vyne

It's easy, sitting in a comfortable house in England, to find the destruction of the treasures of Palmyra or the Bamiyan Buddhas by religious fundamentalists absolutely unbelievable. A careless and pointless desecration of history that's beyond our imagination. And yet ... it happened here not that long ago.

In the middle of the 1500s, and again 100 years later, religious conflict tore England apart. One notable victim was the country's religious art; particularly fragile stained glass windows. That's why a set of panels at a country house outside of Basingstoke is so remarkable. Until Easter, you have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get nose-to-nose with them.

William Sandys created the Vyne to celebrate his success as Lord Chamberlain to a young Henry VIII. Though most of the house you see today is Georgian and Victorian, the chapel is a magnificent survival from the original. Up above the altar are three light-filled arches, each with six panels of vivid stories told in glass. The top panels are religious scenes, the bottom commemorate the notable royals who had made Sandys' career possible. These glowing, jewel-toned works of art demonstrate what was possible at the apogee of the Renaissance glass-maker's skill. They're just as good as the celebrated ones in Auch Cathedral (Gascony) I wrote about here. But these are the only ones of this quality you're going to see in England, in their original setting.

They have always been beautiful, but now they've been spectacularly reborn. Suffering from five centuries of weather, outdoor grime and indoor candle smoke, they were showing their age. Pitted, a bit grimy, wobbling dangerously in their leading. So the National Trust embarked on a comprehensive and risky restoration. They removed everything, cleaned and restored each panel, fit the jigsaw back together, then replaced them. But not before installing a second, high-tech, weather-proof set of clear glass panels between the original windows and the Hampshire weather. This modern double-glazing, combined with careful conservation indoors, should mean that these unique treasures will be be preserved for generations to come.

But you only have four more weeks to see them at eye level. The National Trust has left the workers' scaffolding in place, so you can clamber up and look straight at them. It's only from this perspective that you really grasp the nuance and sophistication. Lavish architectural detail. Tiny trees and buildings in the landscape behind the main figures. Animation and expression in the characters' faces. The the fluid spring of a running dog keeping pace with a small boy. This is the kind of detail you just don't grasp when you're standing 12 feet below. It's a testament to the makers' search for perfection that they incorporated so many fine points they knew most people would never notice.

Equally interesting to any Tudor history buff is who's in the windows.
Henry VIII is in the centre. Not the broad, grim wife-flipping
brute of popular imagination, but a handsome, beardless blond youth with an eager look and an equally young blonde wife. She's on his left, and you can tell from the pomegranate design on her sleeve that it's Catherine of Aragon. Not the tired, post-menopausal woman fighting to keep her marriage, but a beautiful and confident newlywed. It's fascinating, and tragic. The other woman is Margaret, Queen of Scotland and Henry's sister. (Check out the perfect contentment of her lapdog, cheekily curled up on the lavish purple velvet of her prie dieu.)  These are very rare contemporary portraits of people we think we know well. The faces here suggest that we don't.

Thanks to the fine work of the National Trust and specialist restorers Holy Well Glass, you'll be able to appreciate these treasures for the rest of your life. But if you want to appreciate their details to the degree described here, you have four weeks.  Get there. You won't regret it.

Dilla tops our Roman dining list, while Antiquario is a grim let down

For the capital city of a country famous for its food, you can get a lot of average meals in Rome. It's an inevitable problem in areas where tourists consistently outnumber locals, and budget conscious travellers favour pizzas and simple pasta dishes. Despite its position just a short walk from the Spanish Steps and the Piazza del Popolo, Dilla delivers the kind of authentic, local experience you dream of.

This modern, casual space (exposed brick walls, black and white art photography) is manned by a young and gregarious team who know their menu and wine list well. Daily specials go up on a chalk board to augment a regular menu of moderately-priced classics. Though the main menu is in both Italian and English, the majority of diners were speaking Italian. Always a good sign.

I started with an exemplary parmigiana: thin strips of aubergine wound around a ball of buffala mozzarella like a turban, sitting on a beefy slice of tomato and glazed with red sauce. Piping hot, when you cut into the aubergine the cheese oozed across the plate. Perfect. A bowl of cacio e pepe demonstrated why this simple dish, when done right, is a Roman classic. And a veal chop with pink peppercorns proved the point that we just can't source proper veal in England.

By dessert we rolled into salame di cioccolato, a fairly simple recipe I've made out of cookbooks, but never had in a restaurant. Now I know what's wrong with mine ... far too heavy ...
though I'm not sure how to fix it. A couple of glasses of vin santo, following a tasty bottle of Syrah from the countryside outside Rome, topped off a perfect evening.

Sadly, two nights later we continued our tradition of disappointing Valentine's Day meals. The Osteria dell'Antiquario wasn't bad, but given its reputation we expected much more. Given the prices, it was a valid expectation. This place is resolutely traditional, from the menu to the decor to the unadorned plates making little attempt at presentation. I wouldn't have minded any of that had the food been exceptional, but is was barely average. I started with spaghetti with lobster, the crustacean undetectable either by eye or by taste, so overpowered was it by a heavy tomato sauce. My saltimbocca was overly seasoned, its three escalopes looking very lonely on the plate. This is one of those places where you must order side dishes to complete your main course, and you pay a premium for a small dish of potatoes or greens. We were so underwhelmed we settled up immediately after the mains and went elsewhere for dessert.

