A full day in Vatican Museums with light crowds is bliss

If money was no object, I would spend the next year diligently ticking off all of Europe's biggest, "must see" sights. 

Regular readers will roll their eyes. "Travel is always what you would do if you didn't have to earn a living, Ellen." True. But the year ahead is a very particular one. It's set to the be liminal zone between a time of total travel shut-down and a return to the world as it was. I am sceptical that lessons from the pandemic or the plight of the planet will keep anyone from long-haul travel. If anything, taste for it will have increased as everyone has dreamed of unattainable foreign climes for two years. Now, for a very short period while travel is technically allowed, but the hassle and increased expense of it is causing people to hesitate, there's a window for those of us who live in Europe to enjoy our continent's wonders without the pressure of too many outside visitors. Do I have any problem rubbing elbows with Americans, Chinese, and Australians at the Tower of London? Absolutely not. But as I've often written here, the  places we all want to see simply weren't built for the numbers who want to see them. For years, my sightseeing strategy has been to head for lesser known alternatives to all those Top Ten books. For this brief window, we can head for the big bets.

I proved that theory last week in the Vatican Museums. My last visit in 2006 was so awful I vowed never to return. Every hallway was thronged, every significant artwork required queuing to take a look. You risked life and limb getting in the way of bus tours being marched at high speed through the long galleries on their must-see pilgrimage to the Sistine Chapel. The Raphael rooms were as crowded as a London tube at rush hour, and the Vatican had built a new covered walkway on the outside of the building to stagger entry into the Sistine. Yes, after a mile of walking and no place to sit, you had to stand for more than half an hour just to press, body-to-body, into that famous room of Michelangelo's wonders.

What a difference a pandemic makes.

Our only queue was for the obligatory vaccination and temperature check at the front door. (This is because we pre-booked. Walk-ups waited.) By mid-day there was a healthy crowd, but you could always get a photo free of humans if you were patient. You could actually find a seat in the Sistine Chapel immediately upon entry. It was blissful, and I spent the whole day there.

“There” being the whole museum complex, not the Sistine Chapel. Yes, that famous room is beautiful, especially since its cleaning in the 1990s. It wows you with its vibrant pastels, and there's no denying the power of Michelangelo's figures. 

But I resent the fact that so many visitors are here to see only this, treating all the galleries on the way as an opulent race track. I think the whole visitor experience would be improved, and museum revenues boosted, if they offered a Chapel-only ticket at a premium, a museum only ticket at a discount, and a third tariff if you want to see both. There are so many masterworks to enjoy in the museums, some of them ... in my opinion ... better than Michelangelo's offer. But such major change is unlikely. The crowds will return, and the distances won’t change. So here’s my best advice for making your visit a joy rather than a chore.

PLAN Pre-booking tickets is essential. Go for the opening slot. Before you go, spend some time with the museum map working out what you want to see. There are seven kilometres of corridors and because the place is essentially a very long, narrow rectangle with a one way system, you’ll walk most of them. The Sistine Chapel is, naturally, at the far point from the entrance. You can leave the bulk of the galleries near the entrance to see later, but once you start down those long corridors there’s no easy way back, so take the time to see what interests you. The main route takes you through the Museo Pio-Clementino (the most famous of the Greco- Roman statuary), before starting down those long hallways. Once you get to the Raphael Rooms … the heart of the papal apartments, don’t miss the turn to the Borgia apartments. While not quite as magnificent, they feature a series of tiled floors and coffered, painted ceilings it would be a shame to miss, and because it’s a dead-end dogleg at the far end of your route, it’s easy to do so.

Even if you are walking briskly and looking at little, you’ll need 45 minutes to get to the Sistine. A typical visit is three to four hours, but you can easily spend … and I would recommend … an entire day. 

BE KIND TO YOURSELF Ignore everyone else. Set a pace that works for you and enjoy it. There are few places to sit so take advantage of them. The first is in the Cortile Ottogano, an eight-sided courtyard open to the sky close to the start of your hike. Though you may be full of energy, I still recommend pausing to sit here and take in what’s always been considered the best of the Vatican statuary. It is a beautiful space. You won’t see benches again until the Borgia Apartments, and then soon after in the Sistine. Have a good rest there before your return journey. 

The current tourist route forces you through the modern art museum between the Papal Apartments and the Sistine. You used to go directly from one to the other, and it appears it’s still possible if you ask the guards nicely. There are some lovely Chagall paper cut-outs in the modern galleries but the rest is uninspiring. So if exhausted, ask a guard in the last of the Raphael rooms if you might use the shortcut. 

Since my last visit the Vatican has dramatically improved food service, though it’s all on the entrance side of the complex. The standard circle tour will end near both a self-service food court and a small cafe that opens onto a section of the gardens open to the public. There is also a full-service restaurant in a marquee in the Cortile Della Pigna that you would have seen when you entered. (Nice wines, freshly-prepared pasta, not too expensive, with pleasant views around the courtyard.)

It’s a much more civilised option though, counter-intuitively, you need to follow signs to the exit to get to it. Proceed as if leaving and you’ll return to the top of the entry hall between the Pinacoteca and the Pio-Clementino. Cross straight over and your back beneath that famous pine cone. If you decide to spend the whole day in the museums, a leisurely lunch here is the perfect way to restore your energy before round two.

BRING BINOCULARS The ability to see details adds to the enjoyment of the Sistine Chapel, but this isn’t the only place binoculars will be useful. There are decorated ceilings throughout the complex that deserve attention, particularly in the Papal Apartments. And there are several windows with magnificent views over Rome or the Vatican Gardens that reward magnified viewing.

APPRECIATE THE ARCHITECTURE If someone took away the more than 70,000 items on display (and some have tried), this would still be an amazing building to explore. Look up regularly. the Sistine is just the biggest of the lavish ceilings that decorate the place. Pay attention to details, from tiny keyhole covers to vast marble inlaid floors. Look out the windows; most views have been arranged like a living painting.

For my money the two best architectural sights along the way are the gallery of the maps and the rooms of the Vatican Library. Pope Gregory XIII commissioned the map gallery as a tour of the papal holdings in 1580. It’s essentially a detailed look at Italy, region by region, starting in the South and working your way up the boot before culminating in maps of the whole peninsula, one contemporary and one Ancient Roman. The maps are works of art in their own right, embellished with cities, the occasional historical scene and decorative extras. The ships, sea monsters, water nymphs and putti gambolling off shore are a particular delight. The 40 panels in the 120-metre long gallery are surrounded by lavish ornamentation inspired directly from the then newly-discovered Domus Aurea, and the ceiling is one of the best in the complex. This room alone would be worth the price of admission.

