Rome Through the Ages: Eight Stops, Two Hours, Pantheon Inside

Two hours, eight stops, and a route that moves forward in time rather than round in a circle. It starts at Palazzo Colonna and reaches the Trevi Fountain, where the coin goes in over the shoulder. Then the columns of the Temple of Hadrian, standing in a wall built around them fifteen centuries later, and San Luigi dei Francesi, where three Caravaggios hang in one chapel and cost nothing to see. The Pantheon is the part with a ticket attached: a guided visit inside, entry included, covering how a building nearly two thousand years old still has its roof, and why the dome and the oculus work as one piece of geometry rather than two separate features. After that, Piazza Navona and Bernini's fountains, Largo Argentina where Julius Caesar was killed, and Piazza Venezia under the Vittoriano to finish. Eight stops in a little over two hours means brisk walking and short distances, which in this part of Rome they are.