Churches Before Lunch

Posted on October 16, 2023 by admin

As we navigated the back streets of the North Side of Chicago late on Saturday morning, the rain kept on coming, leaving scatterings of yellow and brown leaves and sizable puddles.

Tucked away in the Lincoln Square neighborhood was our second site for the day, and first church: Luther Memorial Church.

As a congregation, Luther Memorial dates from the late 19th century, and was one of the first English-speaking Lutheran congregations in Chicago. Currently part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

The present Indiana limestone church building rose on the site in the 1920s, designed by E.E. Roberts and his son E.C. Roberts, who were Oak Park architects. Not as well known these days as The Genius, apparently, but they did a lot of work in their day.

Behind the altar is the Christus Window, original to the church in 1926. Blue Christ, I’d call it.

The side and back windows were installed about 40 years later, and they look like it.

That isn’t a criticism. The 1960s are derided as a time of poor design, and it might be in some things – children’s animation comes to mind – but not in the stained glass I’ve seen. More abstract than in previous decades, often, but with their own elegance, though my images don’t quite capture it.

By the time we left Luther Memorial, the rain had slacked off. Our second church of the day is one we used to know, over in the Ravenwood neighborhood, since we attended it sometimes in the late ’90s: All Saints Episcopal. Rev. Bonnie Perry was there at the time, and I understand she was instrumental in keeping the church open. These days she’s bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan.

An example of stick style, rare in Chicago, designed by John Cochrane, who also did the Illinois State Capitol and the Iowa State Capitol, among many other projects. The church was built in 1883, when Ravenswood was still a suburb of Chicago.

By the time we got there, the church was closed to Open House visitors. Getting ready for a wedding, we realized, when we say people dressed for a wedding going in. An elegant interior, as I recall.

Plymouth Church, Milwaukee

Posted on September 27, 2023 by admin

Tucked away on a side street northeast of downtown Milwaukee, and not far from Lake Michigan to the east and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to the west, is Plymouth Church. I arrived there on Saturday afternoon as the last place on my Doors Open visit.

It is United Church of Christ, one of whose confessional predecessors were New England Congregationalists. Puritans and Separatists, if you go back far enough.

“Alexander Eschweiler, who designed many prominent houses and buildings throughout Milwaukee, served as the architect of the original building,” notes Historic Milwaukee. “His design harkened back to an older pastoral age, replicating the image of an old English church. The beautiful sanctuary is notable for its nine Tiffany windows.”

Maybe eight. A volunteer at the church entrance – a little old church lady (really) – told me that one of the windows was unsigned. It sure enough looks like a Tiffany, but without the lettering, you can only be 99.44% or some other high percentage sure of its pedigree.

I spent a good while looking at the windows, dedicated more than a century ago to a number of early congregants.

Long looks are highly recommended.

Toward the front entrance. At that moment, the afternoon sun obscured the church’s rose window, which rises over the choir balcony.

Obscured unless you got up close. Then it is a thing of wonder.

The window was installed in 1917. Let Bobby Tanzilo, writing in OnMilwaukee, take it from here: “ ‘The window, a large Tiffany art glass, was presented to the church by Mrs. C. W. Noyes in honor of her mother, Marcia Wells, wife of Daniel Wells, who built the Wells Building and for whom Wells Street was named,’ wrote the Sentinel in June 1917.

“The window represents an angel figure bestowing the benediction of peace. This is the seventh memorial window in Plymouth Church.”

1917. How many of the congregation prayed ardently for Peace that upheaval year? For the American men headed for war? For Victory? All in a single breath?

Tanzilo also discusses the artist who did the rose window, and quite possibly the other windows, while working for Tiffany: Clara Burd (d. 1933). That despite the fact that Tiffany didn’t name the artists that worked on its projects.

“Clara Burd was – along with others including Agnes Northrop who designed the 1917 Hartwell Memorial Window that’s at Art Institute of Chicago, Clara Driscoll and others – one of the so-called ‘Tiffany Girls,’ talented women responsible for designing stunning works of art in glass (not only windows, but also lamps and other objects),” Tanzilo wrote.

She did a lot else besides. Such as book illustrations. “The Returning Prodigal” (1911).

The full article is worth a read, and has a full set of pictures of the windows of the church.