As would be the Sistine Corridor of the Vatican Libraries, located directly below the map gallery. These rooms are even more influenced by the designs of Nero’s Palace, and are a joyous riot of colour, landscape and classical myth. 

GO BEYOND THE SET CIRCLE TOUR If you can spare the full day, there’s much more to see beyond the already rich offerings of the walk to and from the Sistine Chapel. A turn off the route from the Pio-Clementino galleries takes you into the Egyptian section, with a collection that rivals any museum in the world. While there’s an enormous amount from ancient Egypt itself, the most fascinating stuff to me is all the Egyptian-inspired fittings from Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli, now moved here. 

I’ve already mentioned the Borgia apartments. Another “dead end” (currently; the doors at one end are sealed) is the Braccio Nuovo, or new wing. It’s the bright white, obviously newer side of the Cortile Della Pigna. Instead of taking the steps up to the main rooms of the Pio Clementino, you turn the other way and go down a long hall filled with Roman busts on each side. At the end, turn right and you’re in a magnificent gallery built after the Napoleonic war to house all the goodies stolen by, and recovered from, the French. The Augustus Prima Porta and the reclining statue of Father Tiber are amongst the blockbuster statues framed by magnificent architecture and marble floors inset with ancient mosaics. The 1820s building set the model for just about every neo-classical 19th century museum wing to come after.

Most people walk straight by the Ethnological Museum on their way to the exit without giving it a glance. If you buck the trend you’ll find yourself wandering almost alone amongst glass cubicles stuffed with exquisite craftsmanship from Africa, Asia and the South Pacific. There’s a magnificent model of a Hindu temple in Indonesia that the Vatican has funded restoration on, and a fascinating collection of terracotta busts of Native Americans fashioned in the 19th century. 

The pinocateca, or picture gallery, is another of the museums that rarely sees much traffic. And yet it’s stuffed with glorious religious art, including Fra Angelico, Giotto and DaVinci. There are more Raphael paintings, here, but you’ve drunk your fill of him in the Papal Apartments. I’d make my make way here for just three glorious masterpieces. Turn your attention to Raphael’s tapestries, woven to grace the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel on special occasions and displayed here in near darkness to let their colours sing. Londoners may know the preparatory sketches from their esteemed place in the Victoria and Albert Museum; the real thing is so much better. Melozzo da Forli is lesser known, but his heavenly host of musical angels are sublimely beautiful and have graced millions of Christmas cards. Supreme over them all is Caravaggio’s Deposition from the Cross, one of his most powerful works.

You might prefer the Etruscan museum, the coin and stamp collection or the early Christian art museum, none of which I managed to get to on this visit, or on previous ones. It is, after all, one of the biggest museums in the world. And for a few months more, I suspect, magically under-attended. If you have any chance to get there, or to any of the other great cultural sites, get there while numbers are still low. 

Nero's Golden House was worth a lifetime of waiting; it's Rome's greatest hidden treasure

Before the pandemic, Rome’s Colosseum was averaging 20,000 to 25,000 visitors a day. While numbers are still far below that, the effort we needed to push through the milling crowds, guides and hawkers outside the metro station across the street is a reminder that while Europe's best-known attractions are magnificent, the effort needed to fight the crowds in order to see them can take both the joy and the awe out of the experience. 

There’s another option, just a few hundred metres further up the street, that offers all the magic of time travel back to ancient Rome, but with so few people you can feel like an explorer discovering its secret depths for the first time. Readers, I give you the extraordinary Domus Aurea, or Golden House of the Emperor Nero. This little-known treasure, closed to tourists for most of modern history, left me on the brink of tears of excitement and wonder.

In this blog I’ve introduced you to several rulers whose patronage of the arts outstripped their talent for leadership, most notably Charles II and George IV. But in this list of “misunderstood” connoisseurs*,  Nero gets the gold star.

Amongst the spectacular abuses of power (and PR disasters) laid at his feet is his reaction to Rome’s great fire of 64AD. While there is historical evidence of him re-housing the poor and sending out fire-fighting crews, what everyone remembers is him fiddling while Rome burned, and the way he cleared more than a square mile of the city centre to build himself an opulent new palace. The place was legendary for its marble walls studded with gemstones, gold enhancements and exceptional frescoes. The Colosseum stands on what was once the ornamental lake. 

Nero was assassinated before his vision could be complete, and his successors were embarrassed by his profligacy. (Much as Queen Victoria was by her uncle’s OTT Brighton Pavilion.)  They stripped out the ornaments, re-purposed parts of the complex and filled in others with earth to provide the foundations for Trajan’s enormous public baths complex. It’s this last section that you can see today, thanks to a local falling through a sinkhole into one of the rooms in the 1480s.

But wait! I hear you thinking. If it was re-discovered more than 500 years ago, why isn’t this place better known? If you studied art history, it is. A procession of famous artists, including Michelangelo and Raphael, scrambled around the cavernous discoveries marvelling at the paintings and incorporating the designs into their work. Artists and architects have been copying the Domus Aurea's walls ever since. It became quite the thing for grand tourists to have themselves lowered through holes in the palace ceilings (see below) and leave their initials carved in unadorned bits of ancient plaster. The Marquis de Sade and Richard Wagner are amongst the famous spelunkers. 

But access since the turn of the 20th century, when the government started taking firmer control of its heritage sites, has been a tricky thing. Through most of the last century access was limited to archaeologists and academics with a specific interest. The general public finally got access in 1999, but the place was shuttered again six years later after floods, ceiling collapses and a worrying decline in the state of the frescoes. 

Sixteen years of restoration have worked wonders. Architecturally, the whole site has been stabilised, including skimming much of the vegetation and earth off the top and replacing it with a lighter-weight garden full of plants familiar to the ancient Romans. The paintings have been restored and augmented with sympathetic pieces of sculpture throughout. 

There’s a dramatic new exit … like the Louvre pyramid, a beautiful example of modern design dropped into a historic space. 

Nero’s famous octagonal dining room, with alcoves off five sides and a dome that once had an inner shell that depicted the constellations, rotated, and dropped rose petals on diners, is the culmination of your visit and a gallery space currently telling the story of the Domus Aurea’s influence on Raphael. My corporate event instincts tell me that with its modern entry/exit and the flexible nature of the octagon and alcoves, Nero’s former dining room will soon be available to hire for events.

