European Churches and Cathedrals

Welcome to this series of articles about religious buildings outside the UK. These include Churches, Abbeys, Priories, Cathedrals, Basilicas, Duomos, Chapels, Mosques, in fact anything that is relevant to any religion or belief system.

A separate index will cover sites in England and the rest of the UK and any prehistoric sites which may be wholly or partly religious in nature (e.g. Stonehenge) will fall under the relevant Curiosities Index. Sites here are listed in order of the alphabetical name of the town or city in which the site is to be found.

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to each of the articles. A link on each page will bring you back here.

Whilst not in Europe, there are a few articles from our 2013 Cruise in the Holy Land which may be of interest.

Florence Duomo

Florence is an Italian city full of works of art. Michaelangelo's statue of David is just one of many statues to be seen here, though the original is now indoors in a museum whilst a replica stands outside. The city's cathedral or basilica is Il Duomo Officially, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (...of Saint Mary of the Flowers).

This is the impressive facade of Il Duomo. It has one of the most impressive domes of the medieval world. A church was first consecrated here by St Ambrose of Milan in the year 393 CE. This ancient structure, added to, damaged and repaired no doubt several times, needed replacing entirely by the late 1200s. Building commenced on September 9 1296 and was to last another 170 years, interrupted or set back at times by earthquakes, various project managers growing old and dying and a small matter called the Black Death in 1348.

The facade is relatively new. Almost all of Florence seems to be constructed of white, green and red marble and the present facade was added only in 1876/87.

The original facade had never been finished, never having gotten above the lower portion of the basilica and by the Renaissance was very old-fashioned in appearance. It was pulled down in 1587-88 and the front of the basilica remained bare for the next 300 years.

Some say it is excessively decorated. We just thought it was excessively dirty. It was in dire need of a good wash and brush up.

The guide took an incredible 3/4 hours to tell us all this, adding many names and dates that meant absolutely nothing to me and, to judge from the intense boredom on the face of our fellow travellers, to no one else either. If you were a scholar of Italian artists and architects it may have been interesting...

We were, however, stuck in the queue to go in! Whilst outside we caught a glimpse of the dome. This is on an octagonal supporting tower and was an architectural marvel for its time. The laws of Florence forbade the use of any external buttresses simply because their enemies in central Italy used them as an architectural tool. A bit like an army refusing to use guns because that's what their enemy was using... Instead it had to be supported from the inside with an eight-sided rail of concrete with a chain embedded. At least that was the idea - magnetic examination has failed to find any evidence of the chain. Either it doesn't exist or it is buried very deep within the concrete.

Once inside we could see up into the interior of the dome. The figures were painted elongated so that they appear in the correct perspective when viewed from below. It doesn't look that big from below but it's a long way up to it! In fact the painting covers a massive 3600 square metres and took 11 years to complete. The original artist Giorgio Vasari started in 1568 and then selfishly died in 1574, leaving Federico Zuccari and a few friends to finish it off.

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A Brief Sojourn in Messina

Thursday 4 September 2014. We are in Messina this morning. Due to the long distance to travel to get back to Corfu for our flight home tomorrow, we will leave Messina at lunchtime and spend the afternoon sailing around the foot of Italy.

We have booked to do a panoramic tour, which will be mainly by coach. The first stop really is panoramic as we have a view of the Straits of Messina and the town below us from a high viewpoint.

With the sun in our faces, it makes for some dramatic lighting. Messina is on the North East corner of Sicily and the famous strait separates the island from Italy, just three miles away at its nearest point.

The coach is parked at the foot of the Votive Temple of Christ The King, a modern baroque church of 1900. It has a bell tower that sits below the church on the hillside with a bell that looks far too big to sit inside so instead it sits on the top. It is the third largest bell in Italy.

Miss Franny on the viewpoint before the church. It would be much improved if they cleaned up all the graffiti...

We had only been going around ten minutes after this when someone came down to request a toilet stop. This necessitated a 15 minute stop to use a cafe toilet, so some folks went for a drink and we had a look at where we happened to have stopped. This is a saltwater lake, Lake Ganzirri. The chap standing in the lake has a rake with a net attached to the end of it and is raking the gravel on the lake bed for mussels.

Unplanned though the stop was, the beauty of the place made me think that this was the highlight of the tour stops. With dark dramatic skies looking one way, but bright sunshine looking the other we couldn't have arrived at a more propitious time.

The next stop was on the shore of the Strait, looking back in this shot along the Sicilian coast towards Messina. There were a couple of cafes on the shore and this was taken from their ground. One was completely derelict, the other perhaps just not yet open, but they were both deserted. The guide promised us several times during the morning with much enthusiasm that we would "enjoy" an included refreshment stop. Boy, was she wrong...

The coach dropped us off near the main piazza in front of the cathedral, with small tour buses touting for custom near us. "Ride on the tour bus?" suggested one hopeful.
"We're on that one..." I said, pointing.
"This is better!" he laughed.
"You're probably right..." I admitted.

We arrived at the restaurant-cum-bar that was providing our refreshment. This wasn't yet ready and we were shown to tables and sofas set out on the pavement. After quite a wait some plastic cups - they may have been bigger than those you get on the top of a bottle of cough medicine, but I wouldn't swear to it... No matter, as they weren't going to be filled... There was a choice of about 5mm of limoncello or there was an alternative - beer - in which case you got about 5mm of beer... There were also some small pastries. No soft drinks, not even water.

