Squares, churches, fountains, outstanding mansions: lines intersected one another following curves and diagonals, waters that gush creating gleaming surfaces, porous stones that release daylight in different shades. Everywhere is a synthesis of emotion and seduction.

3 hours - walking tour

The Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria is renowned for the Extasy of St Teresa, a beautiful statue sculpted by Bernini: what a scandal it caused throughout the centuries!

Nearby there's a crossroad, the only spot in the city from which you can have an idea of the "seven hills" of Rome. On a corner stands the Church of St Carlino, such a small one that it could be fit inside one of the pillars that are bearing St Peter's dome up.

Piazza Barberini looks now like a roundabout, strangled by the heavy traffic of Rome. Yet it was once set in a rustic landscape which emphasized the high jet of water coming out of the Fountain of the Triton, another masterpiece made by Bernini to honour his friend and patron, Pope Urban VIII Barberini, whose family's mansion faces the square.

If you look at it carefully, Piazza Sant'Ignazio is smaller than the façade of the Church of St Ignace. But you are not aware of this! Father Andrea Pozzo, a Jesuite, painted a glorious fresco on the vault of the church and also included a false perspective at the crossing showing a soaring dome because... money were finished.

The Trevi Fountain is world wide known because you throw coins to ensure a return trip to Rome. Yet everybody misses a peculiar detail: another illusion created by... the water itself!

Piazza Navona hides a secret underneath: the ruins of the Stadium built in 86 A.D. to perform athletic contests and naval fightings. The Pamphilj Palace and St Agnes' compete in beauty with the Fountain of the Rivers. It is told that Bernini veiled the head of the statue of the Nile to offend his rival Borromini who built the church...but it's just a legend.