The Pantheon Was Not Supposed to Be This Good

I'll be real with you… before I visited, my entire knowledge of the Pantheon could be summed up as "it's old and it's in Rome and you have to go." It was firmly in the checkbox category of our trip. See the Pantheon ✅ Except nobody warned me that checking that box would turn into one of the most genuinely mind-blowing experiences of the whole trip.

You walk through these enormous ancient bronze doors - the original bronze doors, by the way, from nearly 2,000 years ago - and your eyes go straight up. And then you just… stop. Because the dome above you is one of the most spectacular things you’ll ever see!

That Dome Though 

I genuinely stood there with my mouth open. The dome is perfect… like, structurally flawless, and just as beautiful to look at.

The oculus, that perfect circular opening at the very top, is completely open to the sky. No glass, no covering. Just a beam of light that moves slowly across the interior throughout the day, filling the whole space with a soft glow.

And when it rains? Apparently, the rain falls straight through, right into the building - which, yes, sounds odd at first until you find out the Romans built a drainage system into the floor that still works perfectly today, nearly 2,000 years later. Of course they did!

The Floor Is an Engineering Marvel (No Really)

Okay so while your eyes are busy being completely overwhelmed by the dome, look down for a second because the floor also deserves a moment.

It's laid in this gorgeous pattern of circles and squares, using original Roman marble - most of it sourced from across their entire empire… we’re talking Turkey, Greece, Egypt, North Africa.

The floor is raised slightly in the middle so that any rainwater from the oculus naturally flows outward toward the drainage holes at the edges. It's so subtle you'd never notice it. But it works! And makes you stop and think about just how extraordinary these people were.

Should You Visit? (Obviously Yes)

Buy your tickets in advance. I cannot stress this enough. The line to get into the Pantheon can be long, we're talking losing-precious-Rome-time long.

We booked ours ahead of time online and walked straight past the queue and in through the doors like absolute pros.