Dick and Dom

We were in Vienna for a few days en route to see Max – an excuse for more wasted electrons and pixels ( though I stole most of the photos, for efficiency ).

Dominating the centre of Vienna is the Stephansdom– a huge , grand cathedral.

It’s an astonishing piece of architecture – the south tower at 137m high was the tallest building in the world when freshly minted in the 14-15th century – and it is covered inside and out by those intricate curly wurly swirly bits that a more professional blogger would probably call ‘baroque’.

We were debating whether any moulds had been used for efficiency – but it seems that every stone has been hand-carved, which is just mind-boggling at this scale.

” Look mate, you don’t get to be a master mason like me by using these modern short-cuts, right ? “

Most of the carvings are either purely decorative or religious symbols – but there is something very odd going on atop two columns, one either side of the main entrance –

Close ups of left and right column are unexpected in a respectable institution  ( look away if easily shocked) –

The explanation suggested online is that these were early emojis  to show illiterate peasants which entrance to use – ie a predecessor of

But … they could be a LOT closer to the doors if so.

So I prefer an early reference to Dick and Dom.