~Metropolitan Cathedral of San Sebastian and Escadaria Selaron~
Anyone who knows me well knows I love to visit churches. I like to walk into them and get a sense of the “vibe” of the church. Some feel “light” and some feel “dark”. The Metropolitan Cathedral, called the “new church” by the locals, is most definitely one of the brightest and lightest churches I’ve visited.
It’s home to the Archdiocese for Rio and was constructed from 1964 to 1979 in the Mayan architectural style of the pyramids. I’ve had the good fortune to climb up the steps of the Mayan pyramids in Mexico and while you can’t do the same at the Met, you certainly get a contemporary feel for those ruins. But those ruins did NOT have these windows! 4 stained glass windows that are 64 meters each from floor to ceiling. That’s 210 feet for my American friends. They are massive, bright and warm the interior of the Cathedral in a unique way.
Now on to some steps I can climb…the Escadaria Selaron aka: The Selaron steps. This has to be one of my favorite stops in the city. It bridges two hip and trendy areas of Rio called Lapa and Santa Teresa. I guess you could call this the artist district. I have “certain” friends who would fit right in here!! 😉 The steps where created by a Chilean born artist Jorge Selaron. He started out simply trying to patch fix the steps in front of his home with tiles because they were falling apart and it spread from there. Over time, people started sending tiles from around the world and Jorge turned it into “his tribute to the Brazilian people” covering well over 200 steps.
As I was strolling the steps and looking at tiles I stumbled across two tiles that connect to one of my “special places”, Positano and the Amalfi coast. In later posts I’ll share about my love affair with this region but it seemed fated…Positano, she follows me even to Brazil! This is the magic of travel! How you can be on one side of the planet and a chance encounter connects you to the another. Another person, experience or memory…it never ceases to amaze me!
