Kyle Hepp

June 16, 2011

Still in Scotland — on this blog, not in real life. Moving on from the Edinburgh Cathedral to another church. My favorite church. If you’ve seen the Da Vinci Code you probably remember it as the church at the very end where they find the Holy Grail. Find that clip on Youtube and you’ll actually get a good feel for the church, more than you will with this blog post, because they don’t allow photos inside.

The biggest difference from the movie and real life is that when Tom Hanks goes down into the crypt part it looks HUGE, but it’s much smaller. Oh, and the other main difference is that there’s no Holy Grail buried there. I guess.

I bought a book while we were there about the mysteries of Rosslyn Chapel, and the truth is that nobody really knows the full history. There are a lot of stories about the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail and the meanings of all the carvings inside, but they’re all educated guesses at best. Some of the myths about the place are more like fantastical wishful thinking than educated guesses, but either way, all the mystery surround the church is what makes it interesting.

The church is about 20 minutes outside Edinburgh. There are buses that go regularly from the main station.

Once you’ve taken the bus you arrive out to a tiny little Scottish town, which is Rosslyn. There are a few houses and two pubs right near the entrance to the Rosslyn Chapel, and that’s about it.

All these pictures are taken from the outside, because like I said, you can’t take photos inside for whatever reason. Even taking pictures from the outside is difficult because at this moment they’re doing construction to restore certain parts so there are scaffolds everywhere.

It’s a good thing though. Before the Da Vinci Code, one of the guides told me that the church, in it’s absolutely best year, which had been a total anomaly, had had 8,000 visitors in a year. Now it receives around 180,000 visitors per year. So they’re using the money to restore it. Basically the stone carvings on the roof had gotten so moldy and the roof was so wet that it was basically decaying and would someday fall in. Can you imagine all that history lost?

The remodeling is painstaking and will take years to complete (sound familiar?). They have to do things like laser off the mold using magnifying glasses and try to repair things behind the stones in a way that doesn’t damage the authentic artwork in the church.

Here are two clandestine photos that Seba took once inside. It’s a shame you can’t take pictures openly. There are so many intricate carvings that all tell stories. It’s fascinating really.

And a few more from the outside again.

This is the actual town of Rosslyn with it’s two pubs.

And here we are back at the train/bus station. Quite photo worthy itself, even if it’s not a church with hundreds of years of crazy religious history behind it.