We drove to the parking lot by the church and toured the St. Francis Cathedral built by Bishop Lamy at the end of the nineteenth century, i. e. the hero of Willa Cather's Death Comes For The Archbishop. They didn’t let you take flash photos inside so I took video. After that we took photos outside and went back to La Plazuela at La Fonda for lunch. I had a chance to reflect on what I was spending all that time photographing in Santa Fe. First of all unlike European cathedrals of the Middle Ages such as Salisbury Cathedral which I toured last July, St. Francis Cathedral was bright and new looking inside. Even the baptismal font in the middle of the church was brand new and shiny, in fact pristine. There were even wooden pews that looked as if they were constructed yesterday. Salisbury Cathedral in the south of England has only chairs and no pews at all. My favorite part of the self-guided tour was the transept to the left of the main altar where we found a side chapel devoted to La Conquistadora dressed in striking dark blue and gold robes. That really reminds you that you are in the New World and not the old. We completed our tour by buying postcards and booklets in the gift shop at the entrance and then taking photos of the historical statues and gardens outside.
Note: I visited the Cathedral because a key part of one of my thriller novels takes place here in 1945. I needed a detailed description.