As an American who’s used to seeing dilapidated ‘historic sites’ no older than four hundred years old, I dream of visiting the numerous thousand-plus year old sites of Europe still standing and often functioning in the capacity for which they were built.  And so many of Europe’s historic sites are cathedrals, parish churches, and monasteries.  A quick image search of historic churches of Europe will yield an amazing amount of breathtaking examples of Celtic/English, Frankish/Norman, Greek, Italian, Kievan/Russian, Kartvelian, and Scandinavian Christian architecture, some dating from the fourth century.  At the center of nearly every ancient or medieval town across Europe stands one of these jewels.  A note on a compilation of historic European churches by the Huffington Post quipped, “Churches seem to be nearly as abundant in Europe as drugstores are in Manhattan.”  A comparison like that once again highlights the obvious difference in the scenery of America and Europe. Continue reading →