The sight of people on cell phones in front of a building built in 126 AD is almost too much to take in. This is my entry this month in the Streetview Paintoff, in which Rome is the subject city. I chose the Pantheon because it is one of the most amazing buildings I've ever visited. It has a concrete dome with a large opening in it (an oculus), and rain does come in, but drains through a system in the floor. The artist Raphael is entombed there (and his baby angels live on, on coffee cups everywhere). How they figured out how to build something so spectacular in 126 AD is just beyond me.
This is a good memory, a view of Rome at night from the Hassler Hotel above the Spanish Steps. My sister and I had a fabulous vacation there. There is old, and then there is seriously old. Rome is seriously old. When our taxi pulled up to the Roman Forum we each gave an audible gasp when confronted with such antiquity, such history, and the visible remnants of the Glory that was Rome.
