🇮🇹The Pantheon, Rome: Tickets, Timing and Why the Dome Still Matters
Nearly two thousand years old, almost perfectly preserved, and still holding the record for the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built. €5, half an hour, and the anchor of any historic-centre walk.
2026-09-05
The Pantheon as it stands was completed around AD 125 — an earlier building on the site dated from 27 BC and burned down in AD 69. It is very nearly the only ancient Roman building to survive intact, and its dome is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, nineteen centuries later.
That's not trivia. Brunelleschi came here to study it before building the dome in Florence; so did most of the architects who followed. The oculus at the top is open to the sky — when it rains, it rains inside, and the sloped floor drains it away.
Visitor information
Time needed: about 30 minutes. The building is one room, and the impact is immediate.
Tickets: €5 for adults, €2 for EU residents aged 18–25, free under 18.
Opening hours: 9:00–19:00. Last entry 18:30, ticket office closes 18:00.
Closures: 1 January and 25 December.
Free days: the first Sunday of each month. You can't book ahead for these — it's the on-the-day queue only.
Pantheon entry ticket
GetYourGuide · from €5
Cheap enough that the skip-the-queue versions are usually worth it in summer
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Two minutes away
Piazza della Minerva, just behind the Pantheon, has a small elephant carrying an obelisk on its back — carved by Ferrata in 1667 to Bernini's design. It's odd and charming and takes about three minutes to see.
Where it fits in a day
The Pantheon is the hinge of Rome's historic-centre walk. The standard sequence, all on foot and all within about 25 minutes end to end:
Spanish Steps → Trevi Fountain → Pantheon → Piazza Navona
Do it in the morning before the crowds thicken, or in the evening when the piazzas fill up and the fountains are lit. Both work; the middle of the day is the one to avoid.
Back to the Rome travel guide for the full three-day plan.