Hope Lutheran Church & The Carpenter Mansion

Posted on September 25, 2023 by admin

I went on Saturday to see a church, Hope Lutheran, west of downtown Milwaukee, but I also got a good look at its attached building, the Carpenter Mansion. It’s an unusual Siamese twin-like pairing of structures.

The Carpenter House came first, built in the 1890s as a home for the founder of a thriving commercial bakery and his large family. These days, it’s a little long in the tooth, though a nonprofit is overseeing its restoration, a slow process. Still, handsome cream city brick, artfully put together.

“The gorgeous cream city brick Queen Anne house is a stunner outside even now, with its broad arches squaring off the entry porch – which also has some striking, stumpy and bulbous Romanesque columns – the elegant chimney, the decorative carved panels – including one under another arch, this one a second-story window – and the remains of a turret on the southeast corner of the home, which is perched atop a small hill,” writes Bobby Tanzilo in On Milwaukee.

The newer Hope Lutheran has its charms, too, such as a well-kept exterior.

The church ceiling evokes the ribs of an upside-down boat, like an impromptu meeting place for members of the early church. In that, and its elegant and simple lines, Hope Lutheran reminded me of St. Paul’s Episcopal in San Antonio, though the structure is even more pronounced in the Texas church.

Also like St. Paul’s, a fine array of stained glass windows.

How often is the Serpent seen in this medium? Not sure how often. Note the nick in the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

The church and the house are connected via a small room. The church bought the house long ago, and most of the first floor is church offices. The upper floors are closed for the ongoing restoration.

I took an interest in the fireplaces.

Artful in their way as the stained glass.

Along North Avenue, Chicago (Buildings)

Posted on August 29, 2023 by admin

By Saturday, the high heat of last week had disappeared, leaving too nice a day to spend too long at the Art Institute. So to return to meet Yuriko after her cake class near Humboldt Park, I took the El from the Loop to Damen station, got off and walked westward for about half an hour along North Avenue, instead of transferring to a bus.

I began at the North-Damen-Milwaukee intersection. The former Noel State Bank at 1601 N. Milwaukee Ave., I’m sorry to say, is now a former Walgreens, with the excellent building boarded up and slightly forlorn.

The handsome former North Avenue Baths (2041 W. North Ave.) has been home to a number of restaurants since its redevelopment some decades ago.

I didn’t investigate closely, but a spot called Vajra seems to be the first-floor occupant now, offering Indian and Nepalese food.

Continuing west. A slow parade of ordinary, but interesting buildings.

An intriguing former church.

At one time, it was St. Paul’s Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church (2215 W. North Ave.), as indicated on the building itself. As indicated online, it has been stuck in redevelopment limbo for some time now.

Oakley and North Ave. Oddly enough, Google Maps refers to Oakley as a boulevard south of North, but an avenue north of North.

Smaller structures, some with redevelopment potential.

Someone spent some money on both 2542-44 W. North Ave. and 2646-54.

Further west are newer developments, rather than redevelopments.

I spent some time with Google Street View, whose images of the site go back to August 2007, when whatever had been there had been razed, but the apartments weren’t in place. By March 2009, four stories had been finished — or at least the building skin was finished. At that moment, I’m sure construction had ground to a halt.

By June 2011, the developers had found the money to add another floor, which suggests to me that the interior probably wasn’t finished in 2009, either. The first-floor retail was vacant for a long time, with Be Kids Cafe appearing only by July 2019. Not good timing, but who knew?

“This is one of the few cafe/kids activity spaces in the city that is both fun for kids and great for parents,” said an early 2020 review. “Nicely made Metric coffee drinks, chill spot for parents to hang, and awesome climbing gym for kids.”

Metric coffee? Coffee by the kilo, I guess. A brand I didn’t know, but what I know about coffee brands would barely fill a cup.

Now the Etheria Cafe occupies the spot, opening early last year. It doesn’t actually sound all that different.

The corner is across from Humboldt Park which, sad to relate, has seen its homeless population rise even in the few months since we last visited.

Not a tent city, exactly, more like a village: 40 or so unfortunates, according to local reporting.

The Tower of History & Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church

Posted on August 23, 2023 by admin

It did me good today to learn that admission to the Tower of History, in real terms, costs only a little more than it did nearly 50 years ago. Sault Historic Sites, the nonprofit that owns the structure, obviously isn’t trying to gouge visitors. Or maybe that, as interesting as it is, the tower is in out-of-the-way place, and the market won’t bear a higher price.

