England: St. Paul's

St Paul's Cathedral is a prominent London landmark. It is visible from across the Thames and the iconic towers and dome clearly say London. Not that the double-decker bus and Union Jack don't give you a pretty good hint too. 

We went to evensong, the Protestant version of Vespers (Catholic nightly short church service), at St. Paul's Cathedral. Yes this is THE St Paul's from Mary Poppins. We saw very few little birds though. If you look up you can see "all around the cathedral the saints and apostles look down." They are really far away and tiny, so unlike the ones on St Peter's in Rome, it is hard to tell who precisely they are. In contrast there is another, far more imposing statue closer to eye level: Queen Victoria. While I must admit to be uncertain on her views on feeding birds, I'm not sure she would be smiling at the little old bird woman. She actually looks rather severe.
The inside was beautiful with some gold mosaics and a very nice dome.

My favorite part was not so much the beauty of the building but far more listening to the beautiful music. Of all our church visits on our trip my favorite ones almost all were ones in which we got to experience the church as a church, in beauty as it was designed to be used, rather than a large museum with poor layout and inadequate lighting. I'm not saying that the churches aren't impressive or that the art in them is not beautiful, simply that they were conceived for worship and that being in one for services enriches the art and architecture.