The biggest irritation, however, was the wine list. In a land with 1,800+ grape varieties and a wealth of reasonably priced wines, a list where €60 is cheap is inexcusable. Worse is a maitre d' who starts his suggestions at €100, without asking any questions about our tastes or price points. I felt like we were seen as Brits there to be fleeced, a situation probably enhanced by the fact that we and the table next to us were both sent by the same posh hotel. We should have gone back to Dilla.

Sadly, we didn't manage to get over to Trastevere, which all my contacts tell me is the best neighbourhood for dining in Rome these days. We made due with the following for other meals.

Scusate il Ritardo - Normal rule of thumb is never to eat within view of a major tourist attraction. It's a recipe for overpriced, average food. But sometimes you just can't walk any further. This place ... the first option on your left when stumbling out of the Pantheon ... is actually not bad. Fantastic plate of fried artichokes, a Roman speciality, but poor bruschetta. Decent pastas, reasonable wine list. Cheerful and prompt service despite poor TripAdvisor reviews and the ironic name, which translates as "sorry for the wait". And, of course, a stunning view from the tables on the piazza.

Tre Scalini - Famous for one ice cream dish ... tartufo ... this is another dangerously-positioned restaurant, overlooking Bernini's famous fountain on Piazza Navona. When I was 12, trying it was as important as seeing the Forum. I don't remember it being quite so expensive then. €12 for a sphere of chocolate ice cream mixed with candied cherries, enclosed in a second sphere of dark chocolate ice cream, rolled in dark chocolate curls and served with a generous dollop of whipped cream, must yield one hell of a profit margin. Although the price isn't that far off dessert at any good restaurant in London. It's the cost of the drinks that kills you. Add a half-bottle of wine and a couple of coffees, and we were in eye-watering territory.


Ristorante Massenzio - This one's within sight of the Forum, in between the Capitoline and the Colosseum.  We got chatting to a local who was touting Colosseum tours and he pointed to this as the best option in a sea of rip-offs. They have a proper wood-fired pizza oven in the back, producing light and crispy examples with well-balanced toppings. Perhaps more important after a long morning of hiking around ruins, they serve up cold lager in German-style litre steins. Service starts out as frosty as  the beer, but if you roll out some Italian they get friendlier.

Remarkable Roscioli wine tasting is a must for any Roman visit

If you're a wine lover, there's one name you need in Rome: Alessandro Pepe.

Alessandro is the sommelier for Roscioli, a family-run collection of restaurant, bakery, deli and wine-tasting facility in the winding streets near the Campo de Fiori. His knowledge of Italian wines is, unsurprisingly, encyclopedic ... but he's well versed on the rest of the world's offerings. Combine this with stereotypically Italian passion and enthusiasm, a fantastic sense of humour and completely fluent English and you get one of the most informative and entertaining wine tastings I've ever attended. With Alessandro's assurance that he regularly switches out his wines, this is the activity I'd put on the top of my list for a return trip to Rome.

Roscioli's comprehensive tasting is aligned with food matching; you're not just sampling wines here, but dining on a series of small plates that show off some Italian classics and provide the foundation on which Alessandro builds his bottle selection.  At 70 euro per person for a minimum of eight wines (we ended up tasting 10) and a long progression of nibbles that adds up to a substantial meal, this would have been good value for money even without the enlightened commentary. There's also the delight of the company. The tasting takes place around a large, high table that accommodates up to 12. You all love wine and food, or you wouldn't be there, and that's inevitably the start of good conversations. By the evening's mid-point, it felt more like a dinner party of friends than a table of strangers. That's a feeling encouraged by Alessandro, who's great at drawing all of the guests into the conversation. At the end of the evening, you're all left to help yourself to anything left in bottles (there was plenty) and it becomes a proper party.

My wine revelations from the evening? Unsurprisingly, my love affair with the Sicilians continues. The sparkling wine that started the evening (Terzavia, Marco de Bartoli) was made from grillo grapes and gave off a heady whiff of apricot. It comes from the same region that produces Marsala, a product almost exclusively made for the Anglo-Saxon market. The Italians cleverly keep the sparkling grillo for themselves. Two courses later, as we tried Sicilian reds from Etna and Noto, I was delighted to realise that my trip tasting 'round the volcano meant I could identify the distinctive taste of the area. You get the woody, chocolate and liquorice tones of a heavy red wine, pulled to lightness by the minerality that the vines suck out of the volcanic soil. Served with a taste of red tuna preserved in peppery olive oil, and sweet-and-sour caponata, the combination demonstrated how wine is almost as good as travel. A bite, a sip, close eyes ... and I'm back on the balcony in Taormina.

Alessandro's enthusiastic championing of the Barolo region, plus tastes of Sobrero's Ciabot Tanasio 2011 and Palladino's Ornato 2010, have me thinking this should be the location of our next girls' tasting trip. A small region, passionate about quality, restricting space and resisting the temptation to incorporate lesser quality fields into their DOCG, this bit of Northeastern Italy between Genoa and Turin mirrors the quality and tradition of Burgundy. The wines are dark and fruity, yet with enough earthy, woody tones to bring an interesting complexity.