In any case, a newspaper article from 1975 tells me that admission for an adult was $1.25 that year. When I visited on August 5 of this year, I paid $8. An inflation calculator tells me that $1.25 that year has the current purchasing power of $7.10.

Thus I paid a little over the rate of inflation for all those years, but not much; we can round up the sum to pay for more maintenance, since the tower dates from 1968. Looks like it, too. Concrete all the way up and down.

The tower was the first place I went after returning to the United States that morning. It stands 210 feet over the mostly low-rise city of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. As concrete towers go, it isn’t bad, but I didn’t come just to admire it from the ground. It’s an observation tower, and I’m a sucker for those. You’re paying for the views.

Such as of the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie to the north, across St. Mary’s River, the connector between Lakes Superior and Huron.

The international bridge, to the west.

Part of the U.S. locks. Superior and Huron aren’t at the same elevation, with a difference of 23 feet, so the river has long been site of a canal, and indeed work is still under way enlarging the locks.

A docked ore carrier. More about that later.

The Michigan city, to the south.

In the 1960s, the Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, decided to build a tower to honor the missionaries who came to the Great Lakes once upon a time, and picked the site of a log cabin and chapel built by Fr. Jacques Marquette, S.J.

Shrine of the Missionaries, it was to be, as part of a larger complex that would have also included a community center and a new church building. The ballooning expense of the tower torpedoed the other plans, however, and the Diocese of Marquette acquired the tower, which it eventually donated to the nonprofit that runs it even now. Tower of History, I assume, was a secularization of the name.

St. Mary’s still stands a stone’s throw from the tower. I’m glad the handsome 1880s Gothic Revival church wasn’t replaced by an oddity from the 1960s.

The church is also a pro-cathedral.

We stepped inside. Nice. I was reminded a bit of the smaller, but equally colorful Painted Churches in Texas.

Perhaps there is no air conditioning — I can’t say I checked — but if so, that makes for an interesting array of fans.

It was good to be back in the UP.

Thunder Bay to Marathon, Ontario

Posted on August 16, 2023 by admin

On the first day of August, I made the acquaintance of Terry Fox. In bronze, anyway, and perhaps in spirit, since he’d been dead for over 42 years. Died very young; he’d be 65 now, had cancer not taken him away. A contemporary.

Apparently every Canadian knows who he was. Ignorant as I am, I didn’t, but I learned some remarkable things about him after seeing his memorial, which is just off the Trans-Canada Highway not far east of Thunder Bay.

It was a foggy morning in northwest Ontario. The memorial features Fox as a runner, which he was. But not just any runner.

He had only one leg, the other amputated to prevent the spread of osteogenic sarcoma, bone cancer, from his knee.

“In the fall of 1979, 21-year-old Terry Fox began his quest to run across Canada,” the CBC says. “He had lost most of his right leg to cancer two years before.

“[He] hatched a plan to raise money for cancer research by running across Canada. His goal: $1 for every Canadian. Fox’s plan was to start in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980 and to finish on the west coast of Vancouver Island on September 10. With more than 3,000 miles (5,000 km) of running under his belt, he was ready.”

So he ran almost every day early that year, gathering attention as he went. By the time he got to Toronto, the nation was watching. But he didn’t make it all the way to the West Coast.

“As Fox headed towards Georgian Bay, his health changed. He would wake up tired, sometimes asking for time alone in the van just to cry… On August 31, before running into Thunder Bay, Fox said he felt as if he’d caught a cold. The next day, he started to cough more and felt pains in his chest and neck but he kept running because people were out cheering him on. Eighteen miles out of the city, he stopped. Fox went to a hospital, and after examination, doctors told him that the cancer had invaded his lungs… He had run 3,339 miles (5,376 km).

“Terry Fox died, with his family beside him, on June 28, 1981… Terry Fox Runs are held yearly in 60 countries now and more than $360 million have been raised for cancer research.”

My goal that day was much easier: drive to the town of Marathon, Ontario, from Thunder Bay, about 300 km as things are measured locally. I actually like having road distances measured in kilometers on lightly traveled Canadian roads, since they seem to go by quickly. For example, 50 km to go? Ah, that’s only 30 miles. The conversion is easy to do in your head – half + 10%.

