Whispering in St. Paul's ear
After considerable indecision, I decided to visit St. Paul’s Cathedral. I had seen Westminster the last time I was in London and decided to cover new ground this time. I was also influenced by a PBS special I had seen about how the cathedral survived the Blitz. That show really moved me, the image of this cathedral surviving fire bombing that devastated everything around it. I wanted to see it, stand in the middle of it and marvel at its resilience in the face of that attack.
The church is impressive on scale alone. I took Rick Steves’ London guide with me and used that to lead me through the cathedral. Excellent decision, giving a lot of perspective on the architecture and history of the place.
After climbing my assault on the steps of Notre Dame in Paris last year, I knew this was something I had to tackle here, too. All 409 of them. I wanted to see the dome and the spot where the German bomb plowed through and destroyed the altar below without managing to bring down the building.
First you ascend to the Whispering Gallery, then the Stone Gallery and finally to the cupola, or Golden Gallery, and magnificent views of London.
On the way back down, I stopped in the Whispering Gallery to catch my breath. It’s astounding. You can hear people whispering on the other side, and it grants a spectacular view of the gilded cathedral below.
Among all the whispers, one of the attendants was humming to herself and chattering quietly with a heavy French accent. At first, I thought she might be a bit daft. Just sitting there hundreds of feet above that altar, chirping away. What a strange job it must be, sitting all day in front of the entrance to the stairs leading down from the Stone Gallery, wrapped in the glory of this cathedral. I wondered if she took it all for granted after a while.
Or maybe the constant flow of toursts was driving her slowly insane ...
“You there, lady in the blond hair,” the attendant chided. There was no whisper in her words.
“No fo-to-gra-fee. It says so right there on that sign in front of you. In all languages. Please put that camera away.”
I started to chuckle and the French attendant looked over at me, shrugged her shoulders as if to say “some people” and resumed her mantra. Maybe she was channeling Christopher Wren.
“Want me to show you how to whisper,” she asked a passing child. The girl trotted over to the other side and put her ear to the wall.
"Tarynne ... can ... you ... hear ... me." More a hiss than a whisper, but the child grinned at hearing her name from the other side of the gallery and I began the rest of my descent.
Posted by Bob Benz at October 29, 2006 8:29 PM