Car Hire: Take advantage of the special easyJet inflight rates. Visit the Europcar desk on arrival or call +39 (0)6 7934 0387. Open from 8am-11.30pm seven days a week.

Airport Transfer: Pre-book your door-to-door transfer with easyJet’s transfer partner, Holiday Taxis—from home to the airport, then city or resort (easyjet.holidaytaxis.com).

Taxi: The fare to 40-minute journey to the centre is about €30.

Airport Bus: Terravision, easyJet's transport partner, operates an airport bus that leaves 30 minutes after your flight lands. Tickets: €8 single; €13.50 return.

Car Hire: Take advantage of the special easyJet inflight rates. Visit the Europcar desk on arrival or call +39 (0)6 6576 1211. Open from 7am-midnight seven days a week.

Airport Transfer: Pre-book your door-to-door transfer with easyJet’s transfer partner, Holiday Taxis—from home to the airport, then city or resort (easyjet.holidaytaxis.com).

Train: The Leonardo Express leaves for Termini station every 30 minutes from 6.36am-11.36pm. Tickets: €11. Metropolitan FM1 trains to Roma Tiburtina run from 5.57am, every 15 minutes from 6.27am-7.57pm, then every 30 minutes until 11.27pm. Tickets: €5.50. The journey takes 30 minutes to Roma Ostiense (with a connection to metro line B) and 45 minutes to Roma Tiburtina.

Taxi: There is a taxi rank outside the airport entrance. It should cost about €40 to the centre in a City of Rome licensed cab and €60 in a Fiumicino municipality licensed cab.

Airport Bus: Terravision, EasyJet’s transport partner, operates a service to Termini, departing 30 minutes after your flight lands (irrespective of delays). It takes about 70 minutes. Tickets: €7 single, €12 return. Check return times at the ticket booth.

Mario’s
( 53 Via del Moro. Tel. 06 580 3809 )
A traditional low-key and inexpensive family-run restaurant in the heart of trendy Trastevere. Try the excellent ravioli and vegetable antipasti—but bring a jumper because, like many places in Rome, it is not heated very well!

Vecchia Locanda
( 2 Vicolo Sinibaldi. Tel. 06 688 02831 )
An intimate, welcoming restaurant near Piazza Navona offering classical Roman cuisine. Try the fresh fish or superb home-made pasta with asparagus, clams and shrimps.

Gli Angeletti
( 3 Via Dell’Angeletto. Tel. 06 474 3374 )
Nestling in the picturesque Monte quarter, this restaurant may make you wait for your dinner, but it’s certainly worth it. Try the baked camembert or chickpea gnocchi.

Dal Bolgnese
( 1 Piazza del Popolo . Tel. 06 361 1426 )
Designed to make you feel like you are in a very elegant lounge, you can sip your apéritif while relaxing on a sofa. A haunt of the rich and powerful, and bastion of superb classical Italian cuisine. Try the misto di pasto selection of four pastas for the first course and tagliatelle alla Bolognese for the main.

Caffetteria Nazionale
( 22 Via Nazionale . Tel. 06 489 911 )
This quiet, refined bar halfway down Via Nazionale, is good for a light lunch, a coffee and is a comfortable—if, nowadays, perhaps slightly pricey—place to rest your weary feet.

Caruso-Caffè de Oriente
( 36 Via Monte Testaccio. Tel. 06 574 5019 )
A great venue for salsa fans, with live acts almost every day and Latin American music every night except for Saturday.

Brancaleone
( 11 Via Levanna . Tel. 06 8200 4382 )
If you fancy exploring the youthful, countercultural side of the city, visit this centro sociale, which puts on a mix of concerts, films, art exhibitions and club nights (www.brancaleone.it, Italian only).

Goa
( 13 Via Libetta. )
Some of Europe's best DJs play here in an industrial and ethnic surroundings of wrought-iron and wood in the upcoming Ostiense quarter. House, jungle and techno music predominate.

Feltrinelli, a bookshop and multimedia store in Largo Argentina, also has a pleasant and inexpensive café upstairs. Its vast, plate-glass windows let you look down over the piazza and the crowds passing by (11 Largo Torre Argentina. Tel. 06 6866 3001).

The city’s electric minibuses are really handy. The 116 passes all the major sites before dropping you off on Via Veneto. The 115 runs from Trastevere to the top of the Gianicolo Hill and the 117 will take you from Piazza del Popolo to San Giovanni.

Testaccio—a very unusual post-industrial quarter, replete with an iron bridge and enormous gasometer—is well-known for its clubs, restaurants, bars, and nightlife in general. A short walk from Piramide metro station (Line B).

The theme of Ruins and Rebirth of Art in Italy is the country's success in defending its cultural and artistic heritage. The show includes more than 60 pieces from Italian and international museums (until 15 February. Piazza del Colosseo. Tel. 06 3996 7700).

Tarquinia – One of the biggest Etruscan towns of the eighth and seventh centuries BC. The tombs in Tarquinia's Necropolis are plastered with wall paintings showing banquets, athletes, funerals, dancing and erotic scenes. Take the train from Termini, Ostiense or Trastevere stations.

Romans are known to other Italians for their exceptional canniness. The Emperor Vespasian certainly exemplified this trait with his extremely unpopular charge for the use of public latrines. Given a natural reluctance to pay, we can only imagine that this caused a fair old stink!

Compiled by Alan Goldwater