Though I have to stress that kilometers should have no place in measuring U.S. roads. Miles to go before I sleep; You can hear the whistle blow 100 miles; I’d walk a mile for a Camel. There’s no poetry to the metric system.

(The conversion of U.S. to Canadian dollars is pretty easy these days too: 75%, or half + 25%. That way a $20 meal magically costs only $15.)

East from the Terry Fox memorial is Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park, which I visited as an alternative to Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, which is highly visible from Thunder Bay but which looks like an all-day sort of place. I preferred to spend the day on the road, stopping where the mood struck.

Ouimet Canyon is striking. A easy walk of 15 minutes or so takes you to the canyon’s edge. Foggy that morning but worth the stop.

There was another place to stop in the park: a pleasant river view seen from a bench not far from the road, but tucked away behind some greenery, so that the road seemed far away. There was virtually no traffic anyway. I sat a while and watched the world go by not very fast. Or at all. I had to listen carefully to realize just how quiet the place is.

Also, the fog had started to burn off. Temps were very pleasant, whether Celsius or Fahrenheit.

The Trans-Canada is King’s Highway 11 and 17 at this stretch. Highway 11 eventually splits off and goes way around to Toronto, including Yonge Street, while highway 17 hews closer to Lake Superior, and is the longest highway in the province. It is the one I eventually drove all the way to Sault Ste. Marie.

Much of the roadside is uncultivated flora. I took this to be fireweed, which meant I was far enough north to see it. I saw it in a lot of places in this part of Ontario.

But sometimes fauna, of the non-wild sort.

I found lunch in Nipigon, pop. less than 1,500. I could have had my laptop repaired, if it had needed work, or bought worms and leeches, if I were in the mood to go fishing. I never am.

Nice church. The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Roman Catholic Church. Closed, of course.

Nipigon has an observation platform just off the highway, free and open to all, and completed only in 2018.

Naturally I climbed to the top for the vista. I need to do that kind of thing while I still can.

The Trans-Canada crossing the Nipigon River. Elegant, but with a troubled recent history.

The bridge was also completed in 2018. Or rather, it was reopened that year.

“[The reopening] comes nearly three years after the bridge, described as the first cable-stayed bridge in Ontario, failed in January 2016, just weeks after it opened,” notes the CBC. Oops. Apparently no one died as a result, so there’s that.

“Engineering reports found that a combination of design and installation deficiencies caused the failure, which effectively severed the Trans-Canada Highway. Improperly tightened bolts on one part of the bridge snapped, causing the decking to lift about 60 centimetres.”

Further to the east: Rainbow Falls Provincial Park. Another short walk to a nice vista. Another thing to like about this part of Canada.

All together, it was a leisurely drive, but even so I arrived in Marathon, pop. 3,270 or so, before dark – long summer days are a boon up north – and took in a few local cultural sights.

Just the exterior of the curling club. Wok With Chow, on the other hand, provided me dinner that evening, inside and at a table. Good enough chow, and demonstrating just how deeply ingrained Chinese food is in North America.

Ramon, I Hardly Knew You

Posted on June 27, 2023 by admin

Going to a place like Spain reminded me of how ignorant I am of a place like Spain. How is it I knew little to nothing – except maybe the name, and that he was a painter – about Ramon Casas before I encountered his work up on Montserrat?

Which speaks of another spot of ignorance. I knew there was an art museum as part of the Montserrat complex, but I didn’t know anything about it. When I found out that our combination ticket included admission to the museum as well as the basilica and Our Lady of Montserrat, I figured we’d find a good collection of medieval art reflecting religious themes, as medieval art tends to do.

I was wrong. The Museum of Montserrat does indeed display some medieval works, but only in the first rooms, as well as a collection of varying images of Our Lady of Montserrat, plus Byzantine and Slavic icons. But there is also pre-Christian ancient artwork, and European paintings and sculpture from every century after the Middle Ages petered out, including the 21st. All together, about 1,300 pieces.

Less surprising is its large collection of Catalan art, and in one of those rooms I made the acquaintance of Casas. I could hardly miss him. Here’s a detail from the first painting I saw of his, “Madeleine” (1892).

