While in France in August, we visited the stunning Cathedral of Our Lady and Saint Vaast, in the lovely town of Arras.
The cathedral is huge, but funnily when you are outside of it, its nearly impossible to see the full size and get a good photo showing that due to the closeness of other buildings and the narrow streets around it. The lady in the pic above helps to give some scale to the size of the front, and the huge doors there.
Stepping inside then gives a better perspective - it is massive, but to be fair, I dont think we saw a 'small' cathedral ever in France !
The cathedral had a lot of beautiful carvings and statues around, like those above - they look so life like.
The pic above shows a statue of a pretty imposing figure. I didnt catch his name while there, but I was intrigued by the small church to his side and the letters SPQR, which stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus (The Senate and People of Rome) - basically referring to Rome and the Roman Government. I often find references to the Holy Roman Empire in churches and cathedrals all over Europe, but not to the Roman government itself ! Who said the Romans had died out ???
And sure enough, right in the centre of the carvings in the stand above is the symbol of the Holy Roman Empire !
The town of Arras stood right on the front line of battle during World War 1, and at one point the cathedral was heavily damaged by artillery fire. The pic above was in the cathedral (I took a photo of the picture). As such, what we see today was rebuilt after world war 1, which is quite astonishing - as it certainly feels a lot older.
Wikipedia says that the cathedral we see today actually replaces an earlier one. Construction started on the one we see today around 1750, but the earlier one dated back to the 11th century and was destroyed in the French Revolution !
The cathedral was quite empty when we were there, so we pretty much had the whole building to ourselves, which was quite incredible.
An interesting feature about the cathedral was its display of reliquaries. These beautiful caskets contain some of the remains (usually bone fragments) of various saints. Its quite common to see these in France, and Arras Cathedral had quite a few. I'm sure one of the them contained fragments from St Thomas Aquinas.
Thats another one above, but there were quite a few of them, all on display - quite interesting to see !
At one end, the cathedral had a stunning painted domed ceiling which you can see above.
And interestingly, there was a mirror on the floor below it (pic above) to save you getting neck strain from looking up at it - I've never seen that before in a cathedral, but it makes sense !
Above is a picture of the beautiful baptismal font (I assume thats what it is). I found the brick work behind it quite interesting. I wonder if what we can see is part of the original brick work that survived the world war I destruction, as the brickwork from the 7th row upwards is a lot cleaner and in much better condition.
The pic above is another I took of a picture in the cathedral showing the destruction. They must have had to have pulled most of it down and pretty much start over again - it must have been heartbreaking for the people.
Compare the two pictures above - what an amazing difference now. They did an awesome job on the reconstruction.
It was brilliant to visit the cathedral - what an amazing building, especially considering its turbulent history. Very worth the visit (as is Arras itself in general) if you are ever in the area.