96 Strasbourg: Notre Dame Cathedral. Our Lady and her pet dog!

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It takes me months to get round to putting up blog posts after my visits, and I visited Strasbourg in December.

Lots to see in Strasbourg cathedral, and even more in the Christmas season. Instead of just your common or garden crib, they had a long set of scenes leading up from the annunciation, when the angel comes to Mary and says « You’re never gonna believe this but… »  right up to the adoration of the magi, three kings come from afar to see what all the fuss was about. I went in early December so the baby Jesus was still hidden away, but the scenes were impressive, and included the only time I have ever seen Our Lady represented with her pet dog§

The astronomical clock is really fine, and you can image how the peasants under feudalism must have been blown away to see such modern technology.

Two of the pietà (sculptures of Mary with Jesus on her knees just after his death) are impressive. We don’t often see Mary raising her arms in despair like that.

I was interested to see a series of children’s books on sale in the shop like « what to do when someone close to you has cancer » or «stopping sexual abuse ». And a minimalist creche was also for sale.

Finally you can see in the church a thank you plaque for US soldiers killed in the liberation of Alsace from the nazis.

The cathedral was involved in the very serious conflict between two candidates for bishops- one traditionalist catholic, one Lutheran - in 1592.










































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