After the Great Fire of 1666 destroyed the city’s old cathedral, the great architect Christopher Wren was called upon to design St. Paul’s, a huge and harmonious Renaissance-leaning-toward-baroque building. During World War II, Nazi bombing raids wiped out the surrounding area but spared the cathedral, so Wren’s masterpiece, capped by the most-famous dome in London, rises majestically above a crowded sea of undistinguished office buildings. Grinling Gibbons carved the exceptionally beautiful choir stalls, the only impressive artwork inside.
Christopher Wren is buried in the crypt, and his epitaph, on the floor below the dome, reads LECTOR, SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS, CIRCUMSPICE (“Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you”). His companions in the crypt include two of Britain’s famed national heroes: the duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, and Admiral Lord Nelson, who took down the French at Trafalgar during the same war. But many people want to see St. Paul’s simply because Lady Diana Spencer wed Prince Charles here in what was billed as “the fairy-tale wedding of the century.”
You can climb up to the Whispering Gallery for a bit of acoustical fun or gasp your way up to the very top for a breathtaking view of London. You can see the entire cathedral in an hour or less.
St. Paul’s is now linked to the Tate Modern on the South Bank by the pedestrian-only Millennium Bridge, designed by Lord Norman Foster.
St. Paul’s Churchyard, Ludgate Hill, EC4. 020/7230–4120. www.stpauls.co.uk.
Tube: St. Paul’s (then a 5-minute walk west on Ludgate to the cathedral entrance on St. Paul’s Churchyard).
Admission: £11 ($18) adults, £10 ($17) seniors and students, £3.50 ($5.80) children.
Tours: Guided tours (10:45 a.m., 11:15 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 2 p.m.) and audio tours £4 ($6.60) adults, £3.50 ($5.80) seniors and students.
Open: Mon–Sat 8:30 a.m.–4 p.m.; no sightseeing on Sun (services only).
The cathedral is wheelchair accessible by the service entrance near the North Transept; ring the bell for assistance.
from
https://londonattractionsblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/st-pauls-cathedral/
