King of the hill

Stuart Reid on the joy of renting an apartment in Rome ook at this,' I said. "Key management". What's that all about?' My wife winced. 'I suppose it's about key management,' she said, and immediately returned to her book.

We were halfway to Rome and I was reading the user manual for the apartment we had taken for the weekend. It ran to 11,652 words and was beginning to do my head in.

Most of it was about keys. Mrs Odile Taliani, who owns and manages the apartment and wrote the manual, has a thing about keys. She also has a thing about capital letters. For example: `. . AND THEN TURN YOUR KEY ONCE TO DOUBLE LOCK SECURELY. OTHERS WITH KEYS THEN ONLY HAVE TO OPEN BY TURNING THEIR KEYS TWICE INSTEAD OF ONCE.' And: `. . . . it is essential always to shut shutters and windows especially those which give on to balconies/terraces, and TURN THE FRONT DOOR TOP KEY (SEE ABOVE) TWICE IN THE LOCK EVEN WHEN YOU GO OUT OF THE HOUSE EVEN FOR QUICK SHOPPING and especially when you leave, for the absolute safety of your and our things — for which we accept no responsibility for the duration of your stay — and above all for your peace of mind!'

Nor does Mrs Taliani suffer fools gladly: 'We do NOT run a hotel with a hall porter. We run SELF-catering apartments. It is necessary to look after oneSELF and think for oneSELE' I was being tested, I reflected miserably as the gas-guzzling Ryanair 737 prepared to land at Ciampino. And I was going to fail. But I didn't. I passed, thanks to Bruno, Mrs Taliani's driver, who picked us up at the airport (€65).

Bruno taught me key management in one easy lesson. Here's the deal: you stick the key in the lock, turn it once, and, hey presto, the door opens. There is nothing more to worry about; you can throw away the user manual. 'Wow,' I said to Bruno. 'That's amazing.' He shrugged and smiled, and said: 'No problem.' Then added affectionately: 'Mrs Taliani!'

The dear woman richly deserves her admiring exclamation mark. So do her apartments (which I found in The Spectator classifieds). In fact, 'apartments' hardly does the accommodation justice. Ours was one of four in Villa Habsburg, all Mrs Taliani's majestic pile on the Coelian Hill. It had two double bedrooms, both en suite, a dressing room, a kitchen and a big sitting room that opened on to a terrace and the scent of jasmine. It was bliss. My wife grabbed the big easy-chair and settled down for a good read. (Why must she read all the time? Why can't she just stare into space like everybody else?) 'You know what?' she said. 'This is just like Tuscany.' She hadn't said that since we were in the Western Cape last year.

A few steps from the terrace, in front of the villa, is a perfect lawn. In one direction you can see the dome of St Peter's; in another the Baths of Caracalla. Beyond the lawn is a paddock filled with poppies (in May) and beyond that — at the back of the villa — is a steep path lined with palm trees that leads to the entrance to the estate. The path is bordered on one side by the Aurelian wall, built in the third century as a protection against the barbarians. At the gate wild, whimpering, oneeyed cats stare reproachfully at you. A local woman feeds them.

It is ridiculously lovely and, at a special rate of £130 a night, ridiculously good value.

(It can be quite a bit more expensive at busy times of the year, however; go to www.valleycastle.com and check details.) Within a few minutes' walk of the apartment are a bakers, a supermarket and a shop where you can buy buffalo mozzarella shipped in daily from Campagnia for €1.50 a ball. It's a perfect place to chill.

The Baths of Caracalla, built in the 3rd century, are just down the road (actually, a fearsomely busy highway), and they are stupendous. I'd not been there before, and I was overwhelmed by their size — the main building was 750ft long by 380ft wide and 125ft high with room for 1,600 bathers at a time — and by the intricate mosaics (bulls, boats, fish, dizzying 3D patterns).

A few minutes' walk in the opposite direction is the basilica of SS Giovanni e Paulo, built in Al) 398, beneath which are Roman ruins (some from the 1st century) with gorgeously pretty pagan and Christian frescoes.

Rome central is a short bus ride away, though you can walk to the Colosseum in ten minutes and to St John Lateran in five. I did not get the hang of the buses, though — sheer laziness — so we did a bit of foot-slogging (and snarling). One epic yomp was to the Quirinale. It took about 45 minutes to get there, and I was in a muck sweat by the time we arrived. On this occasion we had a lunch date with a Jesuit from Indiana — let's call him Fr Brown — who is the friend of a friend in Washington, and, unusually for a Jesuit, is a conservative.

He took us to a restaurant near the Trevi Fountain and turned out to be an amusing and entertaining companion. We talked about gays, guns and the old Latin Mass. My wife, who is a bit wet, became agitated when Fr Brown suggested, mildly, that if the students at Virginia Tech had been armed there would have been no massacre. 'Excuse me,' Mrs Reid said sharply, tut you are just using logic to make absurd points. And if you don't mind my saying so, your arguments are so male.'

There was silence for a moment. The sun went in. The tourists at the Trevi Fountain froze in their trainers. Then we laughed and moved on.

The next day, Sunday, was our last day in Rome. I twice tried to go to Mass at St Peter's. Both times I was driven back by the queues. It's no good telling one of the bouncers that you are a left-footer and want to keep the Sabbath just a tiny bit holy. He'll just shrug politely and indicate that you have to wait your turn behind the tourists.

Later, I popped into St John Lateran for the midday liturgy, but left in disgust. It was a circus — soppy music, soppy smiles, dancing girls, scores of priests concelebrating in the name of global solidarity (what's wrong with Roman universalism?), Filipino nuns with digital cameras, people swigging from bottles of water and soft drink.

So I went to Rome and didn't go to Mass on Sunday. Next time I'll head for San Gregorio dei Muratori (St Gregory of the Builders), in the Via Leccosa, where they say only the unreformed rite (at 9 a.m., 10.30 and 6.30 p.m.) and there are no bouncers or tourists and, of course, no dancing girls. It's not far from St Peter's, either, so you can pop into the basilica after lunch and gawp at the Pieta.