I knew when I had reached my destination without even having to look at the station‘s name.

An invitation to come to ‘la città eterna’ was not to be resisted. Rome has been part of my heart ever since I first visited it as a schoolkid and this city of cities has recurred constantly in my life ever since. The last time I was in Rome was when our Ghivizzano choir sang there in 2014 (see my post at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/our-choir-sings-at-romes-and-the-worlds-greatest-church/ ).

This time the choir of  Cambridge’s King’s College Chapel (my old university) was to sing in a concert at one of the four great Roman basilicas, Santa Maria Maggiore (in my opinion the most beautiful) and also assist at High Mass in Saint Peter’s basilica the following day.

I truly believe that music can unite the world and the possibility of experiencing the vocal fusion of two such different religio-cultural worlds: that of the Counter Reformation’s high baroque lushness of the centre of Roman Catholicism with that of the Anglican limpidness of one of the greatest of all late gothic buildings was just too irresistible.

My BnB was strategically situated just between St Peter’s and the Castle of Sant’Angelo in a characteristic 19^th century block of flats built around a courtyard.  I received a great welcome and my accommodation was neat, clean and simple, just as I like it.

I itched again to tread on the sanpietrini – those little lava paving cubes so characteristic of this wondrous city but which play havoc to anyone not wearing well-soled and padded shoes and cause big blisters after just two days.

My trainers were good enough and I headed to see the most beautiful example of ancient Roman sculpture – the emperor Augustus’ Ara Pacis – the altar of peace. In his wisdom Augustus proclaimed a new goddess of Peace which would unite the empire into a dawn of harmony and beauty. The historian Gibbon described this era as perhaps’ that time during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous”.

The altar of peace once formed part of a great ritual area in ancient Rome which also included Augustus’ own mausoleum, now being finally restored.

Through the centuries the altar was torn apart, bits broken off and sold to collectors and all but lost to the world. (I sadly regret that this barbarity has continued today with a middle-eastern terrorist state, now hopefully in its last throes, but not before having destroyed so much beauty, and so much of it from the Roman era…)

Eventually, by the end of the nineteenth century archaeologists discovered that the scattered fragments did constitute part of a great altar and, eventually, the Ara was pieced together in a somewhat hurried fashion in time to celebrate the emperor Augustus’s two thousand’s anniversary which occurred during the fascist era.

The building which housed the reconstructed altar was not satisfactory and many will argue that the new one by Meier, and inaugurated in 2006, is equally unsatisfactory. I did not find it so. I loved the natural light the controversial building plays on the exquisite floral and human figures of this most delicate, most moving example of ancient Roman art at its best. I missed out on the evening show which must be quite spectacular as the monument is displayed with lights showing its originally vividly coloured marble statues. (All classical statues were painted once – as, indeed, mediaeval tombs were).

‘Una vita non basta’ – one lifetime is not enough to see Rome as the saying goes. Apart from espousing reincarnation, which is a risky business (unless you are born a cat with nine lives) what else can one do?

I had a check-list of must-sees and the cats (Rome remains famous for its feline colonies) was one of them together with the lush splendour of the Palazzo Barberini. How lucky to be a cat living in Rome’s most splendid palace! I was glad to see that the cats of Rome, after a period of being described as vermin, are now being well-looked after and loved again.

If a house without cats is lifeless how more so is Rome! (Incidentally my BnB hostess kept eleven of them – not where I stayed, I hasten to add but in her other place at Ciampino).