Brussels

Visits to churches are often the main points around which our plans for the day are anchored...

Most of these churches are many hundreds of years old. They were built without the aid of modern machinery or the extensive knowledge of materials and engineering research that is available to us today. They are technical and aesthetic marvels and each church is unique, each has its own history.

While we can't show you everything we see, and I expect that few people would find several hundred photos of these churches (or their history) as interesting as we do, we can try to give you some idea of the beauty that draws us in.

The first thing you'll see as you approach the doors of Notre Dame du Sablon, for example, is the beautiful work around the door itself (left) and then as you enter you see the light from the clerestory windows (above) flooding the immense space and staining the pillars and arches ...breathtaking. I can't imagine ever becoming blasé about this experience.

Details create the personality of each church - details such as the memento mori (below, centre) or variations in styles of altars which can differ considerably both from church to church and even within a church.

So many beautiful churches, so many details, so little time.

At the entrance to Notre Dame du Sablon.

Inevitably you will find relics of saints and martyrs. We were told that the relics of St. Sebastian have excellent provenance while the Fragment of the True Cross... "Well... we leave that up to you", said with a smile.