The most dramatic, and visible, contribution of the recent restoration is a dramatic lighting scheme. (You can watch a video about how they did it here.) Sensors activate lights when guides come and go, so you’re exploring the whole site in puddles of light flickering out of the gloom, just as the Renaissance artists would have. In key spots, there are video screens offering views of what the area would originally have looked like.

In the larger spaces, lighting designers have worked to simulate a subtle, golden daylight as close as possible to the building’s original design. 

This part of the palace was essentially a giant pleasure pavilion with one side open to the air, natural sunlight flooding through open porticoes and high windows. In many places, dramatic spots highlight statuary against the gloom beyond. Designers selected the tone of each room’s lighting to bring out as much colour and detail as possible in the wall paintings.

The overall effect is stunning, as if you are the first to see these secret spaces in centuries. And with tours limited to 25, there are times where you can actually be completely alone, adding to that sense of adventure. Unfortunately, I do have to mention that what’s dramatic and atmospheric for most can be debilitating for the vision impaired. My husband, who is blind in one eye and thus has little depth perception and an extreme sensitivity to quick changes in light, found the whole place extremely challenging.

For me, however, the Domus Aurea was possibly the most exciting thing I’ve done since the thrill of setting foot in the forum for the first time 45 years ago. Part of it was certainly that atmospheric sense of discovery. But it was also the sheer beauty of room after room of ancient frescoes. Some are plain blocks of colour. Some architectural frameworks. 

Some landscapes or mythological scenes. By far the most exciting to my eyes, as they were to the Renaissance artists, were the tiny decorative details of flowers, foliage, architectural elements and strange half-human, half animal creatures. Before modern language changed the meaning to something negative, these were known as “grotesques”, referring to their discovery in a cave, or grotta. 

I could have remained for hours in admiration, and would have loved to sit and sketch, but I suspect those high tech lights would go off on me.

The official website (where you need to go for advance tickets, which are essential for entry) tempts with a virtual reality experience, but it's currently a dead link and there was no sign of it on site. I assume it's in development and I'll be able to return to a digital space soon to explore more. Ironically, it's the promise of deeper understanding of a 2,000-year-old building that's finally tempting me into the latest digital craze. Bring on the metaverse, with a plate of lark's tongues, a bottle of garum sauce and a glass of Falernian wine. And don't forget those falling rose petals, please. 

If you'd like to see more of my experience, I've posted a YouTube video here.

*Was Nero misunderstood? A recent exhibition at the British Museum explored just that question. You can read my review here. 

Mercure Centro Termini is an efficient base for culture and rugby

Hard to believe it’s been six years since my last visit to Rome. The friendly folks at Facebook won’t let me forget, however, as they keep pushing memories my way. They look suspiciously familiar. Another Six Nations rugby weekend. Another Valentine’s Day. Another loss for the Italian team. For an explanation of why it makes sense to travel to Rome to watch rugby, read my original story. 

Not everything is the same, however. The authorities have laid on far more trams so transport to and from the Stadio Olimpico was far easier. Inside the stadium there’s been a complete overhaul of food and beverage provision, with a wide variety available from food trucks, stands and vendors strolling the aisles. It’s the only stadium I know surrounded by parkland; go early, grab a beer and relax on the grass under the umbrella pines. There was still an abundance of queuing, but this time a new cause: Covid-19. 

Given that the Italians were the European front line of the pandemic and suffered horrifically, it's no surprise that they're now hyper-vigilant on disease control. You probably stand more chance of getting hit by an asteroid than of catching Covid in Rome. FFP2 masks are required everywhere, only allowed off for seated eating or drinking. You won't get in to any public venues without showing your vaccination certificate; sometimes multiple times. To get into the game, the name on your ticket, photo ID and vaccination certificate had to match up. We saw multiple people turned away for a missing element. Major museums do the same triple check plus a temperature scan. At the stadium, we had to go through three different queues with variations of checks before we finally got to our seats. If this is the future of major events, plan on getting everywhere at least three hours in advance.

Despite the increased admin, prolific queues, and extended hours in a mask, a long weekend in Rome remains an ideal way to break England's winter gloom. We got lucky with sunny skies and 16C (61F) temperatures for the whole visit. Travelling out on a Wednesday evening and back on the Monday gave enough time for plenty of sightseeing and lots of wonderful Roman meals without being away from the office too much. Rumoured plans to eject Italy from the Six Nations tournament might be better for the game, but will strike a heavy blow to options for winter weekends away.

Prices at the hotel we'd used last time had skyrocketed, so we opted into our customer loyalty programme and went for the newly-opened Mercure Centro Termini. Its location 1/3rd of the way down the long, straight road between the main train station and the Victor Emmanuel Monument is ideal for sightseeing, with most things in walking distance.  It's amazing how much this area has changed since my early visits to Rome. In the '80s the station and everything around it was run-down and a bit dangerous. The whole neighbourhood has had a makeover (other than one small park across the street from the bus terminal that's still the preserve of weeds, rubbish and the homeless) and the station itself is modern, efficient, clean and studded with upscale shops.

The local Mercure is so new, however, that taxi drivers don't know where it is. Even when you tell them the specifics (at the corner of Via Nazionale and Via Agostino Depretis) they confidently take you somewhere else in the area. The newly-renovated building ... a pink Venetian Romanesque-style palazzo out of place in the grand, white, neoclassical street, obviously wasn't designed as a hotel. There's no real lobby to speak of, just a check-in desk across from the lift doors and a few couches on either end of the bar and restaurant that faces the street. If you didn't look up to see the Mercure flag hanging above, you'd never guess from what you can see through the windows that it's a hotel. Which might be part of the problem with the taxi drivers. While the street-facing restaurant is busy at breakfast time, when guests can add a functional but unexceptional buffet breakfast to their tab for €13, we never saw anyone eating lunch or dinner here, which made the whole place a bit odd and lacking in atmosphere. I'd like to see them lose some of the restaurant tables and create more lounging space.

Based on our lodgings, I'd guess there's a lot of variety in accommodation since they seem to have wedged hotel rooms into a space built for something else. Ours was generously sized but oddly shaped; a long, narrow rectangle with exceptionally high ceilings ...  the walls were taller than the rooms were wide ... divided into two distinct spaces by an archway. A super-king bed took up almost all of the second room, while the first by the door was occupied with a shelving unit, desk and one chair. A modern, spacious bathroom continued the enfilade on the other side of that. Tall glass doors in both rooms led onto a balcony that ran the length of the space but, sadly, had no chair or table. 

