Strasbourg Cathedral Interior

We continued our tour of Strasbourg Cathedral, finding the interior just as impressive as the exterior.

Nave view

Wider view

Massive pillars

Beautifully decorated organ

Glazed triforium! And beautiful 13th-14th century windows; alas, too
high to read very easily

West rose window

Closer up

The big attraction in this cathedral is its astronomical
clock, built in the mid-1800s after the style of
late Medieval clocks

Part of the machinery

Tells time but also give astronomical/astrological 
information, location of planets, constellations, etc.

Performs periodically, to everyone's amusement

Apollo even tells you which demi-gods (saints) to pray to
on which days...the liturgical year, that is

Sun and moon phase information too

But it's the architecture, windows, and sculpture we found impressive

Apse half dome; done in the 19th century in Byzantine
style

With its mosaic "atta' girl, Mom" crowning of the Queen of Heaven

And great windows

Never miss a good devil or Hell scene

Some of the windows needed cleaning

Ornaments on the organ case

Some of the windows are emperors and kings and such

Plus the usual saints, apostles, evangelists, Biblical events, elsewhere

Beautiful place, with art and architecture spanning
a thousand years

Helpful plan

Contactless donation device

Strasbourg Cathedral: Exterior

We were sure we'd visited the great re/brown/pinkish cathedral before, and subsequent archival research confirmed that we were there, with the girls, on August 4, 1989, during our first European Family Vacation. This was long before our current appreciation of such buildings, but we were taken with it anyway. Strasbourg's cathedral is a fine Rayonnant, built entirely in the Middle Ages, with some Romanesque vestiges, and a great (if modern) astronomical clock. Its most impressive feature, I think, is its exterior sculptural program: fine high and later Medieval sculpture, miraculously well-preserved considering all the trouble this church has seen...the wars of religion, its Protestant era, Louis XIV's returning it to the Catholics, the Revolution, when it became a Temple of Reason, and, finally, WWII, when Hitler wanted to turn it into a monument to the unknown German soldier, and subsequent Allied bombs. Some of it is protected now in the museum, but the replacements are quite impressive.

West facade; they were going to do two towers, but,

for all the usual reasons, never got around to it; plus,

after the first several hundred years, people came to

like the asymmetry (Google photo); personally, I think

they should follow what their compatriots are doing in

Saint-Denis...

Usual helpful model

Only from the square on the south side can you see the full extent

West facade, north door

Main central door

Central tympanum detail, various martyrs

More archivolt detail

South door

Now on the south side, appreciating the buttresses

Exterior clock on the south transept

The great tower

Famous synagogue sculpture (sad because the
synagogue has been replaced)

The Foolish Virgins always look so happy...

Back on the west side, a nice, if smallish, Judgement,
with kings, popes, and all the rest lined up to enter the
Jaws of Hell

Central tympanum: Passion

Last Supper

Medieval lap-tops were quite large

Famous ornament by the door; replicas available in
the excellent gift shoppe

More Strasbourg Scenes

Next morning, June 12th, we moved to the P&R and took the bus back into town, mostly to see the great cathedral (next posts), but also to do another Michelin walking tour of the old city.

The German occupation of Strasbourg following the
Franco-Prussian war coincided pretty much with the
years of Art Nouveau, so one doesn't see much of
the beautiful architecture...but there are a few instances

La Place Broglie...the horse market in the Middle Ages, a central
square in later times, with the grand opera at the end; origin of 
the term "horse opera" some say 

The day's caryatids; not too many of these on the half-timbered
beauties

Abbatoir of yore

Canal scene

The day's video-shoot; don't know who she was nor why five
camera-persons were required

Love the curvy pink arcades

Another beautiful building

Europe's first iron bridge; so it said

We stopped for lunch as a restaurant by the adjacent Catholic and

Protestant churches; my Alsatian sausages

Vicki's schnitzel

The meal was fine, but the main interest were the
new-to-us golden ground cherries, physalis heterophylla,
served as a side nibble

Theologian/musicologist/organist/doctor/missionary/polymath
Albert Schweitzer was a native of the Alsace who did time
studying medicine and other things in Strasbourg; authored
The Quest for the Historical Jesus and Reverence for Life;
received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952

An approaching red ant threatened our moment
together, so I smashed it; certain restrictions apply in
my reverence for life

Chinese half-timbered look

The adjoining Catholic and Protestant churches; the latter was closed,
the former not so interesting

Another Art Nouveau

Galeries Lafayette; used to be the Kaufhaus des Westens (😁)

And another Nouveau

And an Art Deco; why are they so often movie houses?

Place Gutenberg; Gutenberg did considerable time in Strasbourg,
where he produced his first printing press; the rest is history, as
they say, and Gutenberg is sometimes referred to as "the man of
the millennium"; little in subsequent human history is imaginable
without him

Sic transit, Gloria; there is his statue, on Place Gutenberg,
tucked in between a hot dog stand and a merry-go-round

Last month's flavor of "Information Age"

More curvy streets

And one final monument I had to find...that of Strasbourg
favorite son Roget de L'Isle, composer of "La Marseillaise,"
which became the French national anthem, known to many
non-Francophones by way of this great movie scene (Major
Strasser and his German buddies, BTW, are singing "De
Wacht am Rhein," which rather neatly ties things together)

Interim Update #1,279: Swedish Death Cleaning And Sparking Joy In Missoula

We're back in our former hometown of Missoula, Montana. Two days ahead of our luggage, but that's how it goes. We're here to go through our stuff, much of which has been in storage here since 2008. Of course, we've done considerable culling over the years, but this time it's serious. What we don't get rid of here we'll put in a U-Haul truck and drive to our next temporary home, in Cary, NC, for further attention. It's mostly the Swedish Death Cleaning process (look it up), protracted over different locations and several months. Plus, as always, we'll be seeing friends here, and enjoying the best place we ever lived and worked. 

Yes, the blog is still in Alsace, June 12th or so. I'm working on it.

Thought for the day, at our current temporary home in East Missoula;
a block away to the left is the U-Haul center; to the right is our storage
center, our Missoula home since 2008