Private Pantheon Tour in 40 Minutes, with an Optional Second Walk

Forty minutes, a guide who is yours alone, and the ticket included. That is the core booking, and it is timed to what the building actually takes: one room, one dome and a portico, none of which needs an hour and a half. The meeting point is the fountain in the middle of Piazza della Rotonda, below the obelisk. Look for the yellow TOURIKS label and arrive five minutes early. The guide starts outside with the facade and the square before going in, which is the right order: the portico makes more sense before the dome than after it. Inside, the subject is the engineering of the largest dome the ancient world produced, the marble floor you are standing on, the Corinthian columns brought from Egypt, and how a temple to all the gods became a church holding the tombs of martyrs, Italian royals and Raphael. The tour can be extended by another forty minutes through the squares and churches around the Pantheon, chosen at the time of booking. That second walk is where Bernini's elephant, the Temple of Hadrian and Piazza Navona come in.