The view from the top

The last time I climbed to the top of a cathedral was in 1995, at Strasbourg, France. (Walter Foery photo, 1995)

"From the belfry, the view is wonderful. Strasbourg lays at your feet, the old city of tiled triangular roof tops and gable windows, interrupted by towers and churches as picturesque as those of any city in Flanders. Personally, I would go from one turret to another, admiring one by one, the view of France, Switzerland and Germany via one ray of sunshine."

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Three hundred and thirty-two steps -- the equivalent of the number you'd find in a 25-story modern building if it had a continuous stairwell from bottom to top.

Three hundred and thirty-two tightly wound steps, each just wide enough for two people to pass if they turn sideways, back to back or face to face. And even then, it's a squeeze. The steps wind around a center pole and are narrower near the center than they are at the exterior wall of the stairwell. The person closest to the center barely has a step to stand on.

Three hundred and thirty-two steps up. Three hundred and thirty-two steps down. Three hundred and thirty-two steps to the viewing platform near the top of the cathedral at Strasbourg, France. I climbed those 332 steps in 1995 and vowed, "Never again."

Few medieval cathedrals have been retrofitted with elevators -- very few. The problem is, where would you put them? So if you want to get to the top, it's all legwork. I've climbed my share, but Strasbourg was the last for me.

Three hundred and thirty-two steps.

The view from the top of a Medieval cathedral is invariably spectacular -- akin to the view in this country from the top, say, of the Washington Monument (555 feet, and, yes, I climbed it). Today, the Strasbourg Cathedral is the 6th-tallest church in the world. It's highest spire soars 466 feet toward the sky.

From the viewing platform atop Our Lady of Strasbourg, you can see all the way to Germany's Black Forest. The view must have been even more spectacular in 1439 when the north tower was completed, before the modern world cluttered the landscape and before the age of pollution intervened. (Construction on the church was begun in the late 1100s.)

But Strasbourg was the last climb for me. If there's no elevator, I admire these magnificent buildings now from the ground. Even from a low vantage point, they're still amazingly spectacular.