{"id":2896,"date":"2015-07-15T09:25:16","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T16:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rayivey.com.php5-21.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com\/wordpress\/?p=2896"},"modified":"2015-07-15T15:14:07","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T22:14:07","slug":"scandirayvia-15-if-you-climb-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rayivey.com\/wordpress\/scandirayvia-15-if-you-climb-it\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>

Since I first began my foreign travels, I have had the following informal rule:<\/p>\n

If I can pay to climb it, I will pay and climb it.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Cath\u00e9drale_Notre-Dame_de_Paris_-_06\"<\/a>This was true in my first European city, Paris, in 1987, when I first climbed the towers of Notre Dame<\/strong> (226 feet tall, finished in 1250) to commune with the gargoyles.\u00a0 On that same trip, I climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa\u2026when there were no rails!<\/p>\n

Probably my most memorable climb was in 1989 in Sienna, Italy.\u00a0 The beautiful main square of the town features the 289-feet-tall Torre del Mangia<\/strong> from 1348.\u00a0 It stands proudly over a red scalloped Piazza like a royal scepter.\u00a0 Per usual, I bought my ticket for the privilege of climbing it. \"Torre_del_Mangia\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Like many towers, it gradually became slimmer as it got higher.\u00a0 Even at its widest, it was pretty narrow.<\/p>\n

And there was just one staircase, of course, shared by climbers going up and climbers going down.\u00a0\u00a0 This was not much problem near the bottom, but it got worse and worse as one approached the top.<\/p>\n

For the last third it got very tight indeed.\u00a0 The only problem with this, I happened to remember about 300 steps up, was that I am highly, highly<\/em> claustrophobic.\u00a0 Like, really, excrutiatingly bad.<\/p>\n

At a certain point the tight space became so crowded I couldn\u2019t budge.\u00a0 No way up, no way down.\u00a0 People crawling over me, pressing into me.\u00a0 Near darkness.<\/p>\n

It was the worst claustrophobic incident I have had in my life.\u00a0 Yecchh.<\/p>\n

Anyway, eventually made it to the top with my sanity battered and bruised but otherwise intact.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/p>\n

\"Steeple_Distance\"<\/a>Cut to yesterday.\u00a0 On my Segway tour my first day in Copenhagen, I noticed this incredible steeple:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is<\/em> that?\u201d I asked Rainer, our adorable Estonian grad student tour guide.<\/p>\n

Rainer explained that it was the famous Vor Frelsers Kirke, or Church of Our Savior.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you climb<\/em> that tower?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plans for next day made.<\/p>\n

I took the bus to Christianhavn, the lovely district across the big canal from the old part of town.\u00a0 I was planning on going there anyway, as I wanted to people-watch while in Copenhagen, and I wanted to people-watch Danes<\/em>, not just tourists.\u00a0 Christianhavn is a real neighborhood.<\/p>\n

I made my way to the church and dutifully paid for my entry.\u00a0 And started up.<\/p>\n

When I first climbed the towers of Notre Dame, I was twenty-seven and slim.\u00a0 As I began lumbering up the 380 steps of the steeple, I reflected upon the fact that I am now fifty-five and, well, not slim.\u00a0 No matter!\u00a0 As I have proven over and over again, I can climb anything if you let me go at my own pace.\u00a0 My recent successful scalings of Nob Hill and Pacific Heights in San Francisco attest to this fact.\u00a0 So bravely up I headed.<\/p>\n

The Church of Our Savior was finished in 1752 and the corkscrew spire is 270 feet high.<\/p>\n

Look at that steeple again.\u00a0 Notice anything odd about it?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right.\u00a0 The upper portion of the climb is done on the outside of the tower.<\/em>\u00a0 Yeah, you read that right.\u00a0 This is not an outing for the acutely acrophobic.<\/p>\n

The first third of the way was just making our way up through the first levels of the church, and the steps were pretty normal.<\/p>\n

\"Good_steeple_view\"<\/a>Then I got to the middle portion, still inside, but narrow, very<\/em> steep and very <\/em>high steps.\u00a0 Really almost ladders.\u00a0 Ugh.\u00a0 But I did fine.<\/p>\n

Finally, the steeple.\u00a0 The outside part.\u00a0 The good news was that the steps were very shallow on this portion.\u00a0 Almost a ramp.\u00a0 Easier, step-wise.<\/p>\n

The bad news was\u2026 did I mention that at this point I was outside<\/em>?\u00a0 Now, you\u2019d think this would be no problem.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have acrophobia.\u00a0 Heights rarely bother me. In fact, I have frequently found them exhilarating, \u00a0 I\u2019ve frequently described myself as acrophilic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So crawling up the outside of a skinny, brick, 600 year old tower shouldn\u2019t be any problem for me, right?<\/p>\n

Well.<\/p>\n

\"That's<\/a>
That’s the bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At first it wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 But then the higher I got, and the narrower the tower got, and the more crowded it got, the less okay I became.<\/p>\n

The railing to my right seemed nice and solid, but it was the only thing<\/em> between me and a horrible fall.\u00a0 And I was frequently pushed up against it as other tourists heading down had to pass me on the left.<\/p>\n

Then I began to think about how old the steeple was.\u00a0 Up here near the top, it was literally less than two yards wide.\u00a0 Had it been retrofitted lately, I wondered?\u00a0 How much strain does it put on a narrow brick tower when hundreds of tourists climb up and down each day?\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t it designed for just one or two deranged curates to ascend and descend occasionally?<\/p>\n

\"Water_Wind_Farm\"<\/a>
The first wind farm I’ve ever seen that’s in the water! Denmark produces more power than it uses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What if this was the day, the hour, the minute, that all this tired fourteenth-century masonry, undermined by thousands of bitter winter days and millions of heavy-footed tourists, finally decided to call it a day?\u00a0 What if my desire to climb finally cost me everything?<\/p>\n

My sense of unexpected and sudden acrophobia became sharper and sharper, but it was never quite debilitating.\u00a0 I even found the fortitude to switch lenses on my camera at one point, which I assure you was no small feat.<\/p>\n

Something that helped was that there were plenty of fellow climbers around me having a much worse time than I was.\u00a0 I struck up a conversation with a nice but terrified British lady as she was heading up and I was heading down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s any consolation, \u201d I said gently, \u201cIt gets much narrower and scarier as you go up.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m a giver.<\/p>\n

\"Shiny_Domes\"<\/a>
Nice View From the Top of the Steeple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Going down the steeple was scary because, since I was on the inside now, I couldn\u2019t hang on the railing for dear life.\u00a0 The center core had nothing to hold onto.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t realized until I started down that I\u2019d been depending on the outside railing so much.\u00a0 I was shaking a bit by the time I made it to the steep, middle, indoors <\/em>\u00a0portion of the climb.<\/p>\n

\"Our_Savior_1\"<\/a>This was the steep portion, and while it wasn\u2019t scary, it was much more dangerous going down than going up had been.\u00a0 Falling was a real possibility.<\/p>\n

I made it out alive and looked back up admiringly\u00a0at the tall, skinny tower I had just conquered.\u00a0 I thought back to that harrowing 1989 brick tower climb in Sienna.\u00a0 Despite my fears today, I realized that I\u2019d still take Tower Acrophobia over Tower Claustrophobia any day.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad I did it and I\u2019ll continue climbing stuff as long as I am able to!<\/p>\n

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