Churches in Paris and elsewhere

This church is on the site of two previous churches. The second was burned down during the Paris commune: the only church in Paris that this happened to. It was rebuilt in an identical style a few years later. The architecture is based on basicilas (basilicae?) in Rome. Inside there are a series of impressive paintings, including Thomas  Becket getting murdered. In front of the church you have a sculpture of Saint Peter with the most enormous key, and another of Saint Paul. The Stations of the Cross are very original. And there is a fine statue of a Saint who doesn’t get portrayed very often. This is Saint Dismas. You remember that Jesus was crucified between two thieves, one meanie and one cool guy? Well this was the cool guy who said to Jesus “Yeah, you probs son of God, I dig that” and Jesus said “See you later in heaven, kiddo”.  Information in English

  Saint Paul’s Cathedral London. I seem to be visiting churches a lot faster than I am finding the time to write them up; I have a real backlog.  Anyway it was great to visit Saint Paul’s cathedral, one of the four cathedrals in London if I remember correctly (two for the protestants two for the catholics - but I am probably missing some orthodox cathedral). It was Christopher Wren who was the architect, and it was built as the first Anglican cathedral on the site - previously they had just recycled Catholic hand-me-downs. His advisors, and the committees, wanted him to be sure to make it not too Catholic. So, no stained glass, and no statues, monuments etc. However, in later centuries, once they got less scared of us Catholics, the statues and monuments came by the dozens - and indeed the 20th century high altar looks like it was looted from the Vatican itself. Lots of people got monuments, mainly heroes of the bloody British Empire, like Wellington. He has the biggest monument, with