Wow. The museum has this to say (mechanically translated) about its Casas collection: “More than twenty works by Ramon Casas (1866-1932) are preserved in Montserrat… His works convey the atmosphere of Paris, with portraits in interiors where Casas focuses on the detail in the female figure, immersing the viewer in the actions and attitudes of the characters. On the other hand, they also reflect the painter’s taste for the folklore of the time, with ladies wearing mantellines, combs, shawls, and where bull races are frequent….”

I decided to take a few more detail shots of Casas’ work. In order: “La cigarreta” (1906), “La religiosa” (ca. 1920), and “Júlia” and “Cordovesa,” both undated.

More specifically, I wanted images of his female faces, of which he seems to capture their essential allure.

Basilica of Montserrat

Posted on June 26, 2023 by admin

On our way to the Basilica of Montserrat last month, I was pretty sure I’d found evidence of a Spanish post office nearby.

The post office wasn’t on the same level as this bronze lion, but up the stairs next to the lion, then to the right. I got lucky, arriving 15 or so minutes before closing. I knew the word for postage stamp (segell) and some numbers, and encountered one of the few retail clerks on our trip who knew little English, but we soon worked things out, helped along (I think) by her good mood at being so near to quitting time, or at least office-closing time, and my good mood at being at the site of a centuries-old abbey in the mountains of Catalonia.

Also, I’d already addressed the cards, so it was easy for her to see where they were going. Soon the cards were winging their way to Texas, Illinois, New York and Tennessee. I wonder whether you can still send a telegram. My guess would be no.

The basilica’s front entrance.

Visitor tip: if you didn’t make a reservation ahead of time, you need to go back downhill to the tourist information office, where you can pick your package and times. Our Monday strategy – that is, not visiting Montserrat on the weekend, but Monday – worked in our favor, I believe, since we didn’t have to wait long to get into the basilica proper, or the sanctuary where the Virgin of Montserrat, or Our Lady of Montserrat, resides.

The entrance leads to a resplendent courtyard. Resplendent pretty much describes to the entirety of the basilica, which is mostly a 19th-century reconstruction of the earlier structure burned by some of Napoleon’s soldiers.

Interiors.

Access to Our Lady of Montserrat is via a staircase that leads to a hallway that curves behind, and above, the altar. A small window shows the statue in its sanctuary and, as they come and go, visitors to the statue.

We took our turn visiting the statue. It is behind glass now, but otherwise we saw what countless others have for centuries.

From 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: “Nuestra Señora de Montserrat, Patrona de Cataluña (Our Lady of Montserrat, Patron Saint of Catalonia), is one of the most celebrated images in Spain, and her church is visited annually by more than 60,000 pilgrims. The image is small, black, and carved of wood, but possesses magnificent robes and jewels.

“In September 1881 it was solemnly crowned by Leo XIII., who sent a crown from Rome for that purpose. As the celebrity and sanctity of Montserrat increased, so did the number of devotees. Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556) laid his sword upon the altar of the Virgin, and, placing himself under her protection, started from Montserrat to begin his new life.”

Montserrat: Camí dels Degotalls

Posted on June 25, 2023 by admin

Serrated mountain. Yes, we could see that. And by that, I mean understand why Montserrat is called that. Actually seeing the serrated peaks rising over the Santa Maria de Montserrat, a Benedictine abbey some 30 miles northwest of Barcelona, was a little difficult on late morning of May 22.

Seeing the countryside below was no mean feat either.

Still, the abbey complex was visible enough. Besides, the clouds burned off as the day went on.

During our look around, we made an acquaintance with these figures.

We found a path, more-or-less level, that wound away from the complex. Along with the clouds were cool temps, a little below 20 C., making for a pleasant extended walk. With views.

Even better, almost no one else was on the path, unlike the fairly crowded abbey complex. After barely any time at all, the path takes you to a memorial to two famed Catalans. I won’t pretend I didn’t had to look them up: Josep Rodoreda and Jacinto Verdaguer. Each had a distinguished career as a composer and a poet, respectively.

They collaborated on a piece called “Virolai de la Virgen de Montserrat” (1880); music by Rodoreda, lyrics by Verdaguer.

Soon, depictions of the Madonna and Child were to be found on the mountain side of the path, at regular intervals.

