Gothic Cathedrals, and my love/hate relationship with them

I go to, on average, 1-3 cathedrals/large churches a day, most of them gothic. I am frankly very very burnt out on them. If I see another freaking piece of stained glass (from the 13th century! glass that survived WWI! by Marc Chagall!--i am so sick of it all...well actually, the Marc Chagall glass in Metz and Riems is pretty cool).......I probably won't do anything about it. But yea, making empty threats on the stained glass makes me feel better. I am really just tired of looking at them though. Besides the interesting architecture (which is only interesting for so long), they are spiritually void for me. I can't really fathom how people can focus on praying with so many distracting things to look at (though i know, i know, the decorations are intended to enhance the experience.) I really don't mean this to offend anybody, but as somebody who is very much not Catholic, I just find the whole thing puzzling.

So that was the negative part of my relationship with les cathedrals. But indeed, there is some sunlight behind that stained glass! First of all, awesome thing to keep in mind if you are travelling in an old european city: a cathedral can save you from any weather. it is really the only indoor place besides your hotel room where you can sit down for free, and you can sit for as long as you want. Think about it...if it is raining and you need to get inside, you'd have to pay for something in a restaurant, cafe, bar, museum, etc. the cathedral will be nice and dry. if it is beastly hot outside, a cathedral is always at least 10 degrees cooler (figure made up by me, but there is a huge difference in temperature...not that i've seen the sun in two weeks, but once upon a time it was really hot here). Second, most cathedrals are really really really tall and always near the center of town. Generally taller than any other buildings in older cities. This means that if you find yourself lost, you can just look to the skies and find yourself again. (I have a feeling that the builders might have designed them so people could look to the skies and spiritually find themselves again, and less so physically when they are looking for an ATM--always near Cathedrals! I am uninterested in finding Jesus or any of his affiliates, but I often have a great interest in finding the center of town/tourist office, also usually near the cathedral.)

What sparked this rant? Well mainly just a lot of cathedrals, but more specifically today I had to walk about a mile out of town to visit some champagne maisons, and walking back (in generally the correct direction, but more generally confused), I found myself sort of lost. Then I looked up and saw Reims' cathedral and realized I was quite close to target. And then on the rest of my long walk I was just generally thinking about my pro/con feelings on the huge amount of them that i've seen.

I am pretty tired, but am going to head out to dinner/visit a few bars. Today just involved tons of walking because I had to get to the Champagne houses and then once there, take an hour long tour on foot of the caves. After visiting 5 champagne maisons in the last 3 days, I am truly an expert on every step of the process. Quiz me, grill me, I will not fail. Interested in degorgement? I'm your gal. At the last place I was slated to take a tour, they messed up and printed the wrong time on my ticket, and when I was perplexed about why no friendly, well dressed woman with a scarf (the caves are cold!) had appeared to lead me into the -30m abyss, I went to the desk and they were like, "oh no! you missed the last tour of the day." when i explained that it was very much their fault, they did feel bad and asked if i wanted 2 or 3 glasses of champagne instead of a tour. i thought about this long and hard. Pommery is a really fancy champagne company and you will never find 3 glasses for 10 euro. then i remembered that a) i was ridiculously tired, b) i had over a mile to walk back to the town, and c) this was probably a pour idea considering the only thing i have eaten so far today was a little quiche lorraine for lunch. so i just asked for my money back, which they begrudgingly gave me. but then they had a change of heart, and gave me a free glass of champagne anyway. score!!! (and besides, i really didn't want to take the tour anyway...they all say the same thing and i didn't feel like walking through another set of icy caves). so generally, win win all around.

Okay, so off to dinner/bars/sleep, not necessarily in that order. it's been a long day, but i am surprisingly in a very good mood for the first time in a few days. those 3 glasses i champagne i had today probably didn't hurt.