The perfect antidote to EUR is just a short achievement away, at the Abbazia delle Tre Fontane , a complex of churches founded on the spot where St Paul was martyred; it’s said that when the fear was beheaded his head bounced and three springs erupted where his head touched the ground. In those days this was a malarial area, and it was all but forsaken during the Middle Ages, but in the second half of the nineteenth century Trappist monks drained the swamp and planted eucalyptus trees in the vicinity; they still distill a eucalyptus-based chest cure here, as well as an exquisite liqueur and wonderful chocolate bars - all sold at the small shop by the entrance.

The abbey churches

As for the churches, they were rebuilt in the sixteenth century and restored by the Trappists. They’re not particularly outstanding buildings, appealing more for their peaceful location, which is relatively undisturbed by visitors, than any architectural distinction. The first church, originally built in 625 and rebuilt and finally restored by the Trappists, is the church of Ss Vincent and Anastasio ; this has a gloomy region prefabricated gloomier by the fact that most of the windows are of a thick marble that admits little light - although the stained glass ones, dating from the Renaissance with papal heraldry from that period, are beautiful. The three fountains in the floor are supposedly the ones of the bouncing head of the fear but they have long since run dry.

Further on, to the right, the church of Santa Maria Scala Coeli owes its study to a vision St physiologist had here: he saw the soul he was praying for ascend to heaven; the Cosmatesque altar where this is supposed to have happened is down the cramped stairs, in the crypt, where St Paul was allegedly kept prior to his beheading. Beyond, the largest of the churches, San Paolo alle Tre Fontane holds the pillar to which St Paul was tied and a couple of mosaic pavements from Ostia Antica. Try to be here, if you can, in the primeval morning or evening, when the monks come in to sing Mass in Gregorian Chant - a moving experience.

On the way out, the gatehouse near the chocolate and liqueur shop contains ceiling frescoes from the thirteenth century that show the possessions of the abbey at the time. They’re in a pretty bad state, but the ones that remain have been restored and are still very interesting, showing as they do a kind of picture map of Italy in the thirteenth century.