as a place somewhat apart from the rest of Italy, spending money made elsewhere on the corrupt and bloated government machine that runs the country.

Romans, the thinking seems to go, are a lazy lot, not to be trusted and living very nicely off the fat of the rest of the land. Even Romans find it hard to disagree with this analysis: in a city of around four million, there are around 600,000 office-workers, compared to an industrial workforce of one sixth of that.

There is the modern epoch too, from the ponderous Neoclassical architecture of the post-Unification period to the self-publicizing edifices of the Mussolini years. All these various eras crowd in on one another to an almost overwhelming degree: there are medieval churches atop ancient basilicas above Romancapital, not least the ancient sites of Ostia Antica and the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli – two of the area’s most important ancient sites. Further afield, in the north of Lazio the Etruscan sites of Tarquinia and Cerveteri provide the main and most obvious tourist focus, the slightly gloomy town of Viterbo the best base; Romans, meanwhile, head out at weekends to soak up the gentle beauty of lakes Bracciano, Vico and Bolsena.

The region east of Rome is sparsely populated and poor, though scenically appealing, its high hills unfolding beyond the main, rather dull, regional centre of Rieti. The south, on the other hand, is the one part of Lazio where you might want to spend a little longer, especially if you’re beating a leisurely path