I used to think the Loretto Chapel was a classy place modeled after a cathedral in France. But when I actually got inside the place in September I realized it was a tourist trap. They were selling tickets to the "Miraculous Staircase". They were selling weddings. I saw the famous spiral staircase about which I once wrote a novel --- that was, before I saw it. Now I think the staircase looks like it's just standing there detached from the rest of the church and not really part of it. They say that it isn't attached anywhere, that nobody knows why it doesn't fall down. That sounds like a circus trick for sure. The Loretto Chapel can't hold a candle to the St. Francis Cathedral across Water Street.