For a true travel experience in Italy, skip the famous places

The baths of Caracalla in Rome.

There was no escaping it. Try as one might, there was no way out but to go with the dense flow of sweaty humanity.

This was the Vatican Museum with its endless galleries of some of the finest art Western civilisation had ever produced – scores of highlights obstructed from full view by fellow journeymen, many of whom were trying to make the most of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.