Rugged and breathtakingly beautiful one minute, flat and featureless the next - there’s something undeniably cool about Scandinavia. There’s a purity to the air, blondness in the hair and a sense of space you won’t find anywhere else in Europe.

There’s so much natural beauty in Scandinavia it’s difficult to know where to start. Iceland is a volcanic hotspot of lava flows, waterfalls and glaciers. Norway has an overwhelming coastline of dramatic steep-sided fjords and mountains. Finland is a patchwork of lakes and pristine forests. Spy on puffins from clifftops, spot whales breaching at sea or pause as a herd of reindeer crosses your path in Lapland.

No other city comes close. It may no longer be caput mundi (capital of the world), but Rome is an epic, bubbling-over metropolis harbouring lost empires. One visit and you’ll be hooked.

Rome has a glorious monumentality that it wears without reverence. Its architectural heirlooms are buzzed around by car and Vespa as if they were no more than traffic islands. The city bombards you with images: Valentino, Bulgari, Dolce & Gabbana: elderly ladies with dyed hair the colour of autumn leaves; priests with cigars; traffic jams beneath Roman aqueducts; plateloads of pasta in shining cafés; sinuous trees beside rust-golden buildings; barrages of pastel-coloured scooters revving up at traffic lights as if preparing for a race.