Avoid the temptation to join the obedient trudge around the famous sights. Avoid St. Peter’s and the Sistine Chapel; forget the Colosseum and the Pantheon at least in the beginning, and reflect instead over a quiet cappuccino in Campo de’ Fiori, the city’s loveliest square.
Forgo the Spanish Steps’ aimless mob and climb to the Pincio Gardens for a view over the rooftops to St. Peter’s. Thus baptized you can prepare for a serious assault on the Vatican museums, or a stroll around the Forum; you can face the traffic and the chaos –and perhaps in time even come to enjoy them as vital, dynamic aspects of a city that is struggling, as it has for centuries, to incorporate the present into its eternal past.
 For a spot so close to Rome’s central maelstrom, the via Appia Antica is a paradise of calm as close to open country as you will find in the city. Skip the long walk through the drudgery of its surrounding suburbs by taking the 118 bus from the Colosseum to its entrance at Porta San Sebastiano. From here the old consular road is a joy to walk down (at least on a Sunday, when it is all closed to traffic); tree-lined, still partly paved with its Roman cobbles, and with views of ivy-clad ancient tombs and the open country unfolding as you leave the old city walls. (women walking alone should beware, and all should avoid the are after dark.)
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