This one is for you, Tash Reid!

When we were in Moscow we visited Red Square several times. The thing that drew us back to Red Square again and again was St Basil's Cathedral. We didn't even go inside it. It was enough just to look at it from the outside.

I think St Basil's Cathedral is probably my favourite church in the world. To me, it looks like something out of a fairy tale. Like the type of castle a wizard might live in. I think if all churches looked like St Basil's then more people would go to church. Don't you think that St Basil's looks like a fun place to go?

On our first night in Moscow, we wandered down to Red Square late at night. Standing in Red Square, looking up at St Basil's was one of those pinch myself moments. It happened on a lot of our travels. I couldn't believe that I was actually getting to visit places that I've dreamed about visiting since I was little.

On our third day in Moscow, we walked through Red Square in the afternoon. It was the golden hour and the light was this beautiful honey colour. It's impossible to take a bad photo in such light.

It was here that I took my favourite photo of the whole trip. St Basil's and a heart shaped balloon. I heart St Basil's too!

More photos (slideshow) of Moscow on Flickr.

Our visit to Red Square was part of our Taste of Russia tour. We did a 9-day tour, travelling from Moscow to St Petersburg, with Intrepid Travel. Other entries from this trip include: Travel Pensieve: Novodevichy Cemetery.

This time last year, we were living in Paris... *sigh*. As part of a work contract I had to liase with a French software company based in Paris to learn how to use a software program. Andrew finished his London contract a week early so he could come and join me. For a few wonderful weeks we lived in Paris. Being a technical author is a little more exciting when you get to do it in Paris.

We enjoyed our time in Paris. I worked and Andrew was a tourist on weekdays. We both went sight-seeing on the weekends. We learnt that to be truly French you have to carry a baguette under one arm. We fulfilled this requirement by visiting the bakery every few days to pick up a baguette to have with dinner. We were Feeeeeeeerrrunch! (For some strange reason, to be French you also have to drive along with your right indicator on. That's a whole nother story though.)

Now we're home in Sydney. Enjoying the beautiful weather (yay!). Enjoying spending time with our family and friends (yay!). I'm working as a technical author (... um yeh). We're happy to be home but last year we were living in Paris (dammit!). Let me take a moment to get over this....

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OK.

On one of our touristing weekends we visited Sainte-Chapelle, which is on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris. Sainte-Chapelle is the royal chapel which once adjoined the Palace of Saint Louis. It was built by King Louis IX to house holy relics that he'd purchased from the Venetians. The Venetians made a tidy profit earning 135,000 livres in the exchange. To give you an idea of just how much money this is, the chapel itself only cost 40,000 livres to build.

Chapel equals church which usually earns a meh from the Wilsons. In our defence we did see a lot of churches on our travels. Every city, town and village in Europe has a church as a tourist attraction. As our travels continued, it took something extra special in a church to impress us. And Sainte-Chapelle is just that, extra special. The inside is breathtakingly beautiful.

Instead of walls, the chapel has stained-glass windows. These windows are quite tall; more than 15 metres high. There are 15 windows in all and they cover an area of 600 square metres. So on a sunny day, like the day on which we visited, walking through the chapel is like swimming through a sea of multi-coloured light. I tried to take photos of the inside to capture what it was like but it was too hard. The photos I took didn't do the chapel justice. In the end, I stopped looking with my camera and started looking with my eyes. I took memories instead that I still enjoy today.

Andrew did a better job with the photos.



So Sainte-Chapelle goes on my list of must-see churches. (You know, there is actually a list. Of course there is!) Make sure you see it when you're next in Paris.

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

Church spire climbing in Croatia is scarier than spire climbing in other countries. We climbed St. Duje Cathedral in Split, St. Lawrence Cathedral in Trogir and St. Mary's church in Zadar.

In other countries, the staircases to the top of spires are narrow, stone staircases. They are enclosed and feel very solid. In Croatia, the staircases usually hug the outside wall of the spire. There are lots of open windows so you can feel the breeze blowing through the spire and it feels very open. As you climb you can see that's it a long way down both on the inside and outside the spire.

At the entrance to each climb there was a sign warning you that you were undertaking the climb at your own risk. Most of the staircases that we climbed were in pretty poor condition. They were rusted metal staircases, usually covered in pigeon poo. There didn't seem to be any health and safety concerns either. At the top of St Lawrence's Cathedral in Trogir, there was no barrier or railing to prevent you from falling into the hole and down the ladder.



With my fear of heights (really, it's a fear of falling), I was pretty impressed that I made it to the top of these spires. It was definitely worth it for the views (below: Split, Trogir, Zadar).