The standout of the night for me, however, was my old, hard-to-find friend, schioppettino. I've loved this grape variety since being introduced to it many years ago by the manager of Venice's Enoteca al Volto (that city's best wine bar, IMHO), and have jumped at it whenever it's on a restaurant wine list. It's a choice that will always surprise and impress sommeliers, since it'a a tiny-production secret few have been let into. The standard description of schioppetino, which means "little gunshot", is a medium-bodied, Rhone-like wine with a dark colour and notes of violet, raspberry and pepper. The Bressan 2008 lived up to expectations, my only disappointment being that the spicy sausage we tasted with it was too bold for its subtle sophistication. This is a wine that deserves an equally special food; perfection with stuffed rabbit loin or grouse. But that's far beyond the complexity of the food you'll enjoy at Riscoli.

That's not to criticise it; simply to acknowledge that when you're getting a series of small plates at a moderate price, you shouldn't expect elaborate main courses. The menu is mostly cheeses and cured meats, true to Roscioli's origins as a salumeria. If you think Italy is summed up in prosciutto di parma, mozzarella and grating-quality parmesan, come here to have your eyes opened. The most unique of the tastes that evening was the burrata.

The majority of Italian meats and cheeses travel well, and if you have a good Italian store (like The Italian Shop in Maidenhead, England, or Viviano's in St. Louis, USA) you can get your hands on most things. But burrata is supposed to be consumed within 24 hours of its creation, and is considered past its prime at 48 ... so is not easy to find. It's been a trendy feature of high end menus in London for the past year or two, but I've never eaten it as fresh as it was at Roscoli. Firm mozzarella on the outside, a core of gooey, buttery cream spilling out when you puncture its sphere, burrata is the cheesy equivalent of a chocolate fondant.

Other cheeses included fresh ricotta served with different orange jams, buffalo mozzarella, cravanzina, a wonderfully pungent pecorino from Monti sabini, a 36-month-old parmigiano regiano only recently cut and therefore still "living" and testun ... a mix of sheep and goat's milk ... wrapped in chestnut leaves. There was proper pesto genovese, four varieties of cured pork and two warm dishes: pasta all'Amatriciana (simple, well-balanced tomatoes and chili) and a traditional Roman meatball. Which seemed remarkably similar to my mother's traditional Sicilian meatball. I didn't confirm if their recipe combined ground beef, pork and veal slow simmered in a pot of tomato sauce for hours, but I wouldn't be surprised.

My only warning about the wine tasting at Roscoli: if you have any allergies or special needs, be very assertive. I'd emailed in advance about my husband's tomato allergy (always a challenge in Italy), while the couple next to us had notified them that he was a vegetarian. The standard menu came to both. Roscioli managed impromptu work-arounds on the tomato front (double pesto, more prosciutto) but the vegetarian had to skip quite a few courses. I suspect multiple and more assertive emails could have sorted that in advance.

The new reinvigorates the ancient at Ara Pacis, Capitoline

I had only one priority for my Roman sightseeing: the Ara Pacis. In my early visits to Rome I had sought out this best-preserved monument from the Augustan age. I remember being impressed by its bulk and decorative detail, but distressed by its dingy condition, in an even dingier building, isolated on a traffic island between the Tiber and the mouldering lump of bricks and weeds that was once Augustus' tomb. Then it disappeared for ages, closed under a canopy of scaffolding with a nebulous promise of restoration and a new museum. Someday. Maybe.

Ironically, that new museum opened just a few months after my last trip to Rome. So though the sparkling restoration within its light-filled building is heading for its 10-year anniversary, it was all new to me. And fantastically exciting.

Most of Ancient Rome requires a lot of imagination to get to its original grandeur. A few columns here, walls and domes stripped of their architecture there. The Ara Pacis is almost complete (thanks to reconstruction in the 1930s that would probably be frowned upon by modern archaeology.)  It is an altar, built by Augustus upon his return from foreign wars to declare, and give thanks for the fact, that the Roman world was now at peace.  The altar itself, on a platform up a series of steps, is relatively plain. But it's surrounded by screening walls covered with gorgeous carved reliefs. The lower panels are a swirling, lush fantasy of vines and flowers, while the upper present stories from Roman mythology and show Augustus, his family and other prominent citizens processing to make sacrifices on the altar within. It's these contemporary portraits that make the altar so famous; if you've studied any Roman history, the main characters of the Augustan age were probably illustrated with photos from this monument.

It's looking magnificent. Dazzlingly clean, details sharp. You can get close to all of it, and walk into Augustus exhibit in Paris in 2014, which showed how the altar would have originally looked with its bright coat of paint. (You can find the video here.)

it. The new museum building that houses it is mostly glass, flooding the altar with light. The bulk of Augustus' mausoleum (still, sadly, an unrestored ruin) looms beyond the windows on one side, giving a nice sense of context. There's a wonderful model in the exhibition space you pass through on the way to the altar that shows its original placement, in open fields with the original Pantheon and Augustus' tomb forming the axis points of a grassy, ceremonial space. It was a brilliant revelation, hard to conjure in your imagination from the warren of busy streets that exist today. Oddly, I saw no sign of the fabulous video reconstruction that was part of the blockbuster

A museum built to show off just one thing might seem odd, but if you appreciate ancient Rome, this is well worth your time. As is the much larger Capitoline.