Tile embedded in stone. Quite a variety. A small sample:

The path, and the Madonnas, keep going for quite a ways.

Eventually, the Virgins petered out. At some point, the path had left the grounds of the abbey, which are quite extensive, and entered Montserrat Nature Park. Or maybe we didn’t get that far, but anyway we turned around about a half-hour in, so that made a full hour.

I didn’t know, until after we’d returned from Spain, that we’d taken a walk on a part of the Camí dels Degotalls. From what I can piece together, it is the starting link in one of the feeder trails into the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. How about that. We had no idea that we’d hit the pilgrim trail, though an hour on the trail might better be called a micropilgrimage.

I enjoyed one particular paragraph from a machine translation I got (Catalan to English) for this page.

The itinerary is available to everyone. The Paseo de los Degotalls is very close to the walls that collapse from the plans of the trinity, located 200 meters above the path. Below, with the Pyrenees in the background, the plain boils with vitality.

Sagrada Família

Posted on June 18, 2023 by admin

In a (mostly) low-rise town like Barcelona, high-rises stand out. Even unconventional high-rises. Even one of the world’s most unconventional high-rises, Sagrada Família.

You can see the basilica and its modern construction cranes from the roof of Barcelona Cathedral.

Or from Parc Güell.

From the Montjuïc Cable Car.

Or from the entrance of Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau, looking down the fittingly named thoroughfare Avinguda Gaudí.

In full, the structure is Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família. Lauded around the world these days. Not everyone has had praise for basilica down the years, however.

George Orwell was not, of course, a tourist in Barcelona in 1937, but he did visit the Sagrada Família at one point, which he mentions in Homage to Catalonia.

“For the first time since I had been in Barcelona I went to have a look at the cathedral – a modern cathedral, and one of the most hideous buildings in the world. It has four crenellated spires exactly the shape of hock bottles. Unlike most of the churches in Barcelona, it was not damaged during the revolution – it was spared because of its ‘artistic value’, people said. I think the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up when they had the chance, though they did hang a red and black banner between its spires.”

Sage about much, but Orwell wasn’t right about everything. Still, before I visited Barcelona, I was a little skeptical myself. Something that receives that much praise inspires a bit of skepticism, or should, and the many pictures I’d seen didn’t quite convey greatness, at least to me. Oddness, yes. Maybe strangeness for the sake of strangeness, as envisioned by Antoni Gaudí and carried on for decades by his successors down to the present day, but not to completion just yet.

So on our first morning in Barcelona, May 18, after a pleasant breakfast in the hotel, and a walk of only a few blocks, we approached Sagrada Família from its western corner. Despite its height, basilica emerged into view only as we rounded the last neighboring block. Then it was time to gawk.

Often enough images don’t do a place justice. That is really the case for Sagrada Família. Whatever skepticism I had evaporated. It has a presence, rising there in front of you. It is still quite a strange church, but a great strangeness — a strange majesty? — expressed in innumerable details.

Naturally, despite realizing that seeing the structure with my own eyes is the best way to experience Sagrada Família, I proceeded to take a lot of pictures. We passed by the structure more than once, so I captured it at different times of day.

As I said, innumerable details.

One side is the Nativity Façade, mostly completed while Gaudí was still alive. He was fatally struck by a streetcar in 1926 at age 73, and is buried in the basilica’s crypt, which was closed when we visited. As you’d expect, that side celebrates the birth of Jesus.

The other side is the the more austere Passion Façade, a more recent completion, though expressing Gaudí’s ideas.

I didn’t know who Japanese sculptor Etsuro Sotoo was. Yuriko did, and she was keen to see the large door to the basilica that he designed, which is in the Nativity Façade. The door’s leaf motif not only includes many leaves in bronze and glass, but also some creatures that live in the underbrush.

That was the door through which we entered the basilica on the afternoon of May 19. These days, you have to book a tour to do so, which I did weeks before we arrived in Barcelona – the only thing I booked ahead of time for the trip besides the visit to the Book of Kells and the Long Room.

In we went.

Too many distinctive features to name, but what struck me most of all were the columns supporting the ceiling, which branched like trees toward the top.

There was no shortage of other tourists admiring the place, but the vast space inside held them all pretty well.

Everyone takes pictures.

I wonder how many tens or hundreds of thousands a day. Or an hour.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Tag Archives: religious sites