It was a last minute holiday. Three of us, Christian, Fran, and I, got on our cheap and cheerful go flight to Rome Ciampino in the Easter holidays in 1999. Armed with nothing but a Rough Guide, the BBC Italian Phrasebook, and an antique guidebook from Fran's family library, we set off into the city centre after touchdown.

It was more like Christmas than Easter, since we couldn't find a room anywhere. We ended up walking for what seemed like miles to the accompaniment of Fran's whinging about her rucsac, including three sides of a block before finding what was to be our last enquiry. The place in question was in the charge of a little lady who didn't speak a word of English; luckily, I'd been reading my BBC book on the plane, and my natural affinity for the local lingo got us una camera per tre - after all, what's Italian but the bastard son of Latin?

Our room was all we needed, so after a good night's sleep, we set out to explore the Eternal City. Our first visit was to the Roman Forum, where great things had happened, which I'd been reading about since I was 11; where Caesar met his end, where Cicero denounced Catiline, where the Senators formulated their strategies against Hannibal's Carthage... where the signage is shit! If I think of every monument that English Heritage get their claws on, I picture information boards in six languages. At the Roman Forum, we got tiny signs in abbreviated Italian. Hmph. Luckily, nothing had changed since Fran's antique guidebook had been written, so we worked it all out on our own.

I won't begin to express my amazement here that all of these monuments were still standing, or how magical it was for me to see buildings that I've read about in speeches written by men thousands of years dead. Oops. There I go doing it anyway...

After the Forum, we wandered down to the Coliseum, Vespasian's monster amphitheatre, where we hired, in true student style, one audioguide between three. This meant that I had to say what I was hearing as I heard it - which isn't as easy as it sounds! And of course I wandered round translating stuff to find the other two had wandered off, or read the translation on a plaque or something.

On the same day, we wandered into the centre a bit more, took in the Spanish Steps (which was quite sad - all the postcards had pictures of blue skies and flowers, and it was of course raining cats and dogs when we were there); it was quite strange, we were wandering through all these little squares and streets, and every other piazza had a Roman column, or some papal monument, and it was in this way that we found the Fontana di Trevi and the Pantheon. Both beautiful monuments, but both would look better in the sun! And everywhere we went, there were guys screaming, "ombrelli! ombrelli!", and we were thinking, "why didn't we bring umbrellas with us?"

The following day we got up early to go to the Vatican, because we'd heard from a loud English couple in a restaurant (who'd seen the Pope that day) that you had to get in early to avoid the queues. So we zipped on over to the Vatican museum and were duly gobsmacked by hall after hall of beautiful artworks, which led us eventually to the holy grail of the day - la Capella Sistina, the Sistine Chapel. The ceiling was unspeakably beautiful, and the frescoes on the walls, although in restauro, were breathtaking. Sadly, the atmosphere was lacking, and periodically we'd hear announcements in ten languages along the lines of "shut up, no pictures, no camcorders", and people kept on snapping, recording, and talking. I was a little disappointed, and I had a very sore neck when I left. In a large courtyard after the chapel, there was this large globe sculpture, which looked like a kind of bronze version of the Death Star! But anyway, the only remarkable thing about it was that I saw a smaller version in Dublin.

We picked a great day to visit the Vatican, but not the best time of year. We walked around the outside of Piazza San Pietro to get the best view of St Peter's, and when we turned round, we saw that the whole thing was covered in scaffolding. It was before Easter, and it turned out that all of Rome was in restauro! Hmph. Still, it was a fantastic building, and a beautiful piazza. We went in, gawped and wondered at the sheer luxury of it, then climbed the stairs. We were quite surprised (and delighted) to find that on the roof of St Peter's, there's a gift shop run by nuns, and filled with little plastic madonnas and miniature basilicas and thimbles and things. Holy tack! A little further up, we got to the actual cupola, and the view was spectacular; it was brisk and breezy, but it was a fine panorama of Rome.

In the afternoon, we wandered across the river to Castel Sant' Angelo - a castle on the north bank of the Tiber, across a bridge watched over by angels. There we had a look around, sat and had frascati in the sunshine, and generally mooched. In the evening, we returned to Planet Hollywood, where we'd had happy hour cocktails the night before, and then discovered the hard way that happy hour doesn't exist in the restaurant. Still, that's what credit cards are for.

Fran and I spent our last day (Christian was in bed with a migraine) zipping round more Roman/papal monuments, including the Lateran, and Santa Maria Maggiore. Unfortunately, we just didn't have time to look at everything we (ok, I) wanted to. But I'm sure it won't be the last time I go to Rome. I've got my Lonely Planet and map ready for the next trip.