The last time I was in Rome, I was a 19-year-old inter-railing around Europe with university friends.
We stayed at a cheap hostel with bars on the windows run by an eccentric mother and son (inevitably we nicknamed him "Norman") and the whole trip came to a calamitous end when we were collectively pickpocketed of most of our valuables - mobile phones, purses, passports, rail tickets - at Roma Termini as we waited for the overnight train to Nice, too distracted by eating pizza to observe the thieves assailing our backpacks.
Touching down in the Italian capital more than 20 years later, I was confident that "things could only get better".
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This time my accommodation would be Palazzo Fiuggi, a luxurious medical wellness retreat some 55 miles south-east of Rome.
On the downside, there would be no pizza.
Built in 1913, Palazzo Fiuggi began life as a favourite destination for European aristocracy and Italian royals.
In subsequent decades, it attracted an international jet set that included Pablo Picasso and Ingrid Bergman.
Since reopening three years ago following a major renovation, the multi-award winning resort has played host to celebrities including Oprah Winfrey who enthused that it was the best spa experience of her life following a visit in early 2023.
Nestled amid lush hillsides in a region famed since the 1300s for its "healing" natural spring waters, the hotel's slogan is "for a longer life, better lived".
I arrived, courtesy of the hotel-dispatched chauffeur, just in time for lunch.
Food is one of the aspects which sets Palazzo Fiuggi apart.
Its ethos of "food as medicine" has been crafted by Heinz Beck, the triple Michelin star chef who runs Rome's famous La Pergola restaurant and curates Palazzo's cuisine.
There is no red meat, alcohol, added sugars, or coffee (although they do serve English breakfast tea).
Each guest has their own personalised meal plan, ranging from around 1,200 to 2,500 calories per day depending on their aims, from weight loss and 'detoxing' to building muscle.
I was on the Blue menu - 1,900 calories per day - and no meat, at my own request (the hotel does serve chicken).
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are taken in the spectacular Quattro Continenti ballroom-turned-dining room, replete with chandeliers and frescoed ceilings - although the dress code is casual.
Each morning, you get a menu detailing your set meals for the day: a three-course lunch, four-course dinner, a surprisingly substantial breakfast, plus two snacks (typically a fresh smoothie and a small portion of fruit), all washed down with still or sparkling water and herbal teas.
It is tailored for an optimal balance of protein, fibre, antioxidants, and fatty acids.
I was struck by how much food I could get for 1,900 calories, and how much flavour was packed into each Masterchef-style small plate.
The meals were exquisite. I was never hungry, but never uncomfortably full either.
I dined on everything from sea bream carpaccio with peaches to tortellini stuffed with herb ricotta in a tomato consommé and stuffed calamari with wilted spinach.
Breakfast included honey-sweetened porridge, egg white omelette, poached egg on avocado tartare, and even a mini blueberry muffin (naturally sweetened by the fruit).
Beyond food, Palazzo Fiuggi boasts a vast spa where you can undergo everything from blood analysis and Botox to bone density scans and lymphatic drainage massage.
This is where the world's affluent flock to be poked, prodded, and pampered.
During my stay, there were guests from Japan, India, the Middle East, and the USA, as well as Germany, France, and England.
This is where I headed for the first of two body scans.
For the first - a 3D body scan - I had to stand on a pedestal in nothing but my bikini while I was rotated 360° as the linked computer generated a digital model of my physique detailing precise circumference measurements for everything from my calves to my neck.
The second - Bioelectrical Impedence Analysis (BIA) - passes a weak electrical current through the body to estimate the composition of water, fat, and other minerals.
Both tests also estimate your metabolic rate - the number of calories you burn in a day.
Oddly, the 3D scan suggested that I was around 19% body fat (putting me in the "athletic" range) while the BIA put it at 27%, so it is difficult to know how much to take from the scans - except that I was reassured everything was within "normal" parameters.
If you really want to, there is almost no end to the medical investigations you can opt to undergo if a full-body 'MOT' is your thing.
