Rome for The Curious Wanderers: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

The only surviving door of Villa Palombara, carved with the formulae of a seventeenth-century alchemist who claimed to have made gold; in the park's railings.

Several studios in Monti teach the Roman micromosaic technique; book a two-hour evening session and leave with a coaster you made.

A family trattoria in Monti where the kitchen is run by the daughters and the walls by the father's photographs; the ravioli are the thing.

Descend from a twelfth-century basilica to a fourth-century church to a Mithraic temple, with the river still running beneath; an hour underground.

A circular fifth-century church ringed with frescoes of martyrdoms, almost always empty; the gatekeeper lets you in and leaves you alone.

Cacio e pepe mixed at the table since 1936, in a room of regulars; the waiter stirs, you watch, and the second course is lamb.

The Sunday flea market from the gate down the river: antique tools, prints, bicycles, and the odd Roman coin of doubtful provenance.

Borromini's forced-perspective gallery, eight metres that read as thirty-seven; the statue at the end is sixty centimetres tall.

Fried artichokes and amatriciana on a quiet square away from the Trastevere crowd; the tables outside need booking, inside you can chance it.

Pizza bianca straight from the oven, with the bakers still pulling trays; the breakfast of the city, eaten standing in the street.

A single room in a neo-gothic church holding scorched handprints said to be left by souls in purgatory; the sacristan opens it on request.

Roman stews stuffed in a pizza pocket, the artisan street food of the last decade, at the original stand; then the Piramide metro and the airport train.