Outside the Roman Pantheon in Rome
The Roman Pantheon was certainly a surprise for me. What looked like a classical Roman government building turned out to be a Roman temple, but upon entry it turned out to be a church. It was after the spread of Christianity that the temple was repurposed as a church. Naturally any traces of the old Roman gods were all gone and replaced by religious figures from Christianity. This seems to be quite common as when a civilization replaces another. And maybe that is somehow a good thing since the structures are preserved. I think the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is something like this where a Christian church was replaced with a mosque.
Really Old Looking Part of the Roman Pantheon
It is really very surprising to me how old the structure is. It is almost two thousand years old and it is in very good condition. This was probably because the it was converted into a church soon after its construction, and was thus in constant use after that. A lot of ancient Roman structures didn’t seem to have this luck and at lot are in ruins. The Roman Pantheon is considered to be one of the best preserved ancient Roman structures and it is really is quite impressive. Outside the Pantheon, people seems to be getting into the act as well, they even have Roman centurions roaming the grounds. You can have a photo with them, for a fee of course. There is also a horse drawn carriage outside for photos but I think I would have preferred a Roman chariot, now, that would have been cool.
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