Staff were friendly and consistently helpful, particularly the attentive and charming Daniele who, running the bar and restaurant from breakfast into the afternoon, became the real face of the hotel as his domain doubled as the lobby. While short on atmosphere, the Mercure was functional, quiet, good value for money and I'd stay there again. The location gives easy, quick access to the airport via the Leonardo Express train (€14 per person, travel time about half an hour), though we did splurge on arrival and took a mini cab door-to-door (€60, but saved us 20 minutes of walking with luggage, with the only driver all weekend who knew the hotel). 

Our itinerary for the weekend balanced serious sightseeing with great food, shopping and sport. I was conscious of being at a tipping point perhaps never to be send again: all the tourist attractions were open, but there were few visitors beyond Europeans. Though the Spanish Steps and the Vatican were crowded, numbers were nothing like recent history. 

Sightseeing was a joy. Thursday was all about Baroque church architecture, Friday dominated by the glories of Ancient Rome, and Saturday given to the Vatican. With Sunday’s game not starting until 4pm we could fit in some shopping around the Spanish Steps in the morning. Monday was my only miscalculation; a day somewhat wasted because I forgot that museums are all closed in Rome at the week’s beginning. I should have saved the churches for departure day. Despite that miscalculation I still managed to pack a prodigious amount of art, architecture and history into a short period, and managed to tick one place of my still-to-see Roman bucket list. Enough to finally have some decent experiences to blog about. More to come…

Eight elusive Roman treasures still haunting my bucket list

I know Rome well. From my first visit on a school trip, when I ditched classmates more interested in shopping to scramble over the Palatine Hill on my own, I've always wanted to scratch beneath the standard bus-tour itinerary and touch history. Back in the early '00s I spent a whole week there on my own, dedicating myself to niche sights and small attractions unlikely to captivate fellow travellers. 

But Rome is a big city, with prodigious layers of history. It would take a lifetime to see it all. Here's my "bucket list" of eight places I'm keen to go but haven't managed to see in the Eternal City. 

SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO

From its fabulous Medieval origin story of the exorcism of Nero's ghost to a line of popes who decided to endow the place with masterpieces, this is one of Rome's blockbuster churches. But Rome has a lot of blockbuster churches. Santa Maria del Popolo is the only one with two big Caravaggios facing off in all their dramatic glory. The Cerasi chapel features the Conversion of St. Paul on one side and the Crucifixion of St. Peter on the other. The bad boy of Baroque art rolled out all of his dramatic tricks of lighting and perspective to dominate the small space and pull you into the scene. Presumably you hardly notice the knockout-in-any-other-space Assumption of the Virgin by Carracci over the altar, the frescoed ceiling, and the opulent, gilded plasterwork. But I can't tell you, because every time I have tried to visit the church it's been closed for renovation. Now it's closed for Covid safety. I live in hope.

THE DOMUS AUREA

I suspect the Emperor Nero would have had a soft spot for Caravaggio, given their shared reputations for wild excess, violence and love of art. The last Julio-Claudian emperor built a palace called the Domus Aurea for himself that he set out to make an architectural and artistic wonder of the world. Its marble walls were studded with gold and gemstones and it had a famous dining pavilion with open sides and a rotating dome. It was lost for centuries before being re-discovered in the Renaissance. Much of the classically-inspired style of the time comes from artists ... including Michelangelo and Raphael ,,, who lowered themselves into the underground chambers, copied the decorations they found there and used them prolifically in their work. It was only opened to the public in 1999, and then floods in 2006 closed it down for more years. It now appears to be re-opened, and is run as part of the archeological park that includes the colosseum, but the "buy tickets" link leads to a 404 message.

PALAZZO FARNESE

Many a visitor to Rome has stood in the Campo dei Fiori and looked up into the windows of the French Embassy ... aka the Palazzo Farnese ... slack jawed at the glittering interiors on display. It is a famous treasure house of art, particularly noted for its ceiling fresco cycle on the Loves of the Gods by Annibale Carracci. The facade has been copied repeatedly by architects around the world. And opera fans know it as the place where Scarpia attempted to seduce Tosca before she killed him. In recent years the French have started to offer guided tours, but they are extremely limited and must be booked in advance through the official web page. No options work for my next trip, so my wait continues.

THE MUSEUM OF ROMAN CIVILISATION IN EUR

EUR is a business and residential district built by Mussolini in anticipation of a World's Fair that never happened. Its collection of distinctive buildings in Fascist neo-classical style has always intrigued me and would definitely be worth a wander on a day when you didn't have other things on your Roman priority list. (I haven't had one of those yet.) The key reason to make the trip is a model. The most famous display in the Museo Della Civilta Romana shows the Rome of 300 AD in astonishing detail at 1/250 scale. Though few tourists make it to suburbia to see the physical model, they'll see it repeatedly throughout their visit. It is the source for all of those guidebooks and display panels that show you what the ruins you're looking at used to look like. Ridley Scott even used bits of it in Gladiator. Sadly, the museum has been closed for renovation since 2014, though news reports say the work itself didn't start for another three years, and no date has been announced for re-opening. (I suspect you're noticing a pattern of inaccessibility here.)  

VIA APPIA

The Appian Way connected Rome to the port of Brindisi, jumping off point for the Eastern Mediterranean. It was one of multiple major arteries leading in and out of the city, but a quirk of history means this is the only one that still exists for picturesque stretches as Roman road bordered by Roman monuments. Those monuments are often impressive tombs. Romans forbid burial inside their cities, tending to commemorate their dead along the roads just outside city gates. What was then on the outskirts of the city is now a regional park ... the second-largest urban park in Europe ... that protects landscape and ruins around the road up to the 10th Roman milestone. It's a well-known though rarely crowded spot for a walk. Traffic is still allowed on part of the road but there's not supposed to be much, and it's closed to motor vehicles on Sundays. I did come this way to visit Christian catacombs as a child, but I've always dreamed of a leisurely meander to check out the tombs. Though this Vespa tour looks like a more stylish and efficient way of getting around.

PALAZZO MASSIMO

Some of the choicest pieces of art from ancient Rome have been collected and put on display in this relatively new museum, a branch of the Museo Nazionale Romano created from a derelict palace at the turn of this century.  From the website, it looks like this is probably the best concentration of Roman sculpture outside the Vatican museum; in fact they share a few, since most great Roman statues were copies of Greek originals. But the main attraction for me are the frescos from the house of Livia. I've only seen examples on loan to a travelling exhibition in Paris, but never seen them all or in their home city. I do know they set decorative trends for nearly a century, and are gorgeous. To be honest, I never even knew where they lived (and suspect they were in storage for a long time). This is probably my easiest visit to accomplish next trip, as both the museum and our hotel are near the main train station.

