A stroll on Ponte Sisto.

The best way to soak up the city — and to find some of the quainter (and more affordable) shops — is to zig-zag from vicolo to vicolo (alley), piazza to piazza.

For a good two-hour stroll, start at the bustling Piazza Navona, then head south through Campo dei Fiori, where you'll find cafés and daily food and flower markets, to the beguiling Piazza Farnese, with its pair of fountains and Renaissance palace.

From there, continue toward Ponte Sisto. The ponte (bridge) offers a great perspective on the beauty of Rome, with the Gianicolo hill rising to the west and St. Peter's Basilica to the north. Cross the Tiber to arrive in the utterly charming Trastevere neighborhood, where laundry swings overhead and flowers burst from window boxes.

The current bridge was built by Pope Sixtus IV between 1473 and 1479 as a replacement of a prior Roman bridge named Pons Aurelius.

The bridge is architecturally characteristic because of its central circular "eye".

It connects the popular night-life areas near Campo de' Fiori and Trastevere and has become part of popular culture and recently featured in films, music videos, and adverts.

The Ponte Sisto connects the lively and Popular Piazza Trilussa in Trastevere, where many young Romans gather for an apperitivo on a Friday night, with the via Pettinary and via Giulia in Campo Marte.

On the corner of via Pettinari and via Giulia once stood a fountain, a work

of the Acqua Paola Aqueduct, the water of which was brought over the bridge from the Transtiberim to the Campo Marte via Ponte Sisto.

After the Unification of Italy in 1870, the buildings surrounding this fountain were destroyed, and the fountain itself relocated to Piazza Trilussa on the other side of the bridge, where it delivers water to this day.