Driving, a Cathedral, and finally Holland

Post written on Wedensday, June 11:

After today, I've decided that Gothic is definitely a cool style of architecture. Why? Because one of the stops in our driving today was Notre-Dame* de Amiens, one of the oldest and largest Gothic-style cathedrals still standing. Just the outside of this huge church is amazing: high pointed arches, flying buttresses, and carved statues surrounding the doorways (coming in all shapes and sizes, some human some not). 

Like I said, some not.

Yes, they are holding the their own severed heads (we learned that they were brothers beheaded together for I-don't-remember.

However, as impressive as the outside is, the inside is more so. Within the cathedral there are huge three dimensional stone sculptures covering entire walls, depicting events from the bible and/or the lives of saints, carved with immaculate precision and painted with extreme detail. On the walls above the stone murals there are stained glass windows. The ones Rising up from the floor are stone pillars, also bearing statues, that seem to go up and up and then up a little more before connecting with the arches that support the high ceiling. My favorite part of the cathedral was the nave (which I sadly couldn't take pictures after my camera died). The nave is the tallest part of the church, even higher than the ceilings. In the time of the cathedral's construction, a common church idea was "God is light." As a reflection of this saying, the nave has lots of windows to create a circle of light around the priest. 

Sorry, after rereading that, my description took a turn into extremely detailed, a lot more than I had intended. It's just that I found the cathedral very awe inspiring, and although I can't really capture the feeling in words, I sure can try. 

Some of the original stained glass

The nave

Although I would have liked to learn more about the cathedral, we really did want to get to Holland tonight. And, after leaving Amiens behind and driving for several hours, we finally did get there. We're staying with our family friend Jean, who was my grandparents neighbor when they lived in Holland. We can't wait until we get to look around Holland tomorrow!

*At first, Carolyn and I were confused since we thought Notre-Dame was in Paris, but ends up that there are multiple Notre-Dame (Our Lady) churches around France. The "de Aimiens" means "of Amiens. The one in Paris is Notre-Dame de Paris.