transportation for the day.
The bus dropped us off right in the center of town where we proceeded to the town Plaza. This is the heart of Santa Fe and in the past was used for religious and military ceremonies, daily markets. It marked the end of the Santa Fe Trail from 1821, when the territory opened.We walked around the plaza and came to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. The Cathedral was finished in 1869. It is a great dramatic contrast to Santa Fe's adobe architecture with its Romanesque style. It houses a beloved 380-year-old statue of the Virgin Mary. As there was to be a celebration for the Bishop later that evening we were unable to go into the church, we were only permitted to look in the windows.
The next stop on our tour was the Loretto Chapel. It was built in 1873 and is an impressive, stone, Gothic chapel built for the Sisters of Loretto and called The Chapel of Our Lady of Light. A miraculous, spiral staircase with legend is part of the chapel. The chapel was patterned after the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. It was to be 25' by 75' and 85' in height, with a choir loft at the rear. When the structure was about finished it was discovered that an error or omission had crept in somewhere along the line. The chapel was beautiful and so was the choir loft, but there was no way to get up to the loft. Because of the height of the loft, a conventional stairway would take up too much room in the chapel below. It was a question of wither using a ladder or rebuilding the balcony.The Sisters of Loretto were quite disappointed, but being ladies of great faith, they decided to do nothing drastic, to wait awhile, and t make a novena of Saint Joseph. As the legend goes, it was on the last day of the novena that a gray-haired man with a donkey and a tool chest stopped by the Chapel. He wanted to know if he could be of some help to the Sisters in the building of a stairway. The only tools used by the old man were a saw, a T square, and a hammer, along with a bucket of water that the man filled with water and soaked pieces of wood. When the stairway was finished Mother Magdelene looked around for the man to pay for the work he could not be found. Even the local lumber yard had no record of any wood being purchased for the project. The stairway, which the builder apparently left as a gift for the Sisters is circular, consisting of 33 steps and two complete turns of 360 degrees each, without a center support. It rests against the loft at the top ad of the floor at the bottom, where the entire weight appears to be supported. Wooden pegs, rather than nails, were used throughout. the wood used is not native to New Mexico, where it was obtained is still a mystery. The staircase was built without a railing and one was added two years later.
Many experts marvel at the construction and felt with out a center support is should have crashed in a heap the first time is was used, yet it still stands today after many years of daily use.
Some want to believe that the carpenter was Saint Joseph himself. Regardless of how willing one might be to accept this legend of the Miracle Staircase, one cannot help but be impressed by its architectural beauty, its engineering design, and its sound construction that has stood the test of time.
Further around the square is the Hotel, LaFonda, which was once a Harvey House. If you have seen the movie "The Harvey Girls" with Judy Garland, you would know that Harvey Houses were built by Mr. Harvey to feed the passengers off the railroad trains that came through the towns on the Santa Fe trail.
We ate lunch in a local restaurant which was very good. Walking around town there are so many shops with jewelry and souvenirs that you get dizzy with so many stores. So we finished our tour and caught the bus back to our RV Park.
That is all for today. We are leaving for Durango, Co. in the morning so will catch up later.
Candy and Johnny
