Castel Sant'Angelo in Two Hours: Treasury, Cells, Apartments

Hadrian built this as his tomb. It has been almost everything since, and the two hours here follow that sequence rather than treating the building as one thing. The burial chamber comes first, at the end of the original Roman ramp, empty now: the imperial ashes were scattered when the place was sacked. Then the papal apartments, decorated for men who were living in a fortress and did not intend to look as though they were. Then the treasure room, where the papacy kept the state finances behind walls thick enough to survive an artillery siege, which is a decision that tells you what the period was like. And then the prison. The same building held cells and carried out public executions, and the rooms are still there. A residence, a strongroom, a gaol and a scaffold, stacked in the same walls. Outside, the angels along the Ponte Sant'Angelo, and at the end the terrace, where the whole city arranges itself below you and the dome of St Peter's is close enough to read. The group is guided throughout. The castle is closed on Mondays.