CINECITTA

The largest film studio in Europe, Cinecitta's early days gave us classics like Ben-Hur, La Dolce Vita and Roman Holiday. In the modern era the studio has continued with film (I'm highly amused that Gangs of New York was made here) but also branched into TV. Both Rome and The Young/New Pope series were filmed here on sets that delivered a completely convincing Ancient Rome and Vatican City. The Cinecitta studio tour has multiple routes for exploration including views into the production process and a costume collection. But I suppose most visitors are here for the sets: ancient Rome, the temple of Jerusalem and 1400s Florence. There's also the re-creation of an American S-33 submarine used in the film U-571, which I suspect will be of more interest to my husband than to me. (Although having looked up the film and seen that it stars both Matthew McConaughey and Bon Jovi in the full flower of youth, I could be persuaded to watch the movie.)

QUARTIERE COPPEDE

This 31,000 square metre suburban district was designed by a single architect, Gino Coppede, in the early 20th century. Given the photos I've seen, he's Rome's unsung version of Gaudi, and much of the highly-decorated Art Nouveau/historic mish-mash here reminds me of bits of Barcelona. Or Disney fairy tale film sets. While I know I would enjoy a wander around, my real ambition is to find a wonderful VRBO apartment in the district and stay here for a week or two. During which I would concentrate on getting through the list above, while also visiting old favourites.

Ten quirky Roman sights beyond the average tourist list

We are 17 days away from our next attempt at international travel. While the risk of a major trip to Egypt and Jordan was not worth taking, a rugby weekend in Rome looks far more manageable. And, crucially, far easier and less expensive to cancel at the last minute if we must.

Italy is always an uneasy holiday venue for the Bencards. For me, it is a spiritual home where I feel more alive. It is rich with memories of childhood and exquisite family holidays, brimming with the art and food I like best. It is the only place in the world I have any chance of comprehending and making myself understood in another language. Though my husband is not quite the Italophobe I jokingly paint him, the country’s romantic appeal is mostly lost upon him. If left to make his own choice he would generally prefer to be anywhere else north of the Alps. His tomato allergy doesn’t help. And, crucially, for a man who can get by in four languages and, before meeting me, never really vacationed in a place where he couldn’t chat with the locals, not understanding what’s going on around him bothers him profoundly. 

Experience has taught us that a bit of travel planning is essential for marital harmony. If we each set out our priorities before a trip, and are honest about what we don’t want to do, life is more comfortable. I’ve also learned that my husband is far more likely to be captivated by the odd or quirky than anyone’s traditional Top 10 list. And so, to help with our preparations, here’s the first of two round-ups of Roman sightseeing possibilities. Below, my choice of the 10 best things to see that are off the usual tourist track. I’ve visited them all, but my husband has not. Next time, I’ll offer my wish list of things I still haven’t managed to see but want to explore.

1. THE OTHER THREE PAPAL BASILICAS

Everyone knows about St. Peter’s, but there are actually four papal basilicas in Rome. A papal basilica is differentiated by a holy door only opened in Jubilee years, a baldachin (decorative canopy) over the high altar and a restriction against anyone but the pope celebrating mass at that canopied altar. The three basilicas that most people miss are St. Giovanni in Laterano, St. Paolo Fuori le Mura and St. Maria Maggiore. Though all were “improved” by the same counter-reformation trends that made Rome’s churches a festival of the Baroque, the main fabric of these three is much older. All have the original footprint of the vast rectangular Roman civic buildings early Christians adopted as their first major churches, and a wealth of early Christian mosaics. They are unlike almost all the other churches in Rome and feel profoundly ancient. They aren’t close to each other, however, so seeing more than one of them in a trip would require dedication. If I had to choose one I’d opt for Santa Maria Maggiore, which has the most early Christian stuff plus a collection of impressive tombs. Though if you want really quirky, go to St. John Lateran and then pop across the street to the Scala Sancta. This marble staircase is supposedly the one Christ ascended for his appearance before Pilate. St. Helena brought it back to Rome. It now has a wooden staircase sheathing its precious original substance and pilgrims ascend on their knees, praying at each step. I am glad I did this when I was 11 as I can’t imagine my knees holding out for the whole climb these days.

2. SAN CLEMENTE

This church is a variation on the theme above. It is also an early-Christian, basilica-shaped building with fantastic early mosaics. It’s a lot easier to get to than the three above, being just a gentle stroll from the Colosseum. But what really differentiates it is what lies below. You can climb into the basement where you’ll see the foundations of the first church, which dates to the late 4th century. Then you get to scramble down another level, and you find yourself in the excavated remains of a Roman street with the foundations of an apartment block and a temple of Mithras, with intact altar surrounded by stone benches for the celebrants. (See photo above). There’s no better place in Rome to appreciate the city’s layers of history and probably no better-preserved Mithraeum. (London’s version, despite its curators’ high-tech attempts to bring it to life, looks sadly underwhelming in comparison to this one.)

3. OSTIA ANTICA

Pompeii is world-famous and the reason most tourists make the effort to get to Naples. Few realise there’s an ancient Roman cityscape almost as well-preserved that is easily accessible by a suburban train from the capital city. Ostia was the port of ancient Rome. Throughout imperial times this was a bustling, affluent and cosmopolitan town of up to 100,000 people. With political instability in the 5th century came a lack of engineering will to keep the waterways open. The port silted up, people moved away and nature reclaimed the abandoned site. These days you can walk down empty city streets where many buildings have preserved ground floors. There are several bath complexes with impressive mosaic floors in situ, and lots of architectural detail to stumble upon in shops and villas. At the town’s centre is an impressive theatre and a marketplace surrounded by offices of all the traders who were once based here, their businesses advertised in mosaic in front of their thresholds. The best part … at least when I visited … is that there’s hardly anyone here. For at least a third of my visit I was wandering through ruins entirely alone, creating the sense I was discovering the place for the first time. It’s magical.