More photos of Split and Trogir and Zadar on Flickr.

Our visit to Split, Trogir and Zadar was part of the Aegean Odyssey. Mum, Dad, Andrew and I spent a few weeks in Croatia and Greece with a quick visit to Slovenia and Austria in the middle.

There is always a church post, isn't there?

Florence's main ABC is the Duomo. In Italian, Duomo translates to cathedral. I always thought it came from Dome. But no, duomo comes from the Latin "domus" meaning house. In this case, the house of God.

Florence's Duomo is Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. It's made of pink, green and white marble and the decorations on the facade are very elaborate. It looks like a giant wedding cake. Its "world's largest" is its dome. It's made of red brick and is the largest brick dome ever constructed. When the Duomo was built, it was the largest church in the Italy. Until the Pope got cranky and decided that the largest church should be in Rome and not in Florence. Ok, enough about the stats.

Because we're a bit meh about churches now, we usually visit them for one thing. To climb them. Andrew and Jess, conquering the churches of the world. At the Duomo in Florence, you can climb the bell tower or the dome. We choose to climb the Dome.

The climb itself is quite fun. It's not just one big spiral staircase (which I hate, because it makes me so dizzy).

The first part of the climb takes you out on to a narrow balcony under the dome which overlooks the inside of the church. The inside of the dome is painted with a representation of the Last Judgement. The scenes from hell are quite disturbing. There is a skeleton with a scythe rounding up people to send them to hell. A faceless monster chomps on naked men. It's rather detailed and we spent a bit of time taking it all in. The balcony is so narrow that it is one way only and no passing. We couldn't stray too long because of the people who were waiting behind us.

The second part of the climb is easy. Just normal stairways, back inside the walls of the church. On the right, the dome wall curves away from you.

The third bit of the climb is the fun part. You have to climb over the top of the dome. Climbing this stair case had a bit of an Alice in Wonderland feel to it. It's a staircase built into a curved floor. Going up it was quite easy. Later on we had to climb down it which was a little disorientating.

Finally, you climb one last steep ladder to emerge into the bright sunshine. The view from the top is impressive. But, of course it is. You're standing a top the tallest building in the city overlooking the beautiful city of Florence.





More photos on Flickr.

Travelling around Europe you can get a serious case of the ABCs. What does it stand for? Another Bloody Church or Another Bloody Castle. Every city has a "famous" church that you "must" visit. Andrew and I've become a bit meh about churches and now they have to be pretty amazing to impress us. So, I was a bit worried when I discovered that Cologne's biggest tourist draw card is a church. Was it going to impress to us?
The church has some notable accolades:

• It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• From 1880 - 1884 it was the tallest structure in the world. (Pipped by the Washington Monument).
• It has the 2^nd tallest church spire in the world (and it has two!).
• It has the largest facade of any church in the world.

So, what is the verdict from these church-weary travellers? Two thumbs up. Yup, it's pretty impressive.

Cologne Cathedral (or the Dom) has an interesting history. Construction started in the 13th century and after more than 200 years, work stopped for a bit of a break. A break which ended up lasting 400 years, after which construction resumed in 1842. The workers of the 1300s left a crane atop one of the half completed spires. The medieval crane was a landmark for Cologne for 400 years (seen in this photo). After work started again in the 19th century it took them less than 40 years to finish. The completion of the cathedral was celebrated as a national event in 1880, only 600 years after construction started.



As you can imagine with a church of this size, the inside is cavernous. There are a lot of stained glass windows.



My favourite stained glass window in the church is a modern one designed by Gerhard Richter and installed in 2007. The window is constructed from identically sized pieces of coloured glass, the placement of which was randomly selected by a computer. They are meant to resemble pixels. The colours harmonize wonderfully and the window is beautiful when lit up by daylight. I spent several minutes just staring and appreciating. Then I spent several minutes wondering if I could achieve the same effect with a patchwork quilt (file that creative thought away for the future.)

The main purpose of our visit to the church was to climb the spire (2nd tallest in the world!). There are 509 steps to the top. You have to climb a stone spiral staircase to the carillon (I hate spiral staircases), then a metal staircase, and finally a metal spiral staircase to get to the top.

There is another world best for the church in the belfry with the largest of the 12 bells, Petersglocke, being the world's biggest free swinging bell. We were in the belfry at midday and when the carillon played, it was "stick your fingers in your ears" loud. We were a little disappointed that the biggun didn't get rung.

The viewing platform at the top of the spire is 98m above the ground. As expected, the view from up there is amazing. Definitely worth the climb.





More photos on Flickr.