St Pauls Cathedral

Started off the day at St. Paul's Cathedral (no pics allowed inside).  Always impressive.  They've added an audio guide since I visited last and it was a really good one.  Nice short snipets on different parts of the building and its history.  I was particularly intrigued by the discussion about the inner decorations.  At the time it was constructed (4th building on this site), it was after the reformation and there was a lot of debate about how much decoration a church ought to have.  Queen Victoria called the church drab and dreary and so additional decorations were added from the original design.  The paintings on the dome are just two tones, but there are beautiful mosaics on the lower levels that I think really add to the beauty of the space.  (If the whole thing were mosaics, it would be too much.  Its actually a good balance to me).  Sadly our pics are only of the exterior since photos were not allowed inside : (

We climbed the 200+ stairs to the Whispering gallery and on up to the exterior of the dome.  Well worth the climb.  The dome has 3 layers, the ceiling that you see inside, the weight bearing structure in the middle, and the exterior dome on top.