Tourists with limited time always head for the Vatican Museum. Understandable, given its wealth of treasures and its climax in the Sistine chapel. But the Capitoline Museum is just as wonderful. It's almost a distillation of the Vatican experience: masterpieces of painting and ancient sculpture, displayed in a Renaissance palace with many frescoed rooms worthy of note in their own right. Here, you also get fine views from your position atop the Capitoline hill and a piazza designed by Michelangelo.

Like the Ara Pacis, the Capitoline has been much improved by renovation and modern additions. Most notable is a dramatic round gallery, flooded by light from encircling windows, in which you'll find the famous bronze statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. This originally stood at the centre of Michelangelo's piazza, where it was replaced with a copy so this original could be fully conserved and installed someplace safe from the elements.  On its plinth in the piazza, I'd never realised just how magnificent the work is. In its new home, you're much closer to it,
and can better appreciate the artistry of an equestrian bronze that, famously, wasn't matched again until the renaissance.  The new section also lets you get close to the impressive foundations of the Temple of Jupiter, something that used to just be just distant stones glimpsed from the floor of the Forum.  In other galleries you can get nose-to-nose with the original Etruscan bronze of the wolf suckling the babies Romulus and Remus (the babies are renaissance additions), see more wonderful bronzes from the ancient world and contemplate busts of all the emperors. You could spend a whole day here and be dazzled into mental submission; we went for 90 minutes of deep appreciation of a selection of wonders.

Over our three days in town we also wandered along the crest of the Palatine, explored St. Peters and ducked into the Pantheon. All had their highs (and St. Peters its lows) ... but the Ara Pacis and the Capitoline were the stars of the trip.

In Rome, rugby and culture are surprisingly happy bedfellows

The email from the Italian ministry of tourism and culture sealed my love affair with rugby. To enhance the enjoyment of rugby fans' weekend in Rome, anyone who could produce a ticket to Sunday afternoon's Italy v. England game would receive free admission to all of the city's state-run museums.

Perhaps the Italians do this for all international sport fixtures ... but it seemed a particularly comfortable fit with rugby.

Long before I understood the game, corporate sponsorship brought me into contact with fans who were gracious and interesting, and former players who were intelligent gentlemen. Both defied the usual shallow sporting stereotypes. I quickly came to appreciate that any live match is as much about the party, the bands and the costumes as it is about the game. And once I understood more about what was happening on the pitch, I got excited about what happened on the field, too.

Thus when the dates for this year's Six Nations tournament came out, and England was playing Italy in Rome on Valentine's Day, it was a "no brainer". Rugby for him + Rome for me = Romantic weekend. Clearly, this was not an original thought, as the English outnumbered the home fans by a substantial percentage.

The delights of an Italian away game
For the benefit of my American readers, most of whom will have had no exposure to rugby, I should explain that Six Nations is the annual tournament to determine the top nation from the best of the Northern Hemisphere. The competitors are always England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, France and Italy, and the tournament always takes place over five weekends in February and March.  The Italians are the newest members of the top nations (it used to be the Five Nations) and, though they often show skill and strength, they are perennially the weakest team. Italian rugby is also quite a niche sport, with a far smaller fan base there than football.

This makes Rome the ideal place to take in a Six Nations game ... before you even consider the add-on delights of sightseeing, food and wine.  Back in the UK and Ireland, tickets are hard to come by and every game is sold out. At Twickenham, the English HQ, tickets are by ballot, with the odds weighted towards members of rugby clubs. And they're very expensive.

Tickets in Rome's Stadio Olimpico were half the price of the equivalents at Twickenham, and easily available over the web.

One of the glories of rugby is the way fans interact. The conflict is on the field: opposing sides can sit next to each other in the stands, buy each other drinks and acknowledge the strengths of the opposing team's play. It was no different in Rome, where the Italians were gracious and cheerful hosts to the foreign masses. Also like Twickenham, there's a Fan Zone outside of the stadium for pre-game festivities with food, drink and a great pop band. You haven't heard Volare until you've heard the disco cover version.

Once inside, the experience of watching the game is pretty much the same as in the UK. Except that we had far better seats for the money. And beer vendors circulate within the stands, allowing you to buy beer while watching the game, rather than having to leave the main arena.

The nightmare of logistics
The Italian rugby experience might be as much fun as Twickenham, but it's not nearly as well run. Sadly, the day was a long case study reinforcing negative stereotypes about poor organisation and a general lack of urgency.  My word of warning to anyone going to a game: get there well in advance.

Stadio Olimpico is about 3 miles from the Piazza del Popolo, linked by a direct tram line. Sounds quick and easy, right?  Trams were sporadic. Once they appeared, security checks before allowing people to get on board slowed things even more. While police were much in evidence, no other authority offered direction to the growing crowds. Luckily, these were English people, so the masses naturally formed an orderly queue.  We turned up more than three hours in advance, and we waited more than half an hour to get on a tram. Guide books warn you that there's nothing much by way of food or drink at the stadium, so enjoy yourself in town and then go to the game. I'm fairly sure anyone who followed that advice regretted it.

Once you arrive at the stadium complex, everyone funnels towards a single access point. The gatekeepers take their time; this was another half hour spent patiently shuffling in a very slow queue, this time 50 metres wide, funneling towards about 15 turnstiles. I'm not sure what was taking so long, because security was a leisurely scan of the barcode on your ticket, a cursory glance into a bag and a multiple inquiries as to if you were carrying any water. Language might have been an issue here.  "No!" I answered confidently, and truthfully. They asked about water, so I wasn't volunteering the flask of rum. I suspect someone should have told them to ask about liquids...

