Leaving the crowds behind and other Rome, Italy Off The Beaten Path Tips

You wouldn't think so now, as you walk along the quiet streets , past the high walls and iron gates of the gracious mansions and elegant apartment blocks that are a feature of living on Rome's Aventine Hill today, but in Roman times this was not a good address at all. In fact, it was decidedly lower class, one place the plebians were allowed to own property. Lower class it might have been but, as an old saying goes, "where there's muck, there's brass" and plebs though they might have been to their patrician neighbors one hill over on the Palantine, the area was prosperous and not without its own fine buildings - the city's first public library stood here along with temples to Diana, Luna and Juno among others.

If you're looking for obvious Roman remains, you need to stay at the bottom of the hill, on the north side, we'll go there later. This tip will take you on a walk up the hill on the south side. First you need to cross the grassy sward that is the Circus Maximus - a vast empty space at present though if some local entrepreneurs have their way, that could soon change.

A gate near the statue of Giuseppe Mazzini (a major figure in the quest for Italian unity) takes you in to the Municipal Rose Garden, growing now on the site of the city's old Jewish cemetery where a network of paths laid out in the shape of a menorah is a tribute to the old inhabitants. It's only a short walk from the upper exit of the rose garden to the Parco Savello, a pretty, formal garden planted with the orange trees that give the park its other name - Giardini degli Aranci. A belvedere on the far side of the park has some of the very best views of the city to be found, so a short detour is definitely in order here before continuing up the hill to the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta.

It's just a small square, nothing much of interest here you might think, the Knight's priory isn't open to the public , there's just a high stone wall broken by a solid green door. Put your eye to the keyhole of that door however and the priory's delightful secret is revealed - like a perfectly realized miniature, the dome of St Peters framed by an arch of greenery. Although we could see the dome quite clearly, it was a hazy day and capturing it in a photo proved elusive. Maybe that's as well, seeing it for yourself's much better than secondhand through someone else's photos.

(An interesting aside - like the Vatican, the headquarters of the Cavilieri di Malta, the Knight's Hospitaller of St John, is actually a sovereign state within Rome)

With the afternoon wearing on, we grabbed a taxi at this point and headed back into the centre. Walking down the other side of the hill would have brought us the the Forum Borea abetween the Aventine and the Capitoline Hills, but that was for another day.

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The catacombs where the young Santa Agnes was laid to rest after her martyrdom in 304AD became a place of pilgrimage almost immediately after her death and when Constantine's daughter Constantia was cured (legend says of leprosy) by praying to the saint they became important enough for an imperial princess herself to be entombed there. Constantia ordered the building first of a baptistry (where she and her sister Helena were baptised) and later a funerary hall over the catacomb, but a princess requires a grander burial place than this and so a mausoleum was raised over the site and decorated in style befitting her noble ancestry.

Now known as the Chiesa di Santa Constanza (although she neither officially canonized not, in fact buried here, she died before it was completed) the mausoleum was more probably used for the burial of Helena, who was both the daughter of an emperor and the wife of another. Constantia's body was moved here to lie beside her sister in a magnificent porphyry sarcophagus. Her body was later buried beneath the central altar and the building consecrated as a church in her name.

The church is circular, with 12 pairs of elegant pillars supporting the dome and a barrel-vaulted ambulatory set with delicate mosaics of fruit and flowers, birds and beasts, the oldest surviving Christian ones known. Although not all have survived - those in the dome were said to be of astonishing beauty but were destroyed in the 17th century and a now-fading frescoed ceiling put in their place - the ones that remain give us an idea of just how lovely this little building must have been. The symbols used have significance to both pagan and Christian beliefs - an intriguing reminder of the duality of Constantine's position at this time. Later mosaics (6th or 7th century) in the niches are totally Christian and considerably less sophisticated in their execution though their original borders remain and give some idea of the richness of the images these have replaced.

You can acces the church either through a gate in the far corner of the garden of the adjacent Basilica of Saint Agnes or via a short road at th end of the wall around the church garden. The church looks best in afternoon light but it is a popular wedding venue so you may have to wait before you can enter.

Open: Monday 0900-1200; Tuesday-Saturday: 0900-1200, 1600-1800; Sunday: 1600-1800

The church can be found in the area known as Nomentana, a short distance outside the city walls, north-east of Termini.
Address: Via Nomentana 349. Take Bus #36 from Termini or #60 from Piazza Venezia

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You could seriously overdose on a daily regime of beautiful buildings and crowds in Rome. With a week in the city at our disposal, we decided we'd take a day out, admittedly for more sightseeing, and one of Italy's major ancient sites at that but in a completely different environment - the Bay of Naples and the extraordinary excavations at Herculaneum - the town that was drowned in an horrific river of hot gas, ash and rock that slowly filled the place from the ground up, entombing it in a completely different manner from Pompeii, where ash and debris rained down on the town from above.

Pompeii is justly famous, it's a fascinating site, and receives a constant flood of visitors but Herculaneum, which is actually better preserved and offers a far more complete picture of a Roman town, attracts a trickle in comparison. Certainly the day we were there, the number of fellow-tourists couldn't have been more than thirty or forty in the whole time we were there.

Naples is an hour and a half from Rome by train. To get to Herculaneum takes another 20 minutes via the Circumvesuviana line, getting off at Ercolano Scavi station. From the station it's a 10 minute walk straight down the hill to the site.

The approach to the entrance brings you high above the site and around two sides of it for a wonderful birds-eye view before you even enter. Once you've made your way into the site itself, you really feel you've have stepped back in time as you walk the streets, enter house after house, baths, shops, the forum, the cisterns and more. The way the town was inundated has left buildings in an amazing state - some two stories high, roofs intact, door and structural timbers carbonised, metal window grills still in place.

I'm not even going to try to give more information here - the web-site below will give you a fantastic overview of the site. Hopefully, it, and the bit I've written here, will give you both an idea of the site and the desire to go and see it for yourself.

The excavations are not as extensive as those at Pompeii, you can easily see the whole site in the time at your disposal on a trip from Rome such as ours. Check the Trenitalia timetable here for train times. It's a good idea to buy your train tickets a day or two in advance. You can do this from self-service ticket machines at Termini station.

Fortunately there are several cafes between the station and the scavi - that downhill walk to the site might be a pleasant stroll - uphill on the way back definitely calls for a refreshment stop along the way.

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Website: http://www.proxima-veritati.auckland.ac.nz/Herculaneum/