Last month, as I sat in an elegant hotel bar in Rome, I caught myself wondering if there can be such a thing as too much magnificence in a single place. With its antiquity (“Just go to the Colosseum, face east and shout, ‘Moira,’ ” my friend joked when I asked how to get to her house), its art and its food, Rome nearly overwhelmed me with its aesthetic and alimentary too-much-ness.

Aperitivo time is the perfect antidote to all that. During that blessed and blissful hour (or two, or three) of easygoing snacking and drinking and talking, time slows, and stress slips away. In Rome, I met the local author — and aperitivo enthusiast — Elizabeth Minchilli, whose most recent book is “Eating Rome.” “I love aperitivo time in Rome because it can be anything you want,” she told me. “It’s that in-between time of day — not work, not dinner — when you can meet as few or as many friends for as long or as short as you like and drink as much or as little as you like. Many other ‘meals’ in Italy have so many rules. But with aperitivo, it’s a social opportunity that you can put your own spin on.”