标签教堂下的文章

被洪水淹没的温彻斯特大教堂地下室，英国汉普郡 The flooded crypt at Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire, England (© Oliver Hoffmann/Alamy)

Who left the tub running?

'Sound II,' this sculpture by Antony Gormley, has stood here in the oft-flooded crypt of Winchester Cathedral in the south of England since 1986—not trying to get a plumber on the horn, but quietly standing guard and studying the water in its cupped hands. Elsewhere in the cathedral you'll find another notable statue: The likeness of William 'Diver Bill' Walker, a local hero who—for six years starting in 1906—worked alone in a heavy diving suit to shore up the increasingly flooded structure as it threatened to sink into the boggy soil beneath. Nowadays it's stable, but the lowest level still sees its share of standing water during rainy periods.

We're here on the feast day of Swithin (sometimes spelled Swithun), the 9th-century bishop who's now venerated as patron saint of the cathedral. But St. Swithin is most commonly name-dropped in an old weather proverb that begins, 'St. Swithin's day if thou dost rain, for 40 days it will remain.'

The good news: 'St. Swithin's day if thou be fair, for 40 days 'twill rain nae mare.' But if this all just sounds like hooey to you, try today's quiz and see if you think any other weather folklore holds water.

Madonna della Corona教堂，意大利 The Sanctuary of Madonna della Corona in Italy (© Volodymyr Kalyniuk/Alamy)

Looking for peace on the precipice

The Sanctuary of Madonna della Corona sits on an outcropping almost 2,500 feet high overlooking the Adige River Valley in Northern Italy, near the city of Verona. Since the Middle Ages, this spot has been a destination for religious pilgrimages. The faithful are drawn no doubt by the views and, perhaps, the dangerous path to get there--enlightenment shouldn't come easy.

Over the centuries, the structure has evolved from a hermitage to a church, first inaugurated in 1530, and eventually to a sanctuary for contemplation and reflection. In the mid-1970s, architect Guido Tisato oversaw a major renovation, including digging out more of the mountain to add additional space. Today, visitors can reach the sanctuary from above via a paved path or from below, on a longer trail, known as the 'Path of Hope,' that ends with a steep staircase zigzagging upward. We think those who manage the climb up may be justified in feeling a little superior.

格里博耶多夫运河和滴血救世主教堂，俄罗斯圣彼得堡 Griboyedov Canal and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in Saint Petersburg, Russia (© Tomas Sereda/Getty Images)

A midsummer twilight's dream

The Russian language classifies light and dark shades of blue as separate colors—which comes in especially handy if you venture north to Saint Petersburg in midsummer. The seaport metropolis sits less than 500 miles outside the Arctic Circle, so at the height of summer, the twilit 'blue hour' coveted by photographers lasts virtually all night long as the sun hovers just below the horizon. It's a phenomenon dubbed the 'White Nights' and it usually lasts from mid-June 11 to early July.

This particular view peers past the dark blue ('siniy') waters of the Griboyedov Canal at the dramatically named Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Framed against a light blue ('goluboi') sky, the church's colorful exterior is almost as dazzling as the motley mosaics covering the walls inside. The Griboyedov Canal, cutting south and west through a district dense with museums, theaters, and parks, is part of Saint Petersburg's intricate system of man-made waterways that earn the city one of its nicknames: 'Venice of the North.'

以圣保罗大教堂为背景的千禧桥，英国伦敦 London Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background, London, England (© Scott Baldock/Getty Images)

The Millennium at 20

The view you're seeing was first made possible exactly 20 years ago, but a photo from the same spot on June 10, 2000, might've come out a tad blurry. That's because when the London Millennium Bridge opened to flocks of pedestrians on that date, it wobbled so much it was closed after just two days. But the bridge reopened with improvements in 2002, and today it's stable in terms of not only lateral g-force but also photo-op popularity.

Famous for its hodgepodge of bleeding-edge design and preserved historic architecture, the London cityscape is full of anachronistic scenes like this. The bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral, seen a few blocks north across the Thames, were built about 300 years apart (just a fraction of London's nearly 2,000-year history). If we could about-face, the contrast of eras would be even more pronounced: Behind us near the bridge's south end lies a reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre neighboring the Tate Modern, an art museum converted from a mid-20th-century power plant.

A hermitage with a view

If this vivid landscape has you feeling pulled into the photo, take a deep breath before you look right or left. Or maybe just fix your gaze on the medieval brick ruin ahead—the Hermitage of La Pertusa in northern Catalonia, Spain. Glance sideways and you'll be greeted by sheer vertical drops to the basin of the Canelles Reservoir, across which lies the region of Aragon—historically a powerful kingdom that ruled Catalonia and much of the Mediterranean.

An actual visit to this spot would require traversing a steep, rocky trail to the narrow outcrop that hosts the hermitage, once the chapel of a long-collapsed Romanesque castle. But imagine the reward: a vista of the beauty Catalonia offers beyond busy Barcelona.

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