Galvanized last week that I have been in London a month and barely made a dent in the list of things I want to do, see, and experience I broke out the trusty guidebooks almost every night after work and went back to playing tourist with a vengeance.
First on my to-do-and-see list was St. Paul’s Cathedral. I had taken a peek in a few weekends ago when I was in that area but as drinks at the pub were calling my name I didn’t have time to make paying the admission fee worth it. However, every art history lesson I have ever taken and every Sunday I’ve spent breathing incense demanded that I go back. So last Saturday morning, off I went…
Like St. Peter’s in Rome, St. Paul’s is a baroque style church (or as the English say it BA-rock…weird). I know from my seventeenth century art history class that the main thought behind the architectural style is that it is not only supposed to be a feast for the eyes but elevating for the spirit as well. St. Paul’s is definitely that. It’s one of those places where you naturally walk slower and feel more peaceful while at the same time you are completely in awe of the splendor that surrounds you.
This could have been a really short post because my visit was almost wasted before it properly began. I wanted to take the guided tour but the cathedral was short on guides and the last tour of the day left 20 minutes before I arrived. Upon seeing my genuine disappointment the friendly ladies at the welcome desk recommended the audio tour. I refrained from telling them that as a natural city girl I judge people who commit the faux pas of looking like tourists by wearing headphones in every major site almost as much as I judge the ones who stand in big groups on the metro platform during rush hour. There is nothing tackier than an audio pack clipped to your hip and a fanny pack on the other side to balance the “I’m from out of town” look. But, having already paid my eight pound admission fee I decided I really should try and learn as much as I could…So I sucked it up, wore the headphones, and hid the audio pack in my purse.
Something like three hours and three hundred stairs later, I was converted to audio tour fandom. My pursuit of knowledge and culture will never be thwarted by ugly headphones again. (Although I just as strongly vow that I will never be caught dead in a fanny pack.) Thank goodness I was by myself for this jaunt…I am not sure any one else could have listened to archival clips of Winston Churchill’s funeral and old stories about who has played on the cathedral organ (Mendelssohn once played so long the cathedral staff let the air out of the instrument so people would leave!) and detailed explanations about the symbolism of modern Christian art work display in the cathedral and enjoyed it so much.
I can’t possibly recount everything here so I’ll give you my favorite bits….
The cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the seventeenth century after the medieval cathedral burned down in the great London fire. The only piece of the old cathedral that currently resides in the “New St. Paul’s,” is a statue of John Donne, the famous poet, who was less famously, became the Dean of Saint Paul’s later in life. Art historians credit the statue’s survival to the fact it was the only statue with no protruding limbs. This is because Donne posed for it wrapped in a mock funeral shroud. So---he survived because he played dead. Creepy.
Wren was obsessed with topping St. Paul’s with a dome that would look perfect from every imaginable angle and viewpoint. That was a tall order (hehehe) because he realized how difficult it would be to create something that would look as proportionally beautiful from the inside as well as out. So, he built two; one inside the other – the outer looks great to the people viewing the cathedral as part of a city skyline and the inner is the perfect size for people to admire it from underneath.
Maybe it’s because I climbed so many stairs to get a really good look at it, but the dome was the most memorable part of the tour. The inside is decorated with scenes from the life of Saint Paul, from conversion, to letter writing, and imprisonment. The cathedral could probably have a special tour to discuss the symbolism of the paintings alone. Of course with so many stairs to climb before it could really start only really dedicated art history nerds like me would show up….
The rules about not building anything to obstruct the view of the capital in DC are probably lifted right from London’s precedent about not obstructing the view of Saint Paul’s. In WWII the commitment to preserving the cathedral was so strong a special volunteer force, called St. Paul’s watch, positioned themselves around the building and extinguished any bombs that found their way in. Some damage was sustained but overall the Cathedral survived intact and the Saint Paul’s watch is credited with saving the cathedral from destruction.
Whew! That was very truncated version of last Saturday’s visit. After all the stair climbing I was hungry so that night I had a personal picnic in Hyde Park while I listened to a free BBC concert. I’m not sure what the best part was…the ABBA sing-a-long (Thanks Mom for the Mama Mia soundtrack – when my computer arrived the first thing I did was download it on to my ipod!), the part when the radio was turned on during a break and Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run was blasting across the whole park (and I don’t think I was the only one there who knew every word!) or the fact that London Philharmonic orchestra opened their set with Star Trek: The Next Generation’s theme music and continued with a James Bond medley. Or maybe it was my chocolate fudge cheesecake.
Keep reading----this week I had a personal encounter with London Fashion week that will make it up here sooner or later!
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