ROMA

Note: This is one of two pieces I wrote for a travel writing competition that won me a cool 50 pounds. The other piece is longer and decidedly angsty, so I'm debating whether or not to publish it here.

ROME

You can easily walk Rome in a day, so if you've bought a map larger than a placemat you've probably been conned. Here is how to get the most out of your day in fifteen simple steps:

1. Start at the Basilica of St. Peter, avoiding the marathon that's been put off until the day you arrived to make things a bit more interesting. Take the subway: Even though you can walk just about anywhere in Rome in about an hour, it's worth taking the subway at least once to see the graffiti that covers every square inch of every car -- including the windows, which will make it difficult to find your stop. When you finally get through the long line leading into the Basilica, stare blankly at the various religious paintings and statues for a respectable period of time, and try not to shudder as the Latin hymns at mass reverberate and drift through the cavernous palace. Also try not to think about how many people have stuck their fingers in the holy water.

2. Pass the St. Peter's museum, which is never open when you think it will be because that guidebook was written by Italians for Americans and is necessarily riddled with misinformation.

3. Pass the market on Via Andrea Doria, which is also closed the day you're visiting, but is a great place to get an inexpensive meal on any other day, provided you can speak Italian and have even the slightest understanding of the metric system.

4. Walk along the Tiber to the Umberto I bridge, where you can cross to get lost looking for the Pantheon. It's completely obstructed inside by scaffolding, anyway, so you might be better off buying a postcard.

5. Skip the Spanish Steps, because what's the big deal about a bunch of steps, and besides the person you're with has been there. Instead, go to the Trevi fountain off Via Del Tritone for the best gelato in the city -- if only because the place has been written up in the New York Times, which, as it turns out, is the only reliable newspaper in Europe.

6. From here you can go north if you like, up those Spanish Steps, which aren't much more than the name suggests (at any rate, stop at the Cafe Grecco for cappuccino, even though you never drink the stuff) and onward north until you hit the park in Villa Borghese, which is littered with dog poop but otherwise quite beautiful.

7. Pass the time at the Museum of Modern Art and pretend you know what it is you're looking at (because you saw that film once). Say something pretentious if you're with the opposite sex and otherwise say nothing. There's a giant hot air balloon you can look for if you get lost in the park, and when you reach it, you're five minutes from Piazza del Popolo, which allows the best view of Rome outside of the hot air balloon itself.

8. From here you can walk south down Via Del Corso all the way to Venezia Piazza. Look at the "Wedding Cake," an extravagant government building erected in the 15th century as a papal residence, and be sure to snort loudly and exclaim to your traveling mate, "Bah! The Italians HATE that thing!" as you snap a picture.

9. From here you can either walk to the Colosseum, which is better to view at night if you donít plan on going inside anyway (you should avoid this if your primary interest stems from the Russell Crowe film -- very disappointing, indeed) or the Imperial Forum, which will bewilder and possibly bore you if you don't know anything about Roman history, or mesmerize you if you know everything about Roman history. Since there is no in-between, pick a side and plan accordingly.

10. Backtrack to the "Wedding Cake," because regardless of what those Italians say (apparently), its sheer massiveness and flagrant disregard for any semblance of architectural refinement makes your heart flutter a little and reminds you of America.

11. Walk along Via Vittorio Emanuele II to the Teatro Argentina, which is notable for its dozens of stray cats. Quietly marvel for a moment at a city with so much history that it can spare a monument for a cat dump.

12. Get lost walking to the Jewish ghetto, which is difficult to find because it's exactly one block around, a fact that is so depressing and so miraculous when you really think about it. But you probably won't, because you've been lost for over an hour and you're starving and losing daylight. Be sure to try the renowned Jewish fried artichoke incorrectly, since asking for instructions would be slightly more embarrassing than making a minor spectacle. Also stop at the bakery that burns all of the cookies, and has amazingly built a solid reputation and steady clientele on this suspiciously misanthropic culinary style. Don't bother to take a picture of the synagogue, because if you lean back far enough over the edge of Lgt. Dei Vallati road to fit the image in your viewfinder, you'll have fallen in the Tiber.

13. Walk along the river and kiss your companion if your relationship permits.

14. Cross at Ponte Garibaldi to get to Trestevere, where you will scour a square mile looking for an amazing and ridiculously inexpensive restaurant -- the one adorned with a Popeye cartoon that probably wouldn't be all that funny in English, either. Don't expect to find it: What the Italians have kept secret, much to their credit, is that the alleyways of Trestevere were built upon a gigantic rail system, and with a few pulls of a series of levers, entire streets are freely rotated on their axes, reconfiguring like a horizontal Rubix cube about once a week. If you get out there early enough on a Saturday morning (strangely, no tourist ever has), you can see the borough unearth itself and shift right before your eyes. So settle for pizza instead -- which, incidentally, the Italians wouldn't touch with a stick -- and get lost again, this time in the dark. No map will save you this time, because no one has taken on the grueling task of charting Trestevere for obvious reasons.

15. Now you've seen everything there is to see in Rome, except for everything you've missed, and at any rate you've taken the three pictures (Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, "Wedding Cake") anyone will care to see (the lattermost being your parents' absolute favorite -- genuine Roman architecture, they'll say! If only the Freedom Tower had such grace!). Those three pictures are all you'll remember in a few years anyway, except for the spotty bus system, which was three-quarters on strike that day, and most of the restaurants, provided they weren't Italian. Fall asleep early, your feet bruised and sore from traversing cobblestones for twelve hours, and wake up in the middle of the night in time to get to Termini station so that you don't miss the bus to your early flight back. And do be careful -- that area of Rome is a bit dodgy this time of night.