Belletrist: Salzburg: The Dom

Side of the two bell towers of the Dom (and entrance to the Christmas market)

I've been inside of a lot of churches. Some of them marvelously gilt, filled top to bottom with treasures, paintings, sculptures and materials of the finest quality. Others humble and bare with worn wooden benches, faded carpets, and a simple cross on the altar. Although I can appreciate all of them for their individual beauty as a place of worship, very few of them have the ability to take my breath away like the Salzburg Cathedral. There is something incredible about its interior that makes my breath catch and release in a peaceful sigh as soon as I enter its cool darkness. The pews are dark, heavy wood and from there, the walls and ceiling loft upward in arches covered in the curlicues of Baroque design.

A cathedral has stood on the site of the Dom since 774, but the current structure dates to 1628. During World War 2, an Allied bomb dropped through the dome causing extensive damage. The dome was rebuilt and finished in 1959. An interesting bit of trivia is that after my 1997 semester in Salzburg, I found a photograph of the cathedral while looking through an antique book shop in Elkins. Though I don't have an exact date on the photograph, it is evident that it is from pre-World War II and gives a hint of how the Dom appeared before the bombing. On the back is an inscription from a photographer's studio on the square adjacent to the cathedral. It's always made me wonder if someone else from my hometown also felt a special connection to the Dom.