Rosslyn

The chapel was amazing. We had to take a train, two buses and walk by

a stinky cow pasture to get there but it was winter and there were only 30 people there at the time.

They used to get 3,000 people a year but now get at least 100,000 and it’s a very small place. All due to the Da Vinci Code book and movie, of course.

If you look behind the altar there are three pillars. Behind those pillars on the left is the master artist’s pillar with vertical columns and to the right is the apprentice pillar with a diagonal design.

Story is the master went touring Europe to see how to craft this great pillar and while he was away his apprentice carved his own. Once he returned he saw the greatness in his apprentice and killed him.

The Chapel is incredible, begun by a historic French family including Knights Templar. Masons carved nearly every inch of the structure with pagan, Christian, Jewish and Latin enscriptions.

If you do go and want to enjoy viewing it, please go in the winter when crowds are sparse. The restaurant in the hotel on the corner made a great soup and sandwich so that was a bonus. The cow pasture had just been manured and 1/2 hour of walking was an assault to the nostrils.

But if you don’t mind driving on the wrong side of a car on the wrong side of the street through multiple “roundabouts” that go the wrong way, go ahead and drive.

Check out the Rosslyn Motet online. Researchers looked for clues in the carvings and wrote a Motet based on them. Our friends from Scotland went to see a performance at Rosslyn Chapel.