This former Roman Catholic church in Santa Fe, New Mexico is now used as a museum and wedding chapel. It is famous for it’s spiral staircase of legend which is just what I wanted to see. But by the time we found the chapel we had been beat to it by a ton of other tourists. There was a line to get in as well as an admission price so I poked my head in to see if it was worth doing. The crowd inside let me know there was no way I would get a shot I’d like of the staircase.
Instead I took a few shots of the outside when it wasn’t swarmed by the selfie squads. I do wonder what the story is behind all of the rosaries in the tree though.
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Those selfie tourists are wild – I have never quite got the reasoning ! I love that church but never got inside it either! c
I can’t get over how they just pull out those selfie sticks any and everywhere! t
Looks like a place to go early or late. It is beautiful.
Or on a day when, as Tim said, there isn’t a ginormous event going on in the state. Thanks.
During the Balloon Fiesta is one of the worst times to go to Santa Fe if you don’t want to be in the middle of a mob of selfie obsessed tourists. Since half of the 900,000 people who attended the balloon fiesta will be in Santa Fe snapping selfies in all the the famous locations, you don’t stand much of a chance of getting photos without a bunch of self centered, selfie seekers getting in the way.
That said, the staircase is truly magnificent. Although the last time I saw it was in the late 70’s when I was a teenager working for an artisan furniture maker. We were doing some work in Santa Fe one day and stopped in the chapel to look at the fine work in the staircase. It is a miraculous work of art.
Sometimes you just have to deal with the selfie crowd because of time restraints but they can be a pill! I read it was an amazing work of art but it will have to wait until another day…
I don’t think you can really appreciate it with scads of people around it. Kind of like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre with wall to wall tourists most of the time. Although, one morning we got to the Louvre when it opened, and I got a nice close view of the Mona Lisa with only about 50 people in the room; but even better, another day we were still at the Louvre at closing time, and while the guards were running everyone out of the museum, I popped by the room with the Mona Lisa, and the nice guard barring the entrance let me in to get an even closer view of the painting, since he and I were the only two people in the room at that point.
If it’s popular they will come but sometimes you just have to manage with what you have if there isn’t time to go back or wait for a better time. I’ve gotten up and out at some ridiculous times in order to get a shot.
“This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.” All of which to be captured on selfie sticks.
And even if it ends with a bang the sticks and phones will be out to record it…sigh.