Inside, more than an hour after starting from Piazza del Popolo, we were in desperate need of refreshing food and drink. Time for more waiting. There's nowhere near enough vendors to handle a capacity crowd, a situation made worse by the peculiar Italian style of queuing. Stand in one line to buy a ticket for whatever you want, move on to another to exchange the ticket for your goods. There are different queues for food and drink. Add to the confusion with frustrated Anglo-Saxons who don't understand the system, waiting for ages to get to a barman who can't sell them anything because they haven't queued up for a ticket. Finally, exacerbate the frustration with servers who move at a speed reminiscent of old Chinese people doing Tai Chi in the park. Thus we spent another hour acquiring beer and hot dogs.

But wait, there's more! It turns out there's another ticket and security check to get into the stadium proper, manned by more people working at glacial pace. So, despite the fact that we started our journey three hours before kickoff, we were still standing outside the final set of turnstiles, singing God Save the Queen with hundreds of fellow waiting fans, as the teams took the field. We finally reached our seats about 10 minutes into the first half.

I'm convinced it was only the genial nature of rugby fans, combined with the English love or order, and dislike of making a fuss, that prevented disaster. If an American football crowd had to wade through this much madness on the way to the game, I fear punches would be thrown.

Sports and history
Killing time in the second queue of the day, I turned to examine the monumental obelisk marking the formal entrance to the stadium complex and realised that it bore the bold words "Mussolini Dux" still picked out in shining gold leaf. Back in England, Oxford is seething with debate over whether or not a statue of Cecil Rhodes should come down. Meanwhile, nobody in Italy seems to care that millions of sports fans each year process to and from their games under a memorial to one of the greatest villains of the 20th century. I suppose that when your city has accumulated 2,500 years of history, you roll with the changes. If you tried to edit the architecture to fall in line with political correctness, you'd consign a lot of Rome to demolition.

You can't really ignore Mussolini here; the whole area was his pet project. Originally called the Foro Mussolini, now the Foro Italico, he commissioned it in the '30s to encourage sport and celebrate the new, modern Italy he was building. Mussolini's Italy had a distinctive architectural style: Ancient Rome re-interpreted through the filter of fascist modernism. There's probably no better place to see it than this athletic complex. Sad, really, that they don't do tours.

That obelisk is flanked by two powerful, if graceless, pink neoclassical blocks. A massive avenue runs between then to the stadium. Given the crowds on the day, I didn't realise how monumental this processional way was until I come across the arial photo shown here. All along that route, and surrounding the round plaza it leads to, you'll find exquisite black and white mosaic work done in the style of the great Roman bath and athletic complexes. Sadly, they and the white marble paving slabs leading to them are in horrific shape. This all must have been grand once, but it's not seen the intense renovation I noticed in the city centre.

Next to the main stadium there's a practice field surrounded by ancient-style marble seating, overlooked by an army of encircling giants. These, again, are copies of neo-classical art, but they're oversized, chunky and brutalised in classic Fascist style. Wooded hills surround the area on two sides, and they're dotted with temples and monuments that grant a benediction to the scene below.

It's all rather magnificent, if also a bit creepy. (As grand Fascist statements always seem to be.) And a real shame it's not generally open to the public ... because it's fascinating to compare and contrast this to the Colosseum, Circus Maximus and other grand public entertainment venues of Ancient Rome. The retractable roof on the main stadium, for example, is obviously modeled on the velarium that kept punters shaded in the Colosseum 1,800 years ago. Sadly, the dilapidated state of much of the complex reminds you a bit too much of those ruins in the original forum.

But I can imagine how gorgeous, and exciting, this place must have been in 1938. How proud attendees must have been of this as a reminder of their glorious past, AND as a symbol of a modern, forward-thinking Italy.  I wonder how long it took them to get a beer?

The Inn at the Spanish Steps: Not quite as advertised ... but better

Never have I been so relieved to accuse someone of false advertising.

The Inn at the Spanish Steps' website has some beguiling photos. You'll be positive that it's the building on the very corner of Via Condotti and the Piazza di Spagna. Tempted by the idea that you'll be throwing open your curtains to take in the magnificent sweep of the Spanish Steps with the lovely church and convent of Trinita dei Monti at their head. You may also pause for a moment to worry: will it be very noisy? That is, after all, one of the most popular spots in Rome.

That worry grew exponentially as I walked into the piazza for the first time in a decade. Crowded, boisterous, noisy. Suddenly, the idea of overlooking these swarming masses seemed like a very bad one. 

I needn't have worried. The real magic of the Inn at the Spanish Steps is something well-hidden in their marketing materials: they're actually about 100 yards down the Via Condotti from the piazza. (The door is the round, narrow arch about a third of the way in from the left of the photo above.) Most of their rooms overlook deep, functional courtyards sandwiched behind the 19th century palazzos that make up this neighbourhood. It's not the view you thought you were going to have, but it is blissfully quiet. Impossibly quiet, you'd say, as you turn in from the packed rumble of the street.  

This luxurious boutique hotel has a deceptively low-key entrance, beckoning you down a long, white marble hallway to climb up some stairs, pause on a landing, then go down into the office and reception area. You're in a room that was probably once a cellar and, though there's some grand old furniture, there are only two chairs. This is obviously a functional business space, not a lounge. You won't be impressed at this point. But don't trust your first impressions. Everything improves dramatically above the humble ground floor.

