Karlskirche church

In Vienna, there is much talk about the 1700's plague . Many  art pieces show "good" trying to eradicate "evil". They refer to the battle against the plague.

In 1713 the Emperor Karl VI vowed he would build a cathedral when the plague was erradicated and he would dedicate it to St. Charles Borromeo, a former archbishop of Milan who had died in 1584 and was one of those responsible for eradicating the plague in the 1500's.

In 1714 the Emperor was already looking for architects to fulfill his promise, and the result was this magnificent church that you can see in the picture above.

After  25 years of construction it was finally ready.It houses art works by famous artists of the era, such as Daniel Gran and Martino Altomonte.

When I arrived, I followed my little church ritual . I bought my candle, I made a prayer for Ian, Simon and Beth (my dear friends who died two years ago), one for Yolhi, which is battling a fucking breast cancer, threw out old candles, rekindled the ones who lost it's flame before they burnt out (I always do this. Someone lit the candle and made a wish, so the candle better burn to it's end! Nobody wants to hear a saint saying: Hey, you are the guywho gave me half a candle? No way ... your request was declined!! Next ...)

Fabio goes mad with me  every time we get into churches because it is always the same ritual.

When I was finally done, I went church exploring...

This church has a panoramic lift in the center. Ai went up and up and up, and when I got all the way up, I discovered I had another batch of steps ( made of wood, as construction steps) to climb, because the church is in restoration and one could be face to face with the paintings on the ceiling.

magic!

 

I kid you not. I googled it and the cupola is 235 m high... And there I was, face to face with all those magnificent ceiling paintings. They were less than 5 m away, I could see details that would be impossible to distinguish  from below!

I considered it a great privilege and only went down because there was a huge board saying: Max 10 people at the time.

And there were a lot of people there. When a fat girl went up (really heavy girl), I went down. I would not like to fall down from 235 meters, after seeing the painted angels so closely.

See angel paintings is one thing, seeing real angels are another story ... I am not ready to do so!

I took some pics to show you how close and how amazing the pictures were...

I was almost forgetting, besides all this, the church has a phenomenal golden altar (I've seen from the front and upper angle) , which seems illuminated by divine light (  I am not religious )

When I was upstairs, sorrounded by angels and saints,  I saw a lot of coins on a ledge out of the windows. I had no doubt - I threw one too. But I repented. Imagine if I miss it  and it hits someone downstairs?  A coin going down 235 meters would be a heavy burden to some poor, inoccent visitor.