St. Paul’s Cathedral | London '16 Culture & City

Adventurous First Day

March 12 2016April 6, 2016

Today was a very eventful first day. We stopped at many places but I would like to focus on St. Paul’s Cathedral. St. Paul’s is a beautiful building that even non-architects like myself can appreciate the monumental magnificence of the building. Above is a picture of the top half of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which is a double dome. Our group had the privilege to climb to the very top of the double dome, and get a breathtaking view of London. The climb up was a tight squeeze (literally) below is a picture of the one of the staircases.

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the smallest staircase, but did get a picture (below) of Taylor and I walking up the smallest set of stairs. As you can see I had to bend over to make it up the stairs.

Once you made it to the top the trek was all worth it. The view from the top is an absolutely stunning view of London’s skyline. (below)

Amazingly enough this cathedral was built 341 years ago before the era of having all the construction equipment we have today. It fascinates me how the whole building was constructed with blood, sweat, and muscle. Since there was lack of heavy machinery like we have today.

London Day 1

March 12 2016

What a day! Our first day in London was filled with many buildings, many steps, and a lot of firsts. We started our day leaving the hotel at 8:45 and began with a short walking tour of the area surrounding our hotel. My favorite part of the walking tour was Bedford Square because of the town homes with colored doors and window boxes and because the second you stepped in, the sounds of the city disappeared. We then visited the Building Center, but unfortunately the large model of London was gone. After that, we took a double decker bus to St. Paul’s Cathedral and explored The Barbican and the Museum of London before grabbing lunch at Pret and going into St. Paul’s. St. Paul’s was so amazing! The amount of detail and the vast scale was overwhelming, and the views from the top were incredible. After sketching and exploring the cathedral for a few hours, we headed off on our own to Abbey Road, and took our first Tube ride, which was surprisingly easier than expected. We stood in a crowd of people all darting out into a congested street to get their pictures taken. We then ventured down into Little Venice and ate at an Italian restaurant called Red Pepper. This meal was very odd as the staff all spoke Italian and also had very thick British accents, so communicating with them was interesting to say the least. Finally, after dinner, we took the Bakerloo tube line to Oxford Street and walked back to the hotel from there, grabbing cookies from a street side bakery on the way.

This picture was taken in front of St. Paul’s, looking down Fleet Street.

First Day in London

March 12 2016

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.