4. THE CAPUCHIN MUSEUM AND CRYPT

The most macabre, bizarre sight in Rome and not to be missed if there’s a shred of Goth in your soul. When the capuchin friars moved in to their new church of St. Maria Della Concezione dei Cappucini in 1631, they brought 300 cartloads of remains of their deceased brothers through history with them. And this being the height of the Baroque era, they decided to not just bury them, but use their skeletons as building materials for a wildly ornate decorative scheme in the basement. Femurs, tibias, skulls, vertebrae and the like were separated like piles of Lego, coming back together as columns, arabesques, flowers, domes, circles, etc. And just so you don’t forget what you’re actually looking at, some of the brothers’ skeletons remain complete, dressed in moth-eaten robes, glaring down at you through empty eye sockets to remind you that the glory of the world is fleeting. 

5. THE MUSEUMS ON THE PINCIAN HILL

For a less gruesome take on the Baroque, head to the Galleria Borghese. This is one of the world’s great small museums: the collection is small enough to get round without feeling overwhelmed, but it’s jammed with masterpieces. It’s best known for having Bernini’s most famous sculptures and an impressive group of Caravaggios. It’s all housed in an eye-wateringly opulent palace that would be worth the trip even without the art. A short walk away is the National Etruscan Museum at the Villa Giulia. This is another aristocratic villa once built as a suburban retreat at the edge of Rome, now quite central. And like the Borghese, it’s worth visiting just to nose around the impressive building. The Etruscans are a bonus. Rulers of central Italy before the Romans turned up and muscled in on their territory, the Etruscans influenced the Romans but are distinctly a people apart, with art that’s more reminiscent of ancient Crete or Egypt. This is a fascinating repository of beautiful things from a mysterious and little-known culture.

6. TRAJAN’S MARKET

Almost all visitors to Rome will have seen this amphitheatre-shaped complex of ancient commercial buildings from the modern road that cuts through the Imperial Fora. Few would have gone in. This is essentially the world’s first multi-story shopping mall, with a design so practical it’s still used by urban planners today. (Though they may be unaware of the source.) Though heavily skewed towards shopping, the market held a library, concert halls, offices and spaces to hang out with your friends. The world’s foremost expert on the place happens to be a professor I studied with at Northwestern, Jim Packer, so I’ve felt a special bond since he introduced me to it. Like Ostia, it’s a place you can get up close and personal with the Roman world without lots of tourists bothering you.

7. TIVOLI

Trajan’s Market is vast and imposing, but it’s insignificant compared to the villa his successor Hadrian built at Tivoli. Anticipating Disney’s International Showcase at Epcot by almost 2,000 years, Hadrian made his holiday retreat from the capital a city-sized sprawl of architecture collected from around the Empire. There’s Greece here, Egypt there, a nod to the Near East over that bridge. It’s a glorious place to wander around, but it presents you with a major challenge. It takes most of the day to see it properly, and it’s just one of three notable attractions in this town 40 minutes northeast of central Rome. If you prefer gardens, or fancy yourself a hydraulic engineer, you’ll head for the Villa d’Este, where owners from the Renaissance through the Baroque shaped the steep inclines below the house into some of the most outrageously opulent water gardens ever seen. There’s also the Villa Gregoriana, a park full of managed, romantic wildernesses created around the ruins of yet another rich family’s country retreat. (I’ve never found time for that one.)

8. PALAZZO DORIA PAMPHILJ

Most tourists wandering down the Corso, Rome’s main commercial street, walk by the rather plain gateway of this palace without realising it’s a tourist attraction, much less one of the most lavish aristocratic palaces in Italy filled with one of the world’s most valuable private art collections. To tell the truth, I find the interiors a bit gloomy, but the sense of discovering a hidden treasure is better than the decor. I also love the way it’s occupied by a modern family still involved in its maintenance and management. The current owner, Prince Jonathan Doria Pamphilj, is a long way from your average Italian aristocrat. He travelled the world and ran a restaurant in Brazil before inheriting the house. He’s a gay rights activist who, with his partner and their adopted children, has been instrumental in advancing changes in Italian law and perception. And as the son of an Englishman … his Maidenhead-born father married into the family and changed his surname as the palace and title went down the female line … he takes an English aristocrat’s approach to managing the estate. He narrates the audio guide, rooms are available for private hire (a former employer of mine used to use the place for customer events) and upstairs apartments are let out at a peppercorn rent to artists and writers. Other space is given over to the centre that supports positive relations between Anglicanism and the Roman Catholic Church.  

9. TRASTEVERE

This eclectic neighbourhood sits behind the Vatican and across the river from most major tourist sites, so has traditionally gotten little tourist footfall. (Though this has changed in recent years.) The winding streets are a delightful hotch-potch of architectural remnants, with Medieval walls and Roman columns often turning up in the facades of more modern buildings. There are loads of interesting shops and restaurants that all feel profoundly local. It’s a great place for a gentle wander.

10. VILLA FARNESINA

Aside from eclectic wandering, this is the main reason to venture into Trastevere. Yup, it’s another lavish villa built by a famous Roman family with papal associations. And while the whole thing is very nice, those in the know seek it out for just one thing: a spectacular ceiling. Everyone flocks to the Sistine Chapel; I’ll take Raphael’s loggia here any time.  Originally open-sided and perched above the Tiber, the loggia served as a summer banqueting pavilion for the outrageously wealthy Chigi family. Legend says they served dinners on gold plates and once empty threw them into the Tiber below to show off their limitless resources. But the family money came from canny banking and they were no fools; they strung nets below the loggia to capture the whole dinner service for washing and re-use. Obviously, a family that fond of display was going to invest in some serious interior design. Enter Raphael, also busy at the nearby Vatican for the Popes. Here, unleashed from religious restrictions, he created a wonderland of gods and goddesses in the pursuit of love. The colours are vibrant, the perspectives bewitching, the action non-stop and some of it lascivious in the extreme. It is one of the most beautiful rooms on the planet. (The Farnese, whose name brands the palace now, didn’t buy it until it was almost 60 years old. They are more directly related to another magnificent fresco cycle, which will show up on my next list.)

Death on the Nile: Four tough travel lessons from the pandemic

 Travel during a global pandemic demands steely nerves and deep pockets. I've exhausted both. 

Tomorrow afternoon, I should have been sitting beside the Nile, dressed in flowing white linen, sipping a gin & tonic and contemplating the extraordinary two weeks ahead. Instead, I will be spending yet another cozy Friday evening in front of the TV chez Bencard. The story of why and how this happened reveals a lot of things I wish I'd known sooner. I'm sharing to help you avoid the stresses.

