Around 10million self-taking tourists cram into Rome's streets and around its ancient sites each year. But it wasn't always so. These fascinating vintage pictures taken in 1956 show a far less hectic Eternal City.

The black-and-white snaps were captured by photographer Allan Hailstone, from Coventry, on a trip to Rome as a schoolboy in August 1956 with his father and a friend. They had been inspired to go after seeing the 1954 movie Three Coins in the Fountain.