The style throughout is grand, classic 19th century Italian. Keats and Shelly (who lived a stone's throw away) would right at home. Think jewel tones, striped wallpaper, dark wooden furniture, painted ceilings and heavy curtains. The building was obviously once divided into grand apartments, accessed by a palatial staircase.  Despite the old world look, you'll find all the modern comforts in your room. The mattresses are good, the linens substantial, you can programme the heat and air conditioning and the flat screen TV comes with Sky and a variety of English-language stations. We'd upgraded to a superior room, with a bit more space and a balcony. Without the anticipated view, of course, but it added light and depth to the room.

The higher you climb, the better things get. The Inn's crowning glory is its rooftop lounge and garden. Breakfast is laid here every morning, and there's an early evening buffet (complimentary) with a full bar (first one on the house, then you're on your own). The views are wonderful, thanks to the Roman habit of taking their roof gardens very seriously. You'll get a different perspective on the city, as you peer onto the other rooftops through the Inn's framing lemon and olive trees. It can be a bit challenging in inclement weather, as there's not nearly enough indoor space for all the people staying here. Fortunately, even in the depths of February on a weekend forecast for rain, the weather was good enough for us to have breakfast outside on several days.

We booked the Inn through British Airways, where the deal we got along with our airfare made this very competitive. Centrally located yet quiet, charming, and with a friendly staff who anticipated every need. I can recommend this place without hesitation. Just don't expect the same views as you're promised on the web site.

Eternal Rome's changed a lot in a decade. Mostly for the better.

Rome may be an Eternal City, but it's not an unchanging one.

It's been exactly a decade since my last visit. The years before that had seen me there frequently, taking in everything from quick business trips to in-depth art historical studies to one very special visit for the canonisation of the nun responsible for establishing my school.* But less familiar places have beckoned in recent years, and I'd consigned Rome to memory.

Last weekend, the grand old lady and I got to know each other again. And just as when you see any dear, old friend after a long break, changes jumped out. Some good, some bad. Here are the main things I noticed after a decade away.

It's clean!
The Rome of my memory was crumbling and past its prime, most of its major sights blackened with the accumulation of the urban grime. Rubbish clean-up was haphazard, public green spaces were rarely maintained and graffiti abounded. Sightseeing was hard work, and always tinged with sadness about how the place and its treasures were deteriorating.  Clearly, government has been working on this. And it shows. The Piazza del Popolo, Trinita dei Monti, the Trevi Fountain and numerous once-dingy baroque church facades are now gleaming white. The restored Ara Pacis in its sparkling new museum was the highlight of my trip.  The Forum is much improved with manicured green space. Pavements are even. Graffiti still exists (it wouldn't be Italy without it), but it's much less prevalent than it used to be. Facades of most buildings ... both public and private ... seem freshly painted and in good shape. Roof gardens are now crowning glories of of pastel-kissed beauties, rather than aberrations in a landscape of decay. Taking a tram beyond the city centre, however, showed that this beautification is limited; more about that in my upcoming rugby coverage. In the primary tourist areas, this is as good as Rome has looked in my lifetime.

But good lord, it's crowded!
Just like any major European capital, I suppose. It's the inevitable result of all those cheap airfares, the opening of the Communist economies, the rise of Asia and the advent of younger generations of Americans not content to wait until retirement before seeing Europe. Groaning under the weight of tourism, historic districts feel more like DisneyWorld than working urban centres.  Fortunately, once you step off a beaten path, there's peace. Go up onto the Palatine, visit the Capitoline Museum rather than the Vatican, wander the side streets between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. When it comes to the postcard-familiar viewpoints, however, be ready for body-to-body jams, made even less appealing with street hawkers who are far more aggressive than they used to be. Sadly, it takes some of the wonder out of the experience.

There's security everywhere
Some of this might have been a consequence of an international rugby fixture. A sold-out 70,000 seat stadium, well over half the audience visiting from England, was no doubt a tempting target for terrorists. But it felt like much of the security is now business as usual. It's most noticeable at the Vatican, where Bernini's exquisite colonnade has become the framework for airport-style scan stations required for anyone entering the church. Police cars were abundant, while soldiers in camouflage with impressive guns stood in front of military vehicles watching over key areas. This being Italy, everyone's uniforms looked great, and they were carrying them off with the usual "I've just stepped off the catwalk" swagger. It's still a bit disconcerting to be so obviously guarded. A consequence of our times.

A lot less traffic
Rome has finally done something about its traffic problems. It used to feel like any wander about town was taking your life into your hands, as speeding cars dodged and dashed, scooters zipped dangerously close to the pavements and crossing any road pitted you in an adversarial contest against drivers who paid no attention to any rule of the road.  These days, many key tourist areas like the Via Condotti have been restricted to taxis, and there seem to be many more one-way streets. The huge avenue through the forum was completely pedestrianised (I'm guessing this was only a weekend thing) which gave the whole area a carnival feel. Even on Monday, traffic seemed light. The cacophony of horns had noticeably reduced, and people seemed to be paying attention to traffic lights. I don't know how they've managed it, but it's much improved.