We'd put our deposit down on a Nile cruise, with an extension to Jordan, as an indulgent Christmas present to ourselves in 2019. We planned to travel at Easter 2021. While that seems like an extraordinary amount of time between booking and travel, it was perfectly logical. Viking Cruises' luxurious Nile boats are small ... ours had just 24 cabins ... and the Nile cruising season is limited. Options tend to book up more than a year in advance. When pandemic swept across the world in March of 2020, we were relaxed. The trip was a full year away. That seemed safe. The start of a vaccination programme before the end of 2020 gave us increased hope.

We all know how that went. As the 2021 Lenten season drew to its close I was chatting with Viking regularly as we played an amicable game of chicken. If they cancelled on me, I'd get a cash bonus as an apology and could take my money back or roll the reservation. If I cancelled first, no extra cash compensation ... but I'd nab a prime spot ahead of all those other people who would soon be re-booking all those cancelled cruises. And there was a cabin available on the same boat for the 2021 Christmas cruise. Just a little more expensive because it was peak season. That seemed safe.

We travelled internationally in September and were hopeful for December, but Omicron swept through the UK and infection rates exploded. I got COVID on 11 December and had to isolate until the day before we were supposed to leave. And I wasn't feeling great. Viking had room on the same itinerary on the same boat available a month later. More expensive, naturally, because the only cabin available was the nicest one. That seemed safe.

This is where things started to come unstuck. Medical fact says there's no safer time to travel than after recovering from Covid. You're surging with antibodies. Mine were enhanced with three doses of vaccine. The Covid recovery pass which, in a blaze of technological efficiency not typical of the NHS, appeared promptly and automatically on my NHS app was supposed to guarantee my transit even if I tested positive on a PCR test. Which I probably would. 

Turns your PCRs are likely to turn up positive for up to 90 days after having Covid. Long after you've recovered and are non-infectious. (And doctors advise that the older you are, the longer it's probably going to stay in your system.)  I thought my recovery pass would make travel trouble free. Reality? It's worthless.

As anyone who's attempted international travel since the pandemic knows, there are no international standards. Every country has its own rules, and they can shift at any moment. PCR tests are the closest the world seems to have come to agreement. Negative: you may pass. Positive: you're in trouble. 

Having returned to health but assuming I'd test positive, I started looking for assurance that my Covid pass would see me through Heathrow, Cairo and Amman. Despite the medically-proven fact that you could be fit to travel yet testing positive, I found nothing in writing to assure me of this. Only bellicose warnings that a positive PCR spelled doom. I tried to connect with human beings. 

Nobody seems to work at BA any more. Their customer service line doesn't even offer a chance to stay on hold to wait for assistance. Redirect to digital or go away. No reply to my tweet and the only answer to my email was a re-direct to the web pages I'd already poured over that contained no answer. How about the Egyptian consulate? Web site under construction. No answer on the telephone number found on Google. No reply to the email. Viking, the only player in this game who regularly answered phones, couldn't give me clear answers at first but eventually got back to me with the cold, hard truth.

They understood Covid recovery passes, and I'd be safe once I was within their hands. There was a good chance BA would let me out. But there was a high probability neither Egypt, nor Jordan, would budge off the simple black and white PCR rule. Egypt was even in the habit of doing spot PCR tests and sending those who came back positive into a government quarantine hotel for 10 days. Which I am fairly sure would bear no resemblance to my stateroom on the Viking Ra. Finally, I had the clarity to understand that any attempt to travel would be high risk and unwise. 

It was just a shame that Viking's representative hadn't realised that when I called from my Covid sickbed to reschedule the Christmas cruise. I suspect Viking management had spotted this fly in the ointment, as well, since they offered me a full roll-over of my payment into credit for two years, even though by their terms and conditions I was so close to departure they could have kept my cash. 

I should have been heartbroken that after three attempts, the land of the pharaohs was out of reach. Instead, I was flooded with relief. Uncertainty, angst and the fear of losing our payment hanging over my head no longer kept me up at night. We'd been isolating for more than a month to try to stay healthy for travel. We finally ventured out to the cinema for date night. A long list of complications fell away.

The lessons learned from this two-year adventure?

Lesson No. 1: Assume that a diagnosed case of Covid means no international travel for 90 days. Sadly, that means that every time you're stepping out your door you're endangering your ability to travel. I'm hoping regulations change soon, since I have a trip to Rome scheduled 61 days after diagnosis. So I haven't completely lost the stress. Therefore...

Lesson No. 2: Limit international travel to spur-of-the-moment opportunities. Given that one of my keys to happiness is holiday planning, it pains me to type this. But it's reality. You're far more likely to complete a trip you book a week or two in advance. We plan to start using our Viking credit by waiting until European restrictions loosen and then calling to ask "do you have any open cabins for anywhere in the next few weeks?" Given the number of cancellations travel companies are dealing with right now, we're hopeful.

Lesson No. 3: In times of ongoing uncertainty, take your cash back. In hindsight, I should have waited for Viking to cancel the first time, taken my cash and forgotten about Egypt for several years. I hope never to live through something like this pandemic again, but if I do ... money will triumph over hope.

Lesson No. 4: You get what you pay for. We all know this, but it's even more relevant in a crisis. Yes, Viking Cruises are expensive. But they've proven their worth. At every step there have been humans to talk to, when others have abandoned their customers to self service. Their advice was thoughtful and informed, and their policies generous. The past two years have built my fidelity to their brand. Stay tuned for a report from one of their ships, somewhere, someday...

Remarkable holiday rental helps Hastings punch above its weight

You might think the 20th annual version of the Northwestern Girls' Trip would demand a spectacularly

memorable location. In a world still convulsed by pandemic, however, just spending some time together would be a win, wherever we went. Even that proved elusive.

Our first attempt was the Dorset coast in early July. A few days before departure I was sidelined by a Covid quarantine, healthy myself but locked in with a husband who'd tested positive. The girls pushed on to the house we'd rented. A second attempt headed for Hastings in October, an altogether quirkier and more urban spot, though sharing the South Coast seaside appeal. All looked optimistic until Hillary caught the bug and had to leave another incomplete team to get on with things. This year was girls' trip by relay race.

The irony: the planner of each trip is the one who couldn't go. I got the better end of that deal, because the loft in the the old printworks on Claremont Street in Hastings stands out as one of the most memorable places we have ever stayed.

LOFTY ACCOMODATION

Occupying the upper two floors of a high Victorian printworks, it is a magnificent space for any group that could use four bedrooms. Each of those bedrooms is distinctive; the one with antique French furniture, a long, low sofa and a wall of windows looking over the rooftops of the Victorian town towards the old port and its castle was clearly the nicest. Beds were firm and comfortable, and the size of each room generous. Two bedrooms on the lower floor share a bathroom with a massive modern shower, while a full room under the eaves upstairs has been turned into a bathroom with a free-standing, claw-footed tub at its centre.

