Cologne Cathedral

Cologne Cathedral began construction in 1248 and it took over 600 years to complete and for 4 years it was actually the tallest building in the world from 1880 to 1884. It lost the title to the Washington Monument. It is the greatest Gothic Cathedral in Germany and the main tourist attraction in Cologne.

During WWII is suffered 14 hits but it did not fall down and was reconstructed, in 1996 UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List. It was originally built to house the Three Wise Men shrine.

It is very impressive inside and out, and in spite of the scaffolding. The glass stained windows were simply breathtaking and so many of them! The small details on the outside of the cathedral was just amazing. The cathedral can been seen from all over the city, we got good views from the boat trip we took and crossing the rail bridge.

Apparently in the just this weekend in the news was that a cloth with the blood of the Pope John Paul II was stolen from the cathedral.

Wishing you all a great week!

St.Andrews Cathedral

When I go back to Scotland for visits I always spend a day in St.Andrews, I lived here as a child and again as a young adult so it has lots of memories for me. Also my grandparents lived here too and I often visited them. Since today is St.Andrews Day, the patron saint of Scotland it seemed like a good idea to do a post on St.Andrews Cathedral.

We stopped by the Cathedral ruins as there is lots of space for Alessio to run around, there were quite a number of visitors in spite of the cold day.

St.Andrews Cathedral was the largest in Scotland, the building started around 1160 and in 1318 is was consecrated by Robert the Bruce. The large square tower you see in some of the photos is St.Rule Tower and if you want or able you can climb the 156 stairs and get a great view.

Even now with only ruins it is still impressive so I can only imagine how amazing it looked when it was completed.

Happy St.Andrews Day to you all!