Panthéon, Paris

Not strictly a museum, the Pantheon in Paris makes it into my top five museums in the city because it has fascinating history, it is a wonderful building and it is a museum of sorts, because it is home to the crypt in which lie some of France’s most famous people.

The Pantheon is located in the Latin Quarter of Paris, at the top of the hill, where it presides over the rest of the city. It is a grand building whose large dome stands out in the skyline as one of the most prominent. It is easy to reach and in fact it is a very pleasant walk from the Seine up past the Sorbonne university and up to the Pantheon. The nearest Metro station is Cardinal Lemoine. The Pantheon is open every day from 10am until 6pm, with last entry being forty five minutes before closing. Entry is seven Euros for adults, four Euros fifty for 18 – 25 year old and free for anyone under 18 years old.

The Pantheon itself is a vast building of neoclassical style, it looks rather regal sitting at the top of the hill and this impression is all the more fitting when you consider the reason for its creation. Originally intended to be a church, it was built on the orders King Louis XV who was very ill and vowed that if he made a recovery, he would replace the ruined church of St Genevieve. He made a full recovery and in thanks to God, he kept his promise. Due to financial problems, it took over thirty years to construct and was finally finished in the late 18th Century in the midst of the revolution.

There are two things that particularly draw visitors to the Pantheon and which I particularly enjoyed. The first is the model of Foucault’s Pendulum that hangs from the main dome. Foucault used this pendulum to demonstrate that the earth rotates on its axis once every 24 hours and it is a fascinatingly simple experiment. My other half particularly enjoyed this, being an amateur scientist himself.

The second thing is the vast crypt that forms the basement of the Pantheon. This in itself is like a museum. Where as the rest of the church is full of open and airy spaces, the crypt is dark and grey and a bit like a maze. Split into separate rooms, the tombs of some of France’s most important intellectuals can be seen here, including Voltaire, Louis Braille, Emile Zola and Victor Hugo. Marie Curie is also here – the only women to be honoured in this way. It is indeed a huge honour to be buried here as it is extremely restricted. It is somewhat humbling to be wandering amongst such genius, to be honest.

The Pantheon takes a couple of hours to wander around and is free to enter, which is great. There aren't any of the tourist trappings like gift shops and cafes here, but the main boulevard of

I’d definitely recommend a visit to the Pantheon as I think it is a truly interesting building with some absolutely fascinating things inside.