Pantheon Entry Ticket with a Host at Piazza Capranica and a Phone Audio Guide

The day starts in Piazza Capranica, a couple of streets north of the Pantheon, where a host waits with a white flag and sees you through the entrance. After that you are on your own: the audio guide plays from your phone and nobody sets the pace. Inside, the commentary works through the history, the architecture and the stories that have collected around the building over twenty centuries. The dome is the part everyone photographs, but the floor repays attention too. The marble underfoot slopes very slightly towards drainage holes cut for the rain, which comes straight down through the oculus and always has. On the way out, stop in Piazza della Rotonda. The fountain facing the portico was designed in 1575 by Giacomo della Porta and carved in marble; the Egyptian obelisk at its centre, the Obelisco Macuteo, arrived in the eighteenth century when Filippo Barigioni reworked the basin. Dolphins and masks fill the Baroque detail around the rim. The steps are where people sit to eat, to listen to whoever is playing, and to look back at the portico. Nothing about the visit is timed once you are through the door.