The Filipinos have arrived
Anyone who got to know Rome in the '80s and '90s was warned against the pickpockets merged in with beggars and street people, usually in Romany gypsy garb. Given the current refugee crisis, I expected those problems to be worse, and homeless numbers to be swollen by Syrians and Africans. I don't know where the government has moved them, but we saw fewer homeless people than in London. A few packs of gypsy women were holding their grimy children out and appealing for coins around the Vatican, but otherwise any homeless or refugee problem wasn't much in evidence. The ethic group that surprised me, however, were the Filipinos. As a steadfastly Catholic country, they've always been here as nuns, priests and pilgrims. Now, they seem to be taking over the service industry. Much of our top-notch hotel staff  was descended from those islands, Filipino waiters worked tables across town and I spotted Filipino chefs working in more than one kitchen. Given their global reputation for excellent customer service, and for immigrating around the world to find work, their presence wasn't a surprise. I always found my Filipino school friend's reverence for family, food and religion to be very Italian, so I can see the cultural fit. But seeing them in customer-facing jobs that, in my opinion, Italians had always held back for la famiglia was a surprise. What it says about Rome's economy, and changing attitudes towards immigration, I wasn't there long enough to be able to say. But it's a fascinating development.

But the illegal handbag sellers have gone
Another large immigrant group was traditionally West African. They'd be organised into gangs to sell suspiciously accurate copies of designer handbags. I used to think they were some of the best organised people in Italy. I remember watching in admiration as a white van dropped a group of them off on the Via Veneto. In less than 20 seconds they'd be unloaded, scattered to assigned points, and the van would have disappeared. No doubt to return to some assigned pickup point later. Each man had a bed sheet he'd spread to form a backdrop for his wares, which he could fold by the corners, thus being able to disappear with his stock at first sight of authority. They clearly had a sophisticated system of communicating about police, and always seemed to be one step ahead of them. The word on the street was that these weren't fakes at all, but percentages of normal production skimmed off manufacturing lines by a well-honed mafia retail organisation. I confess to buying more than a few of these items in the old days: I loved bargaining with the guys, the good deals fit my young professional budget and the bags were lovely. Clearly, the authorities have broken the trade. A few of the African sellers are still around, but now they're doing a range of folding wooden fruit bowls. They may now be legal, but I suspect their margins aren't what they were. The bowls just don't have the cachet of a Prada bag at 90% off.  The hottest item for street vendors these days is the selfie stick. One assumes there's been some sort of immigrant turf battle, because this trade seems to be controlled by Indians and Southeast Asians. The African handbag hawkers would never bother you if you didn't make eye contact. The selfie stick vendors are irritating pests who surround you, follow you along and keep badgering, no matter how many times you say "no". The trade is particularly fervent around the Vatican, in front of Castel Sant'Angelo and in Piazza Navona. I'd suggest this needs to be the police's next focus; it's by far the most irritating part of being a tourist in Rome these days.

St. Peter's suffers
Even with the additional crowds and the irritating selfie stick vendors, on balance Rome has improved impressively. We had a great trip, and most things were better than I remembered. The one glaring exception was Vatican City, where crowds, security and the realities of modern tourism have

combined to destroy the old magic.  The crowds are jaw-dropping; the queue to get into the Vatican Museums had reached the two-hour point by mid-morning on a Monday. The people hawking Vatican tours and shortcuts to the Sistine Chapel are as numerous and irritating and the selfie stick men. The frequency of papal appearances may be a good thing for the faithful, but it means that the piazza in front of the basilica is now cluttered with the detritus of modern event management. In addition to those security stations, there's the permanent papal pavilion, a network of crowd management fences, giant television screens, speakers and lighting. This piazza is one of the grandest architectural statements in the Western world, carefully designed by Bernini to evoke the sense of walking into the welcoming embrace of mother church, while a host of saints smile benignly down upon you. The modern clutter destroys the effect. Inside (once you've made it through the scanners) the crowds are as bad as you'd expect; made worse by the fact that they now fence off the entire area under the dome and most of the area beside and behind the main altar. Once, even huge crowds could disappear into the vast space, giving you the delightful experience of not realising its true size until you spotted someone in the distance and the scale kicked in. Now, everyone's kettled at the bottom of the nave like a London mob. Not only does it ruin the perspective, but you can't get close to many of the wonders of the cathedral any more. No chance to look at Bernini's greatest works at anything but a distance. The only redeeming quality: you can now get some gorgeous, people-free photos. But it's a woefully unfair trade for the complete destruction of reverential, mystical awe this place was built to convey.

Of course, the thing that's changed most in 10 years isn't Rome, but me. In that decade I've gone from being an Italophile who spent repeated holidays in that country to a more adventurous traveler. Our Northwestern Girls' trips have been seeking out new adventures since 2005, and I acquired a partner, then husband, in 2009 who prefers France and Germany to Italy, and opened up the possibility of couples-based, romantic travel. I've reached a point in my career that means I don't have to pinch pennies when I travel as I once did, and my perspectives on food and wine have broadened considerably. Of course, my energy levels are diminished and I no longer have the desire (or ability) to go clambering up bell towers and church domes. I've changed, Rome's changed, but overall ... I think we're both the better for it.

*Philippine Duchesne made it to the ranks of sainthood in July 1988. She was a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart and, fairly late in life, achieved a long-standing dream to travel to the Americas to teach American Indian children. She's now considered the patron of perseverance and adversity. Her shrine and burial place are in St. Charles, Missouri, and she was a tremendous role model growing up.