Complaints started to rise on every side. We just got up and walked. We already had the time and place of our meeting and complaining, whether to each other or to the guide or to the restaurant, would do no good and would just ruin your day. A lot of travellers seem very keen to do this to themselves, I always think. Besides, it was pretty much what "included refreshments" tends to mean on these tours. So we found instead a nice little cafe and had a latte macchiota and walked out with a small tub of "cream" flavoured ice cream which was absolutely delicious.

We eventually made our way back to the square in good time to watch the animated clock tower at the side at twelve noon. The ship had been intending to leave at twelve thirty which would have meant missing this, but they extended the "all aboard" deadline to allow tours and independent passengers to see the show.

We had time before the show to have a quick look inside the cathedral. It contains the 13th century tomb of Conrad IV, a king of Germany and Sicily, but repeated earthquakes (the last in 1908) and the bombing of WWII means most of the church is reconstructed.

At twelve noon the souvenir sellers stop their incessant peddling of their tea towels, magnets, wooden fold-up fruit bowls etc. and the clock chimes the hour. Following this, the lion in the top window waves his flag, wags his tail and tilts his head back to roar.

Then the giant cockerel wags his wings and crows and then, as the loudspeakers play the Ave Maria, other windows come to life. A golden church appears from behind a cloud as a dove flies overhead; robed figures turn and bow to a throne as they pass before it. I totally missed any movement in some of the windows, perhaps they are waiting to be fixed. No matter how clever and intricate something is, these days it generally has to be judged against the latest Hollywood CGI and, against such wonders, the clock seems to be very slow and intermittent. Feedback and ratings on websites seem to show mixed reception. In 1933 when it was first installed, it must have knocked everyone's socks off. Even today, the first time the lion's head is thrown back and the loud roar comes from the tower, it is a brilliant moment.

At the end of the show, a few people clapped, a few cheered, the tour guides waved impatient flags, the peddlers pounced and the independent travellers from the ship shot off to dash down the hill and onto the ship before it sailed!

Italian Flavours Cruise Index

Florence and The Duomo

8 August 2006. The day started really early. But the scenery as the Island Star sailed into the Italian port of La Spezia was well worth it as this 7:00am view shows. The reason for this early morning scurrying was that we are booked on an excursion to Florence - Firenze, as the Italians call it. The ship docks whilst we have breakfast and we troop off to join a coach. The fun starts straight away. First of all we find the tour operator is called Trumpy Tours which causes a ripple of very British humour along the coach. Next, no sooner have we all got on than there is a bang and a large German camper van swerves and weaves all over the road in front of us, trying to control his shock at having taken off the mirror stalk from the front corner of the coach. He's not stopping. However he's held up in a queue at some traffic lights. Our driver hairs off down the road towards him... but the lights change and he gets away. All this excitement and we haven't gone anywhere yet! Luckily the driver manages to fix the bits of broken mirror back onto the remains of the stalk with a huge roll of sticky tape! And off we go to Florence. There is no let up to the excitement of the day as the look on this young lady's face clearly shows. Here we are in Florence, still laughing at following this large Trumpy Tours paddle when there's a burst of laughter and gasps of disbelief coming from this group immediately behind the guide. The young lady is drawing my attention to the incredibly long underarm hair of the guide... It is long. Incredibly long. You get the idea from looking at the expression on the face of the lady on the right who is staring at it as though she can't believe it... Neither could we. It was at least a foot long. She could have plaited it... In entertainment terms we have had our money's worth from this trip already and we haven't seen Florence yet! This is the impressive facade of Il Duomo. Officially, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (...of Saint Mary of the Flowers). It has one of the most impressive domes of the Medieval world. A cathedral had stood here since the 5th century but it needed replacing entirely by the late 1200s. Building commenced on September 9 1296 and was to last another 170 years, interrupted at times by various project managers growing old and dying and a small matter called the Black Death in 1348. The facade is relatively new. Almost all of Florence seems to be constructed of white, green and red marble and the present facade was added only in 1876/87. The original facade had never been finished, never having gotten above the lower portion of the basilica and by the Renaissance was very old-fashioned in appearance. It was pulled down in 1587-88 and the front of the basilica remained bare for the next 300 years. Some say it is excessively decorated. We just thought it was excessively dirty. It was in dire need of a good wash and brush up. The guide took an incredible 3/4 hours to tell us all this, adding many names and dates that meant absolutely nothing to me and, to judge from the intense boredom on the face of our fellow travellers, to no one else either. If you were a scholar of Italian artists and architects it may have been interesting... We were, however, stuck in the queue to go in! Once inside we could see up into the interior of the dome. The figures were painted elongated so that they appear in the correct perspective when viewed from below. It doesn't look that big from below but it's a long way up to it! In fact the painting covers a massive 3600 square metres and took 11 years to complete. The original artist Giorgio Vasari started in 1568 and then selfishly died in 1574, leaving Federico Zuccari and a few friends to finish it off. There's lots more to see in Florence yet. The place is full of sculptures and statues including Michalangelo's statue of David and there's the famous Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge that the Germans didn't blow up on their retreat in 1944.

Return to Mediterranean Explorer 2006 Index