Places to see in Italy

A Roman temple that has been in continuous use for nearly two thousand years, with the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built and a nine-metre hole open to the sky. Ten minutes inside is enough to be worth the trip, which makes it the easiest thing in Rome to fit into a day. Rain falls through the oculus onto a sloped, drained floor.

A small baroque square behind the palace, framed by the brick curve of Palazzo Carignano where the first Italian parliament sat. The arcaded streets around it are the point of Turin — kilometres of covered pavement, and the historic cafés that invented the city's chocolate habit are on them.

The centre of Bologna and the room the whole city passes through — town hall on one side, the unfinished basilica on another, and people sitting on the steps at every hour. Free, open and the natural place to start. The covered market streets run off its eastern corner.

Built on the footprint of a Roman stadium, which is why it is a long oval rather than a square, with Bernini's Four Rivers fountain in the middle. The cafés on it charge for the position; the streets one block west do not. Best in the evening, and the natural place to end a walk through the old centre.

Sorrento's centre and the hinge of the whole town — the road down to the marina drops off one side, the old lanes run off the other, and everyone passes through it in the evening. Cafés on the square charge for the position. The point of Sorrento is that it is a base, and this is where the base begins.

A Romanesque country church just south of Panzano, with a portico, a quiet churchyard and cypresses. Free, usually empty, and five minutes off the main road. The kind of stop that makes a driving day feel like Tuscany rather than a series of tasting rooms.

A narrow wine bar on Via Tornabuoni, open since 1885 and famous for one thing — small truffle butter rolls, eaten standing with a glass of white.

The only piazza in Venice — everything else is a campo — and the lowest point in the city, which is why it floods first. Ringed by cafés with orchestras and prices to match. Best at seven in the morning before the day boats arrive, and after ten at night when they have gone.

A pasta and bread shop in the Quadrilatero, in the same family since 1868 — fresh tortellini by weight, and the place to assemble what you take into the Osteria del Sole.

A single small room off Piazza Castello, panelled in leather and marble since 1907, where the tramezzino was invented. Standing room mostly, and a good stop between the palace and the Egyptian Museum.

A cave dwelling left furnished as it was when families, and their animals, lived in one room here into the 1950s. Ten minutes and cheap, and it does more to make sense of the Sassi than any amount of walking above them.

Pisa's other square, five minutes from the tower and almost empty by comparison — Vasari's sgraffito facades and the university that Galileo attended. The reminder that Pisa is a working city with a life beyond one lawn. Ten minutes, on the walk between the tower and the river.

Florence's civic square, open-air sculpture gallery and the front door of the Palazzo Vecchio. The Loggia dei Lanzi on one side holds real Renaissance sculpture that anyone can walk up to for free, including Cellini's Perseus. Crossed constantly; worth ten minutes standing still.

The view back at Locorotondo from the valley road — a circular white town on a low hill, which is exactly what its name says. The Itria valley around it is the trulli country, and driving between these towns is the actual activity in this part of Puglia.

Naples' answer to Milan's arcade, built a decade later on a similar scale, directly opposite the opera house. Free, roofed, and a useful shortcut in rain. Worth looking up at the glass and down at the zodiac set into the floor, then moving on.

A glass-roofed arcade from the 1870s linking the cathedral to La Scala, and the ancestor of every shopping centre since. Free to walk through and expensive to sit down in. Two minutes in passing, longer if you want the mosaic floor and the bull that people spin a heel on for luck.

Rome's best-known gelateria, family-run since 1900, a few streets from the Pantheon. Pay first, take the receipt to the counter — the queue moves faster than it looks.

Naples' great civic space, a colonnaded curve facing the royal palace, and one of the few places in the old city with room to breathe. No traffic, concerts in summer, and the point where the tight streets of the centre finally open onto the bay. Ten minutes, usually on the way to something else.

The medieval bridge lined with goldsmiths' shops, the only one in Florence the retreating army left standing in 1944. Crossed rather than visited — five minutes on it, and the better photographs are from the next bridge downstream at either end of the day. The Vasari Corridor runs above the shops.

The oldest bridge over the Grand Canal, and the busiest place in Venice at midday. The view along the canal from the top is the reason to push through. The market on the far side, in the morning, is the better half of the visit — fish, vegetables and locals actually shopping.

A baroque waterfall wedged into a small square, and far bigger in person than photographs suggest. Crowded from mid-morning until late; genuinely worth seeing at seven in the morning or after midnight, when it is lit and nearly empty. A ten-minute stop rather than a destination, and on the walk between the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps.

A coffee bar beside the Pantheon that has been roasting its own since 1946 and is still where Romans stop rather than tourists. Order at the till, drink standing.

The enclosed white bridge between the Doge's Palace and the prisons, seen from the waterfront bridge beside it, where a permanent scrum of people photograph it. Five minutes from outside; the inside is part of the palace visit, and the view out through its stone lattice is deliberately almost nothing.

A medieval house with a balcony added in the twentieth century to satisfy visitors, in a courtyard whose walls are covered in graffiti and chewing gum. Included here because everyone asks and it is thirty seconds off the main street — but it is a photograph rather than a visit, and the paid interior adds little.

The baroque crossroads where the two main streets meet, each of the four curved corners carved in tiers with a season, a king and a patron saint. Traffic runs through it constantly. Five minutes of looking up, and the point from which the old quarters are easiest to navigate.