Cathedrals, Crypts and Coffee

Saturday was a day of wandering. I took the DART into town and got off at the Tara Street station, the first stop over the Liffey River. After strolling down the the riverside quays (pronounced keys), I turned left up on to St. Michael's Hill. At the top of the hill was the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, more commonly known as Christ Church Cathedral. After walking the perimeter of the Cathedral, which is an amazing site to see on its own, I made my way inside. With construction beginning in 1030, this is a true marvel of Gothic and...Victorian architecture? Obviously the church as it stands today is not was it was nearly a millennium ago, and the remains of a separate portion of the original church lie right next to the "modern" building. Under Queen Victoria (Ireland was still British in the 19th century), extensive renovations were brought to the Irish hall of worship. The church stands today as an amazing mix of medieval and more contemporary architecture. While the exterior of the Cathedral is amazing, everything inside the church gives the feeling of a museum from the shrines erected in each of the chapels to the tiling on the floor to the stunning stained glass windows.

After walking all around the church, I crossed every possible path at least twice, I suddenly got extremely hungry. Obviously I went to the crypt of the Cathedral. Part crypt and part coffee-shop, the basement of Christ Church provides that spooky feeling that everyone vies for while they're eating. Although it has been somewhat renovated and really not that creepy at all, every now and then, usually mid-bite, I would stop to think about where I was...surrounded by tombs. Finishing my lunch, I looked across the room and saw a section of the basement that while open to everyone was camera restricted. My first thought was that that clearly meant the good stuff and it was. This area was filled with books and artifacts dating back to the English Reformation including one of the original copies of the sixteenth-century Book of Common Prayer...go nerd. My visit to Christ Church Cathedral ended with a member of the clergy who convinced me to also go see St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's only a few blocks away and I really can not spend a semester in his land without seeing his Cathedral! But that will be for another day.

Well thats all for now! Thanks for reading guys and hope everyone's doing great!

FMS