St Peter’s Basilica: One of the compelling reasons to visit Rome. It is filled with outstanding art and has a magnificent square. The most visited site within is Michelangelo’s sculpture, ‘The Pieta’: depicting Jesus’s mother holding her dead son. Is one of the most moving religious pieces of all time.

St Paul’s Cathedral, London: Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was built between 1695-1710 after its predecessor was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. During WW2, a group of volunteers from ‘St Paul’s Watch’ saved the Cathedral from being destroyed by fire during German bombings. It came about as a result of Winston Churchill suggesting something should be done to save St Paul’s. About 200 people many of them architects who understood the structure and its vulnerabilities keep a watch over St Paul’s putting out some fires by hand and alerting fire-fighting teams to more dangerous fires. At the end the war, the grateful church and nation acknowledged the work of these heroes, devoting one set of services entirely to thanking these noble volunteers.

The Sagrada Familia, Barcelona: Antonio Gaudi’s iconic church is crowded daily with thousands of admirers of this genius’s unique style, his intricate mosaics, and flowing lines. Its four main spires represent ‘The Four Evangelists’: St Mathew, St Mark, St Luke & St John who are the first four writers of the first four books of the Bible’s New Testament. Incidentally Sagrada Familia is actually a Roman Catholic church, it does have the splendid dimensions of a Cathedral.

Rouen Cathedral, Normandy: It was portrayed by one of the greatest artist of the French Impressionist movement- Claude Monet. The artist painted it four times with each portrait depicting the Cathedral’s exterior in four different types of light. West Façade Sunlight: 1892, Red Sunlight: 1893, Full Sun, Blue and Gold: 1893 and Portal Morning Sun in Blues. Currently these paintings are housed at Musee d Orsay, Paris.

Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore: Surely there is no traveler to Florence who has not sat on the steps of his magnificent cathedral, the unforgettable ‘Duomo’. This UNESCO World Heritage Site took over 140 years to complete, has the largest masonry dome in the world and interestingly the man who designed the dome Filipino Brunelleschi had no previous architectural training. He was a goldsmith.

St Isaac’s Cathedral, St Petersburg: It is the largest Russian Orthodox Basilica in the world. It was designed by a French architect and Emperor Nicholas I oversaw its construction. The interior is decorated with 400 kgs of gold and despite its museum status, the cathedral is still operational and holds daily workshops.

The Mezquita, Cordoba: It was converted from a church to a mosque and then reconverted to a cathedral. After the Muslim conquest of Cordoba in 711, it was converted into a mosque and connected to the palace of the first Emir. It was then the 2nd largest mosque in the world. King Ferdinand III of Castile recaptured Cordoba in 1236 and it was reconsecrated as a Catholic Church.

St Mark’s Cathedral, Venice: It was built as a chapel for the city’s rulers. It is also known as the ‘Church of Gold’. It became the seat of the Archbishop of Venice in 1807 and has been Roman Catholic Cathedral ever since. It is Byzantine status symbol with an extremely opulent design, full of gilt and treasures to display the wealth and power of the Venetian rulers.

Sant Ignazio, Rome: This imposing Jesuit church has some spectacular visual effects on the ceiling, painted by Andrea Pozzo, including what appears to be a dome’s interior. But is really a flat, circular perspective painting. The painting on the naïve ceiling has three-dimensional quality as characters and parts of buildings seem to move as one walks.

Cathedral Church of St Peter, Cologne: It took a whopping 632 years to complete. Situated on the Rhine River, it has been built in Gothic style. The construction began in the year 1248, and in the next three hundred years, the main naïve was built and one tower was mostly completed, but the other tower was still lacking. After the church has been confiscated by the French in the revolutionary area and used as a storage, construction finally began in 1840, taking another 40 years until the work was finally completed.

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Churches & Cathedrals- Famous for good…