WHY I LOVE

Shakespeare famously said of Cleopatra, mistress of two mighty Roman commanders, 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety.' He might as well have been speaking of the city of Rome. I love it with an abiding passion, and return whenever I can; and every holiday is new. You could spend a month in Rome and barely have scratched its surface. My husband and I adore the place so much we got married there, in the ancient church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, right in the Campidolgio.

We picked an awkward day, as it turned out, to tie the knot; Pope John Paul II was celebrating his 80th birthday, and invited every priest in Rome to concelebrate Mass with him. In Rome, that is a lot of priests. Result? The city went into gridlock, and by the time my father and I arrived in our horse-drawn carriage at the foot of the endless flight of stone steps that lead up to the church, the cars containing my bridegroom, bridesmaids and family members were nowhere to be found. The poor horse was forced to trot round and round a massive roundabout, until they appeared. Then we were told that the road to the top of the Capitoline was closed to traffic; in my heavy satin gown and full-length cathedral veil (this covers the entire body), I would have to walk up the stairs - all 124 of them, in the blazing Italian sunshine...

Nevertheless, it was a perfect day, encapsulating all that is great about Rome: exquisite food at the Hassler hotel on the Spanish steps; friendly Romans shouting 'Ecce sposa!' and applauding; and tourists videotaping my entire wedding (who on earth wants to see somebody else's wedding video?) The church is a metaphor for the city: glorious and rich, with a fantastic gold ceiling, it is built on the site of the temple of Juno Moneta, and her pillars are inside it still. This is Rome, history never wiped away, but built up, layer upon layer. The well-known Renaissance glories of the Vatican and the Roman centre of the Forum and Colosseum are not the end of Rome, but its beginning.

For my money, once you have made the obligatory visit to the Fountain of Trevi and Piazza Navona, the real sightseeing can begin. Possibly the most underrated site in the city is the amazing Church of San Clemente; it has a Mithraeum and Roman settlements on the lower layers, then rises past one of the earliest paintings of the Assumption (third century) to a main church with a terrifying medieval rendition of the Crucifixion, including demons dragging the bad thief's soul from his mouth, to later Renaissance additions. Other must-sees include the spectacular Jesuit church, the Gesù - try this if the queue for St Peter's is too long - and, just outside the city, the epic baths of Caracalla.

The very best thing to do in Rome is to get pleasantly lost. Beauty and fantastic food will surprise you at every turn. Try going in through the uninspiring doors of a church on the street - nine times out of ten you will find something breathtakingly lovely. The least famous church in Rome might be a top ten destination in another town.

And the food. Others have written exhaustively about the best restaurants and most celebrated dishes but the key thing is to go off the beaten track and look for places where the menu is not written in English. I had a dish of spaghetti al'erbe in one of these places, with a mezzolitro of rough red wine that I can still taste to this day. There was nothing on the pasta but olive oil and finely chopped fresh herbs, and the scent of it hit you right in the face. It was like eating summer in a bowl. A restaurant in Trastevere, the first night we arrived for our last trip, had jugged hare on the menu. And you can regularly get bowls of wild strawberries (fragole di bosco) - if you can tear yourself away from the ice cream.

Rome is the city of decadence still. Banking and services can be anarchic. Supermarket goods are pricey and lack London's variety. The glorious weather and embarrassment of cultural riches mean that the guardians of the city can be slightly sloppy. In a place with so many monuments to care for, all too many of them are abandoned. After my wedding day was over, my husband and I walked down the Spanish Steps, back into town. I divided the bouquet in two, and threw half of it on the spot where Caesar's funeral pyre was and half into the tomb of Augustus, Rome's greatest Emperor, who 'found the city stone and left it marble'.

Yet nothing can negate the thick layer of beauty and magic that sits over the Seven Hills. Drive at dusk past the garish Pyramid of Caius Cestius into the heart of Rome. Park the car. Get out, get lost. You will have the time of your life. And you won't need to throw a coin into the Trevi fountain to ensure you'll be back. Like eating a scoop of stracciatella gelato, once is never enough.

Glitz by Louise Bagshawe (£12.99, Headline Review) is out now.