St. Paul’s Cathedral
My favorite part of Day 1 was definitely St. Paul’s Cathedral. We first caught a glimpse of the dome through a slice between two buildings. It was huge! I new St. Paul’s was big, but in person it massive. It just seemed unreal to be actually standing under it. The first thing I did when we went inside the cathedral was climb the stairs to the top of the dome. Partway up, I made it to the Whispering Gallery. You could actually here people’s voices from around the circular gallery. The steps up until this point weren’t too bad, but the next two sections got worse. When we got to the stone gallery, the views were
View from the top of the dome
amazing. Before we started back up again, you could look through a small, circular piece of glass that allowed you to see all the way to the floor of the church. I didn’t realize how tall the dome actually was until I looked through that piece of glass and everyone looked like tiny dots. The next portion of steps were the worst. They were see-through, metal, spiral staircases that only had a railing on one side. I’m not afraid of heights, but on these steps I got a little shaky. The last flight of stairs had such a low ceiling that I had to duck and the walls were so close that I felt very claustrophobic. The long climb to the top was definitely worth it though because the view at the top was amazing. The climb down wasn’t as bad, but I did get dizzy on the never-ending spiraling steps down.
Sketch of dome
After going up to the dome we explored the rest of the main floor of the church, then went downstairs to the crypt. The crypt was kind of creepy. To know that just beneath the stone floor tiles were human bodies made me uncomfortable. After a quick look around the crypt we returned to the main area, and I decided to sketch the dome. I spent about two hours there and I’m glad I did because I feel that I really got to see and appreciate the detail in the dome. As we were leaving St. Paul’s, the sun was beginning to set, and we went up to the rooftop patio on the mall next the church. The sun setting behind the domes was the perfect way to end my visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Sun setting behind St. Paul’s
Earlier, before visiting St. Paul’s I saw Bedford Square, the Architectural Association, the Building Center, the Museum of London, and Barbican. At all of these places I was very surprised to find that the city was very quiet. I thought Barbican was really cool, too. I really liked the contrast between the brutalist style of the building and the flowers hanging down from the window boxes of each floor.
After St. Paul’s we rode the tube for the first time and I found it to be very easy! I don’t know why I was nervous before! We rode the tube to Abbey Road to take a picture, and walked to Little Venice, where I had the best Magherita pizza at The Red Pepper and saw the canal. We easily rode the tube back to Oxford Circus and walked down Oxford Street to the hotel to experience London at night.
Hi Megan,
I feel the same as you. So far, I think St. Paul is still one of my top favorites in London. The construction of this architecture is quite durable and detailed. Like you mentioned, the stairs are definitely not the fun part. I thought that I was not afraid of heights, but when I started to look down in the middle of my climbing, I felt a little bit shaky, but then you just have to keep climbing. The view from the top was very incredible, but the most top part was kind of narrow, and I almost went around a circle to find the way down.
In addition, I was really stunned by your such detailed sketch of the dome! And even more, you completed in such short time compared with how detailed it was. My sketches in most time turn out to be worse than I would expect. One thing is that I knew I preferred to draw the general shape of the object/building instead of going into too much detail, which is hard to fit in the space in general. Second, my drawings sometimes are out of proportions because I anticipated less to draw.
Alice