6.19.2007
St Paul's Cathedral
I spent the day yesterday at St Paul's Cathedral in London. You may remember this as the one place in London largely unaffected by Luftwaffe bombings during WW2. It's similar to St Peter's in Rome, having the second largest dome in the world (next to St Peter's). It does have a similar feel to St Peter's, without the creepy pope statues staring down at you with the two fingered blessing that looks more like a scolding finger. It does contain many memorials to state heroes, but most of them seem to be in good taste.
Climbing to the top of the dome (the Golden Gallery) is a task, and the view is supposed to be incredible, but it turns out that the city of London is not an attractive city. It's cloudy and many of the buildings are modern steel monstrosities. Oh well. At least you get a good view of the muddy Thames.
This makes it sound like I'm hating London. I don't. It's just not very photogenic, or, at least, I haven't found those spots yet. St Paul's is a beautiful building with loads of history within. Of particular note is the American WW2 memorial in the back of the cathedral, behind the choir. It really is stunning. The very fact that the memorial, financed entirely by British money, is placed in St Paul's is quite moving as a visiting American. It is a stately and humbling place.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment