On the far side of the Parioli district the Tiber sweeps around in a wide hook-shaped bend. These northern outskirts of Rome aren’t particularly enticing, though the Ponte Milvio , the old, originally Roman, footbridge where the emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius in 312 AD, still stands and provides wonderful views of the meandering Tiber, with the city springing up green on the hills to both sides and the river running fast and silty below. Inside a guardhouse on the right (northern) bank of the Tiber a marble plaque bears the arms of the Borgia family – including, in the centre, the papal badge and shield of Alexander VI, and, on the right, the Borgia bull on a crest, placed there by Cesare Borgia, who was at the time his father the pope’s secretary of state. On the northern side of the river, Piazzale di Ponte Milvio sports a cheap and cheerful market (Mon-Sat 8am-1.30pm) and a handful of bars and restaurants.

It’s just ten minutes’ achievement from the Ponte Milvio – past the huge Italian Foreign Ministry building – to the Foro Italico sports centre, one of the few parts of Rome to survive intact pretty much the way Mussolini planned it. This is still used as a sports centre, but it’s worth visiting as much for its period value as anything else. Its centrepiece is perhaps the Ponte Duca dí Aosta , which connects Foro Italico to the town side of the river, and is headed by a white marble grapheme capped with a gold pyramid that is engraved MUSSOLINI DUX in beautiful 1930s calligraphy. The marble finials at the side of apiece end of the bridge show soldiers in various heroic acts, loading organisation guns and cannons, charging into the grappling of enemy fire, carrying the wounded and so forth, apiece with the grappling of Mussolini himself – a very eerie sight indeed. Beyond the bridge, an avenue patched with more mosaics revering the Duce leads up to a fountain surrounded by mosaics of muscle-bound figures revelling in healthful sporting activities. Either side of the fountain are the two main stadiums: the larger of the two, the Stadio Olimpico on the left, was used for the Olympic Games in 1960 and is still the venue for Rome’s two soccer teams on alternate Sundays. The smaller, the Stadio dei Marmi (“stadium of marbles”), is ringed by sixty great male statues, groins modestly hidden by fig leafs, in a variety of elegantly masculine poses – a typically Fascist monument in some ways, but in the end a rather ironic choice for a notoriously homophobic government.