When in Rome..?

...do as tourists have done for centuries. Drape yourself down the Spanish Steps and watch the world go by.

A glorified rest stop?

Heaps of foreign bodies turn them into a vertical beach at the first hint of sunshine.

Is that their raison d' être?

Constant visitors to the sophisticated Piazza di Spagna needed somewhere to park their weary sightseeing thighs. The Pope obliged in 1725.

Are the steps as beautiful as the square?

Being supremely Baroque, they have served as the backdrop to countless artists' models.

What's at the top?

The lovely if simple Trinita dei Monti church, paid for by the King of France.

What was he doing here?

The steps originally linked the French quarter above with the Spanish embassy to the Holy See in the piazza below.

How romantic.

With a capital R when Keats, Byron, Shelley and their cronies arrived in the 19th century. The poets made the Piazza di Spagna their Italian HQ.

Have they left mementoes?

Locks of hair, death masks and more than 9,000 volumes of their works lie in the Keats-Shelley Memorial House at number 26.

A significant address?

It's the pink house next to the steps where John Keats spent the last three months of his life and died in 1821.

Do artists and writers still hang out here?

Nowadays you're just as likely to step over lolling backpackers waiting for a table to become free at the enormous McDonald's on the square - the first in Rome.

Hardly something to write home about?

But preferable, perhaps, to running up huge bills round the corner in Caffe Greco, haunt of the literati since the time of Goethe.

I'll count the steps instead.

Why climb to 138 when you can sit on Bernini's Barcaccia fountain, rinse your feet and gaze up.

Sounds an apt place to begin a spring break?

Particularly in May when the steps are awash with pots of azaleas.

Who will take me?

Most city-break tour operators can oblige. Two nights with Time Off (0870 5846363), for example, start at £275pp.