St. Paul's: The Dome

Done with the church and the crypt, I headed for the dome staircase entrance. I have done several church domes and towers, often with Vicki: St. Peter's, Florence cathedral (twice), the Ulm Munster Spire, Notre Dame de Paris, Reims cathedral, the Seville cathedral tower, and probably more that don't come to mind presently. It's not an obsession: the views are always spectacular, and the sense of how these ancient buildings were put together is always fascinating. St. Paul's is by far the youngest of the ones I've done, yet it is fundamentally the same as the oldest of them: huge stones, friction, a bit of mortar. No steel girders nor concrete and rebar. But lots of ingenuity, even genius, and passion. St. Paul's, like St. Peter's, the Florence Duomo, and Notre Dame de Paris, has the advantage of revealing a great city below, one we have spent some weeks now exploring.

A broad staircase...for the first few stories

Three centuries of graffiti...everywhere 

The road narrowed

But the signage was good

After 300-some steps, I have arrived at the Stone Gallery, walked 

around it and taken some pix; only 12 persons at a time are permitted 

in the top-most Golden Gallery, so there was a bit of a wait; the 

Whispering Gallery, lower down, was closed for COVID; which 

was OK since I had no one to whisper to anyway 

Across the river, Millennium Bridge, Tate Modern, Southwark

Stone Gallery selfie

After a few more pix it was time to do the final summit push...

About midway between the Stone Gallery and the Golden Gallery,
the steps go around this window in the floor where you can look
down directly to the cathedral floor, precisely at the crossing

Thus

Finally, after a few score more steps, you arrive
at the Golden Gallery, as high as you can go

Nice day and the views are great...up river

I guess the grating must have been painted gold at one time

Paternoster square

City of London financial district, with second financial district
in the distance

Closer up

The Shard

Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern again

Closer up of the rotunda structure itself; lead; one German
incendiary bomb penetrated the rotunda, burned through the lead
and fell to the Stone Gallery, where firefighters put it out

Tower Bridge

Looking astern from the Golden Gallery

And out beyond Bloomsbury to St. Pancras and Kings Cross,
near our flat

The 500+ steps down--it's a one-way system--seemed
easier, although I took it easy, always using the handrail

Hundreds of feet of this...and then you're down...great experience!