But it was in the public spaces where this loft really burns its way into the imagination. 

There are two sitting rooms. One is at the front with a wood burning stove and the same view as that best bedroom. Turn to one side in the projecting bay windows and you're looking straight to the beach and sea 150 metres away. But that's a poky sideline compared to the enormous main sitting room with its soaring industrial ceiling dotted with skylights. This space is large enough to take a refectory table that  seats 10, a trio of sofas and a sizeable open kitchen. 

Someone with an eye for design clearly spent a lot of time thinking this place throughout. It’s obvious in the mix of mid-century industrial design pieces with European antiques, the banks of house plants, the subtle mix of earth tones and pastels and the eclectic variety of art. If that weren’t enough, the owner drives the message home with artfully arranged stacks of home design magazines and a gash in the aged plaster of one wall turned into an art installation with the insertion of tiny people climbing it like Everest.

HASTINGS, GOOD AND BAD

Hastings itself is, sadly, less glamorous than the flat. It hasn't yet shaken off that downmarket, tired, "I've seen better days" atmosphere that came to characterise English seaside resorts once the population started jetting off to sunnier places. There's a lot of beautiful but run-down architecture waiting for a saviour. Though there are some charming shops and restaurants in the Victorian centre (particularly the wonderful library-cum-cafe Hanushka Coffee), they're currently outnumbered by "everything's a pound" stores, chippies, kebab shops and old-style boozers with rough-looking patrons. There are also, sadly, a fair number of homeless people including one who accosted us when we didn't give him money when leaving the flat. Parking options are 1/3 of a mile away and I was a bit nervous walking from car to flat at night by myself. The loft and nearby attractions were memorable enough to compensate for the immediate area, but it's best to go in with your eyes wide open.

A brisk, 20-minute walk east on the seafront brings you to the historic port area, a far more pleasing prospect for dining and tourism. The seafront itself has all the classic attractions: fun fair, aquarium, crazy golf. The last has three 18-hole courses, including a pirate-themed adventure on which I sank two holes in one. So, naturally, that's highly recommended.

But if you're looking for more grown-up fun, follow George Street as it runs parallel to the coast, one block north. A shoppers' dream, this long and picturesque stretch of mostly historic buildings is occupied entirely by local businesses. While there's definitely a festival-going, tie-dyed vibe to many shops, the variety is vast. Dusty antique dens and vintage clothing boutiques sit beside modern interior design spots, upscale florists, and purveyors of historic hardware. There's another Hanushka Coffee here with the same book-lined dining space, and a wonderful half-timbered pub called Ye Olde Pumphouse that meanders over three stories. 

George Street ends at the old High Street. Turn left and you'll enjoy another long stretch of shops, dining and drinking options. This bit is marginally less charming but still beats the vast majority of retail areas calling themselves High Streets and remains free of chain stores. There are a few more artisans up this way. I suspect the rent is cheaper the further you get from the seafront and therefore friendlier to people who're making a living off hand-knit alpaca socks or jewelry crafted from gold-gilt flowers.

A bit east from here, on a hillside covered with picturesque Georgian brick buildings that I suspect was Hastings' best neighbourhood until those 19th century improvers got to work, sits The Crown. The gastropub was recommended by our landlords as the best dining spot in town and is the kind of local everyone dreams of: historic surroundings with modern service, informal atmosphere with upscale menus, locally sourced products with culinary inspiration from around the world. The local sourcing even extended to the bar, where beers, ciders, gins and wines showed off the treasures of Sussex and Kent.

AWARD-WINNING ITALIAN

If you want fine dining, you'll need to leave Hastings. But you don't need to travel far. St. Leonards is the next community west along the coast, and would appear no different from Hastings were it not for a subtle-but-steady improvement in the repair of the buildings. There's less retail and more residential here, and the fact that sleek, modern luxury flats seem to have replaced most of the shabby, post WW2 apartment blocks suggests that developers have a sweet spot for this bit of coast. 

It's here, right on the sea front, that you'll find La Bella Vista, named best restaurant in Sussex multiple times in various polls in recent years. The best proof point of its popularity was the crowd at 5:30 on a Saturday. It was the only slot we could get, and in a country where few eat dinner before 7, it was obscenely early. Yet every table was full when we arrived and none stayed empty long as we dined.

The menu is classic Italian, heavy on local seafood. Calamari were delicately battered, crisp and tasty, a tower of insalata caprese was made with top quality bufala and heritage tomatoes unusually succulent for this time of year (I suspect enough airmiles here to balance the virtue of your local seafood). We all had variations on pasta: seafood linguini showed off the day's haul in a sweet tomato sauce, vongole was classic with garlic and herbs. A limoncello tart was the perfect flavour profile to wrap things up. Book well in advance to score a traditional dining time, or skip lunch and dine at an American hour. Just don't attempt it without a reservation.

PICTURESQUE RYE

If you want the charm without real-people, real-economy intrusions, head for Rye. This stage-set of  a  town is 25 miles up the coast from Hastings but might as well exist on a different planet. One sponsored by Walt Disney and produced by the Downton Abbey team to give foreigners the England of their dreams. (Places like Rye are why a visiting uncle of mine concluded that England was a country far richer and better educated than the United States.) 

Every view in Rye a postcard. All the pubs are traditional, all the shops are boutique and the antique stores have been curated for interior design, not packrat collectors. There's still a medieval gate and bits of defensive wall around what once was a port town sitting directly on the English channel. Today, rather than looking out to sea you're looking over miles of flat river valley that's silted up over the past 500 years. It makes Rye a sister-city in experience to Bruges, another tourist favourite frozen in time when its port silted up.

Rye is an ideal day trip for those who like to mooch around shops, and will provide hours of giddy delight to fans of architecture from the medieval through the Georgian. I could easily spend a week here on a sketching and painting holiday. It is, in fact, far more typical a girls' trip destination than Hastings.

Would I have traded our industrial chic loft in the edgy Hastings neighbourhood for a bijoux property in Rye? Not for a girls trip. I liked the variety of the weekend's venues, and the size of the flat allowed us to come together or retreat to private corners as we wished. It's set the standard for future years, wherever we go. Here's hoping that whatever the location, we end up with four healthy girls on holiday together at the same time.