May 2-3 Church Treasures…

May 2-3 Church Treasures (or is that Church as Treasures)

Since I had a couple of days to explore, I decided to go to my favoritist place in all Strasbourg…TA-DA! The Cathédrale! First, I gazed at the front of it, looking for strange and interesting figures that are carved there. I found quite a few mysterious figures. You’ll have to find them when you visit.

Then I wandered to the side of the building and found this plaque on the square.

Basically it says, “Here is preserved for the future, a part of our memory. Not to be opened until September 23, 3790, after Jesus Christ.”

It was buried on 29 September 1995.

What the heck??!!

It seems that a guy named Raymond Waydelich gave deep thought about what future archeologists would want to know about our epoch. He decided to give them a few hints and put together 14 waterproof barrels of stuff that, he supposed, represented our civilization. In the barrels are messages from all kinds of people and all kinds of objects and documents and texts. He included items of every day life, including packets of seeds. In addition, since it is Alsace, he threw in some of the best wine, cheese and regional dishes (vacuum packed, of course). What an interesting experiment. What would you put into these barrels?

As I was gazing at the plaque, a man asked me to take a picture of his group of students. So I did…but I don’t have this picture so I can’t show you. There were about 30, 14-year olds from a private school in Paris who planned a 4 day trip to Strasbourg. They saw the usual sites, including the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. Their teacher said that they ate lots of Alsatian food. (She told me she wanted to keep them out of McDonalds.) She told me several times how they had organized this trip themselves. They appeared to be very well-behaved teenagers…I know, I know. It’s an oxymoron. I suspect they come from an expensive high-class school.

Moving on…..

In addition to taking a careful look at the outside of the Cathèdrale, I did an audio-guide tour. Basically, it’s a recorded device with earbuds. I walked around and listened to information and stories about different features of the Cathedrale, both inside and outside. I spent 2½ hours on Thursday and 2 hours on Friday listening and gazing at the incredible features of this Cathedral. There are some interesting stories and some mysteries. Here are some photos to peak your interest. You’ll have to come visit yourself to see where they are and why they are. Some are hidden at the base of a column and others are perched on top of a balcony or post. Take a look…

Oh, no. I forgot to take a picture of the dog….

On Friday, after finishing the tour, I wandered. I came upon a church I hadn’t seen before. It’s called…”L’Église Protestant Saint-Pierre-Le-Jeune.”

Here’s a rundown of it’s history…

1290 —construction began

1320 —a nave was added

14th century —a cloister was added

14th-16th centuries —about 80 tombstones were added (presumably with bodies beneath them.)

1897-1901 —restoration and additions

This is a super old old old gothic church and it looks like it could use a lot of renovations now. I found it to be quite odd. It was like several churches were individually built at different times and then they were cobbled together. Each little church/chapel has a different feel to it and a somewhat different design—although the ceilings are all gothic. For example, there is a main church area with an altar. 

Then behind that is another, smaller church area with an altar that looks completely different. 

Then behind that is another little room with a statue in it. The statue is holding a bowl of papers. It looks like people have written prayer requests on the papers. There’s also a donation box with a sign in the doorway of this room.

Then there are two other rooms that don’t have altars but one large room has tombs against two different walls. The tombs look like altars. There’s a desk and some chairs in this room.  

…and what is that blue? It’s not exactly a tapestry and not exactly a mural….

The cloister was also interesting. I thought that a cloister was a place where nuns lived in quiet contemplation but this cloister seems to be the final place of contemplation. This place and some of the tombs are over 1000 years sold.

That’s it for the last two days.

NOTE: I’m leaving for Corsica on Sunday morning at 4:30 am. I will be gone until May 18. I will have very limited  and occasional wifi. This means I won’t be adding to this blog until my return. I’ll try to take good notes but, geez, let’s face it. IT IS CORSICA.

TTFN. (Hmmm. I wonder what the French slang for that is!)