Gauthier, Ham Yard are hidden gems in Soho's noisy tapestry

London's Soho has gentrified almost beyond recognition from the edgy home of the sex trade and alternative music I first gawped at as a teen-aged tourist. Despite new tenants and rocketing rents, there's still a whiff of seediness about the area. Maybe it's the remaining pornography vendors cheek-by-jowl with a higher-than-average homeless population. Perhaps it's the much-in-need-of-refurbishment interiors of many of its established venues. Certainly Saturday nights here do nothing to add to the allure ... at least for me ... with packs of drunken 20-somethings in from the home counties, boys braying and girls sashaying down the streets showing off their stiletto heels and spraypaint-tight dresses.

I can, however, tip you off to two places in Soho that leave the tawdry masses behind. Both have the feel of a private club: one for the refined grownups, one for the younger crowd out for a more boisterous time. Both, of course, will set you back a few pounds. Whatever the opposite of "seedy" is, it is most certainly not cheap.

We start at Gauthier Soho, a restaurant that occupies the entirety of one of the early Georgian townhouses that form the architectural backbone of the area. It still feels more house than restaurant, with an unchanged facade and subtle signage. You have to ring the bell for entry. Once inside ... where, of course, you are expected, because nobody turns up unannounced at this sort of place ... you're swept into the comforting care of an efficient staff. Most, like the cuisine, are French. And should you be unaware of the gastronomic influences coming your way, the bust of Napoleon topping the newel post of the main stairway (picture above) will remind you.

Gauthier no longer holds the Michelin star it won in 2011, but its food is exactly the kind of beautifully presented, subtly flavoured delicacy you expect at that level of fine dining. It is, admittedly, like many French restaurants of this calibre. Its differentiation comes from its private rooms. There are five here, taking up more of the overall house than the official restaurant rooms. Our hosts for the evening had carefully researched where they might combine fine dining with 20 people, and thought Gauthier had the most interesting menu choices. We selected from a short list in advance, off a menu where everything was tempting. They effortlessly matched diners to their pre-selections, and managed to serve everyone at once, with no compromise in taste, temperature or presentation.


We mingled briefly over champagne and an array of tasty little canapés; most memorable being a bit of seafood presented in a tiny, crispy basket shaped like a clam shell, but totally edible.  I missed the point of roasted carrots for an amuse bouche (too much like Weight Watchers), but the chef was back on stride with an excellent rabbit roulade with black olive crostini and winter leaves. Next a ginger and beetroot risotto, leading in to wild sea bass. All finished with a classic dark chocolate tart before the petit fours. The sommelier managed the tough task of matching wine across a variety of choices; the light red with the main course worked as well with my fish as with my husband's lamb. It's a rare thing when, having tasted their 'banquet food", you're tempted to return to the restaurant proper. But that's the case with Gauthier Soho.

My experience at the Ham Yard Hotel also went down the "banquet" route, but on a dramatically different scale. I'd guess there we were close to 200 at this annual work celebration, and the combination of location, food, drink and service made it one of the best corporate events I've been to in years.

The hotel is tucked away in a courtyard a stone's throw from Piccadilly Circus. You could walk by the entries from the main streets by a hundred times without ever knowing it's there; which is precisely the reason it has such an exclusive feel. It's quiet and elegant, yet also quirky and modern ... a quintessential boutique hotel ... and once settled for a coffee in its ground floor lounge areas you'd never believe you were so close to the neon-drenched, throbbing heart of London.  The central-yet-hidden cachet is, in fact, the reason I already knew about the place. It's a favourite spot for headhunters' meetings.

Just as I had a thrill of discovery the first time I wandered into the yard, last night I reeled in delightful shock at how much is under the hotel. There's a warren of impressive, double-height party rooms, a 200-seat theatre, several bars and a high tech karaoke studio that can also handle a live band.  It's all decorated in founder and designer Kit Kemp's trademark style: bright colours, bold statements, quirky juxtapositions. There's a 15-foot spiral track of oranges feeding the juicers in one of the bars. Giant film posters from the early days of cinema dominate walls. Life-sized crocodiles sculpted from driftwood crawl across wallpaper pulsing with oversized, three-dimensional butterflies. Enter the bowling alley, imported from somewhere in Texas, past a wall of vivdi bowling shoes arranged as an art installation.

As you'd expect, a place that makes this much effort on how things look doesn't settle for average food and drink. Entry beverages weren't just the usual champagne, but mohitos. Properly made, with plenty of crushed fresh mint. Fresh, sweet-and-salty popcorn awaited us in the theatre when we went in for the evening's speaker and corporate award ceremony. Dinner was a buffet of finger food, which can often be a disaster. Here, the choice included mini bagels with smoked salmon, mini burgers, rare roast beef on parmesan crisps and ... for those carb loading for a night of heavy drinking ... bowls of mac'n'cheese. Made with artisan cheese, of course. There were even a couple of salads for the health conscious, and these were interesting combinations of things like green beans, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese. The kinds of salads that stand as meals on their own, rather than a bowl of lettuce as an afterthought.

Just like Gauthier Soho, my group dining experience left me happy to come back and explore what's on offer on my own time and money. I'll certainly keep using Ham Yard as a central but secret meeting place. And if I ever want a private screening of my favourite film for 200 of my besties, now I know where to do it.