Rome is a heady blend of artistic and architectural masterpieces, classical ruins, and extravagant baroque churches and piazzas. The places evoke the people -- Roman emperors concerned with outdoing their predecessors in grandeur, powerful prelates enmeshed in intricate scandals, geniuses summoned by popes to add to the Vatican's treasures, a dictator who left his mark on the city before his imperial dreams were shattered, and the contemporary Romans, full of the earthy energy that makes this a city of unique vitality.

Rome is Italy's treasure trove, packed with masterpieces from more than two millennia of artistic achievement. It's here that a metropolis once bustled around the carved marble monuments of the Roman Forum, where centuries later Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) painted Christian history in the Sistine Chapel, where Gian Lorenzo Bernini's nymphs and naiads dance in their fountains, and where an empire of gold was worked into the crowns of centuries of rulers.

Definately worth a trip!