Downtown St Michael’s Church, Belvárosi Szent Mihály-templom, Budapest, Hungary On the bustling pedestrianised shopping street of Váci utca is the dainty baroque church of St Michael. It’s not exactly the sort of place you’d expect to find among the stores selling Hungarian dolls and various fabric objects with ‘Budapest’ emblazoned across them. And it’s a nice break from all that.…
Sundborn Church, Sundborns Kyrka, Sundborn, Sweden Situated on a picturesque spot by Lake Toftan are two little red buildings. These are the church and bell-tower of Sundborn, both covered with wooden shingles, and both sitting charmingly by the water. Although it presents a very traditional Swedish image from a distance, when you get closer, you notice small, ‘modern’ touches, like the…
Cathedral of St Saviour, Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur d’Aix-en-Provence, France The elegant town of Aix-en-Provence has an unexpectedly low-key cathedral. There isn’t a huge square in front, there’s only one bell tower, and the outside looks a tad decrepit. Once you go inside, however, the dark interior gradually brightens up and offers a cosy space for exploration and worship. The cathedral is…
Mora Church, Mora kyrka, Mora, Sweden Right at the end of Mora’s main shopping street are two of its main attractions: Zorngården, which is dedicated to local boy, Anders Zorn, and a grand church. I say grand, but it’s not grand in a south European sort of way – it’s grand by Swedish provincial standards. And that makes it charming…
St Mauritius Church, Pfarrkirche St. Mauritius, Zermatt, Switzerland In the heart of the small town of Zermatt is the comparatively dominant Catholic church of St Mauritius. From the outside, it doesn’t look too grand, and inside it’s not that grand either – but it is charming and definitely worth a brief visit. The first mention of the church is from…
St Peter’s Church, the ‘English Church’, Zermatt, Switzerland Perched on the hills that steeply rise from the central street of Zermatt, is the little English Church. From the outside, it looks sort of Swiss. But inside – well, it feels awfully English. Which is the way it should be. The church is English. From 1862 the visiting English held services…
Bundeskapelle, Brunnen, Switzerland From its somewhat dull looking exterior, you’d never guess that the Bundeskapelle in the little lake-side town of Brunnen was the site of a significant moment in Swiss history. Legend says that back in 1307, the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, Obwalden and Nidwalden came together to take an oath on the Rütli meadow. The cantons vowed allegiance…
Cathedral of St Just and St Pasteur, Cathédrale Saint-Just et Saint-Pasteur, Narbonne, France The city of Narbonne is very close to the Spanish border, so it seems appropriate that its cathedral is dedicated to two Spanish martyrs, the brothers Just and Pasteur. Actually, like many churches in this region, it retains its title of Cathedral despite the fact that…
Notre-Dame Cathedral, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Grenoble, Grenoble, France In my travels in France I have learned one thing about its churches: what you get on the outside isn’t necessarily reflective of what’s on the inside. A good example of this is Grenoble’s cathedral, which has a somewhat unimpressive exterior, literally squished between other buildings – and somehow it fits in…
Church of St Eulalia, Chiesa di Sant’ Eulalia, Cagliari, Sardinia Surprisingly, there isn’t much to the Church of St Eulalia. Its origins go back to 1365, when the Catalan-Aragonese dedicated it to Barcelona’s patron saint. The building underwent many changes over the centuries, and then in the 1990s the floor was torn up because they had a damp problem. In…
MUTSEU, Cagliari, Sardinia Sometimes, museums over-complicate things in the way they name themselves. Take this MUTSEU, for example. The grand acronym implies a complex of sites which are drawn together under a simple title. But no. MUTSEU consists only of two elements in the same building – the archaeological site beneath the Church of St Eulalia, and the church’s Treasury.…
Sanctuary and Basilica of Bonaria, Santuario e Basilica di Bonaria, Cagliari, Sardinia If you go out to Poetto beach by bus, you will trundle past a grand staircase that leads up to a glistening white church. This splendidly located building, facing the sea, is dedicated to Our Lady of Bonaria. It is one of the city’s most important sites. The…