For me, the main attraction was the relaxation facilities.
There were three pools: a large, heated indoor pool where you could swim, via a tunnel, to an outdoor heated pool overlooking the town and hills of Fiuggi.
The outdoor pool also has a large jacuzzi attached.
A third pool - the huge, cold rectangular "Panoramic pool" - was located in the gardens surrounded by trees and sunloungers, with additional daybeds inside a glass-enclosed terrace.
Wherever I went, there were plentiful empty loungers immaculately prepared with fresh towels and supplies of Fiuggi mineral water.
This was not the sort of place where you had to worry about putting your towel down at 6am.
Most of the time, I was alone.
In the adjacent Roman spa, guests can work their way through a series of rooms at their leisure.
Strolling down from the indoor pool, the first you come to are the twinned hot-and-cold plunge pools which form the Kneipp.
Sebastian Kneipp, a 19th century Bavarian-German priest who pioneered hydrotherapy - the idea that exposing people to water at various temperatures and pressures can have healing effects - believed that all diseases originated in the circulatory system, thus stimulating blood flow by switching between hot and cold water would boost health.
Setting aside my scepticism for pseudoscience, I gave it a try.
You are advised to complete 10 circuits, walking first through the waist-deep warm pool and then through the cold.
It is breath-takingly icy at first, but quite pleasant by the fifth round and left my legs with a nice tingling sensation.
Further into the Roman spa there are separate ladies and gents spa lounges, each furnished with its own sauna, steam room, and cold plunge pool looking out onto the gardens through floor to ceiling windows.
Additionally there is an infra-red sauna.
There is some evidence that exposure to infra-red light can boost circulation and hasten muscle repair.
In my case, the warming effect against my back and neck felt like it soothed what few tensions and niggles remained after a blissful aromatherapy massage earlier in the day.
Palazzo Fiuggi also boasts a Thalasso Spa, which can be booked for one-hour each day and accommodates a maximum of four people at once (mostly, I had the place to myself).
Thalasso is the use of sea water and sea minerals - mud, seaweed - as a form of therapy.
Thalasso Spa at #PalazzoFiuggi #Italy pic.twitter.com/4BU2CbRdCN
— Helen McArdle (@HMcArdleHT) June 21, 2024
Guests are given shower caps and inflated neck pillows so that they can lie back and float in each of the two large, warm pools - one magnesium-enriched to create a Dead Sea-like buoyancy, and a second salt water pool.
After 12 minutes in each, you are advised to plunge yourself into (yet another) icy cold pool, this time so frigid that I sounded more like Sergeant Howie being dragged towards the Wicker Man than someone enjoying peak relaxation.
I lasted about 10 seconds.
Beyond the luxury of the resort itself - which also includes a cinema room and state-of-the-art gym - one of the must-do's during a visit to Fiuggi is a morning hike.
The hotel offers a Hiking for Longevity programme where guests can go on various guided hikes each day, but it is also possible to book them "a la carte" if you prefer a one-off trip.
They can even provide walking boots and poles for amateurs (like myself) who come unprepared.
On the third day of my stay, myself and two other guests - a television producer from Paris who was at Palazzo for stress relief, and a 26-year-old Greek woman from London who was at the end of an eight-year recuperation from chronic fatigue - were picked up outside the hotel at 8am, and whisked 45 minutes up into the mountains to our setting-off point.
The fresh air, sunshine, and scenery of Italy in June has to be one of the best natural tonics there is.
We walked for over three hours through a picturesque valley, led by our two patient and friendly Italian guides.
This was moderately-paced, moderately-difficult hiking that anyone with a decent level of fitness could enjoy.
We were back in time for lunch, with nothing but another afternoon of luxurious repose stretching before us.
Would I really extend my lifespan if I lived like this every day? Who knows. But I'd love to try it.
Helen McArdle was a guest of Palazzo Fiuggi on the Taster Programme, which is available over four nights with prices starting from £3,189 per person based on two sharing and inclusive of all accommodation, food & beverages, and treatments within the programme
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