You may think you're done avoiding my rambling travel logs, but no- I've got dozens more coming. I'm headed to Utah tomorrow with Megan to find "the dress", so I'm trying to get through Europe before I leave.
Well, I can dream, can't I?
Our first cathedral was what I described in my notes as a "smallish baroque church", St. Anne's. Can a cathedral BE smallish? Tradition says Anne was the mother of Mary, mother of Jesus. This picture is a side view; the church has two twin towers which are hard to see from this angle.
St. Anne was built 1740-1762. There were beautiful statues inside and out in this church.
This church has beautifully painted ceilings and soaring altars.
Altar detail.
This particular church had an especially elaborate organ area.
Some of the frescoes in St. Anne were painted in 1938. They have a decidedly art deco influence, don't they?
The next church was St. Stephens, named after (surprise!) Stephen. He was the first king of Hungary and a very popular dude.
This church was very different in style than all of the other churches we saw.
Construction began in 1851, but wasn't completed until 1905. Apparently, the dome collapsed around 1868, resulting in the necessity of tearing down the entire building and starting over. Yikes.
Beautiful square in front of the church.
This is youngest cathedral we visited.
The style is neo-classic,
and has a "government building" feel, albeit much more elaborate and beautiful
Then, too, most government buildings I've seen don't have beautiful depictions of Christ.
The part of the city was new at the time of the beginnings of St. Stephens church, and city plan were carefully laid out to include a large plot for this cathedral.
This church's statues were white, as opposed to the many painted statues we saw.
I really liked this figures,
casually hanging out on top of the door arches.
Here's the famous "Angie/Eve" statue Julie found. That's a puny depiction of a snake you're holding down there, Angie.
I especially loved the domes in this church,
as well as the arched doorways.
The thing that this church is REALLY famous for is St. Stephen's hand. Yep. Those Europeans love mummified body parts. This case contains Stephen's "incorruptible" right hand. Considering Stephen died in 1038, that's a very old hand. There were hordes of people crowded into this area, taking pictures. It didn't really matter--I couldn't really see the hand, no matter how close I got.
Fortunately, they provided a full color poster showing close-ups and explanations. Apparently this church has the hand, but two other parts of the right arm are kept in other places. Let's just hope someone can find them and round them all up on resurrection day.....
We also visited Dohany Street Synagog, a truly stunning Jewish center of worship. This synagog, built between 1854-1859 in Moorish style, has two towers, meant, according to our guide to remind one of Solomon's temple.
As the largest synagog in Europe, it has become the center of social and political events in Hungarian Jewish life.
You can see that distinctive star everywhere,
Including the floor.
Our guide referred to the synagog as "the most beautiful Catholic Synagog in the world, built to impress Gentiles". It was indeed beautiful.
There is even an organ in this building, extremely unusual for a synagog.
This synagog was bombed by Nazis and seriously damaged. It was then used as a stable and a radio center, even housing the office of Adoph Eichmann.
The building was restored betweeen 1991-1998.
The Jews built an kind of interior park as part of the original plan. Sadly, it ended up being used as a cemetery for the more than 2000 Jews who froze or starved to death during the winter of 1944-45.
Like other Jewish cemeteries, there are bodies stacked and crowded into burial spaces, and many names are lost to history due to the mass and hurried burial that took place.
This site also contain a stunning memorial--an upside down and twisted menorah, fashioned into a weeping willow,
Each leaf on the tree contained the name of a Hungarian Jew killed during the war--estimated to be between 400,000 and 600,000. At the base of the tree is an inscription that translates "Whose agony is greater than mine?"
Across from the tree was this stained glass memorial of a snake rising up from the flames, representing the evils of fascism.
Our guide, who spoke English with a strong New York accent, quite passionately conveyed the message that Jewish intolerance was alive and well as he described various things we viewed. He told us that just the evening before a young Jewish boy was beaten to death, not far from the synagog, for the crime of being Jewish.
It was a sobering experience to listen to his viewpoint.
