Plan B Forum

Some snaps from our recent trip to Blighty, which I'm rather pleased with. They were taken at one of my favourite places there. When I lived in Exeter I used to go watch the choir rehearsals on Wednesday mornings, sublime.

Absolutely magnificent...

What extraordinary detail....

Cheers mate, not bad for hand held shots.

Fish eye lens on the last one? I think not but it's quite extraordinary. Very nice pics.

Isn't it interesting that they didn't have chairs or pews or benches in the old cathedrals/churches back in the day? Everyone had to stand

When I spent the summer in Germany with cousin, grandma and grandpa, grandma insisted on stopping in all these old churches and catherdrals. At the time I was not really interested, but I'm glad we did. The architecture and detailing were amazing. I have to get out my picture album of the trip and relive those places.

ETA
They don't make 'em like tht anymore.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:Fish eye lens on the last one? I think not but it's quite extraordinary. Very nice pics.

Not quite a fish eye, Meade, but an "ultra wide angle" 17-40mm.

oldr_n_wsr wrote:
ETA
They don't make 'em like tht anymore.

Not true - the National Cathedral, Washington, DC, constructed from 1907-1990:

Lovely images Gob, thanks for sharing!

Cheers Guin..

I've done our Wales and Dartmoor images, Ireland, Cornwall and London to come....

Guinevere wrote:

oldr_n_wsr wrote:
ETA
They don't make 'em like tht anymore.

Not true - the National Cathedral, Washington, DC, constructed from 1907-1990:

I stand corrected
Thanks
And very nice
But almost 80 years to be built/finished?

The art of the "flying buttress" had to be rediscovered

I've traveled around the world and made it a point to visit the most outstanding (Christian, mainly RC) churches and cathedrals in every big city. Like this one, all are astounding collections of glorious materials and unspeakable human effort.

Most impressive in my opinion were St Peters in Rome, and Sagreda Familia in Barcelona (not yet finished).

But if there actually is no "god," is it all a waste?

Here's something I always think about when seeing the interior of one of these magnificent cathedrals...

As impressive as they are to us, can you imagine how much even more impressive it must have been to a medieval peasant, who's whole life experience with structures other than this consisted of drab one story mud brick huts and ramshackle barns...

When he walked through the doors into one of these churches, he must have felt like he was entering an entirely different dimensional plane...It must have been an other-worldly experience...(Especially when you add to the stunning visual experience the organ music flowing and reverberating majestically through the place...)