Mostly due to it's scale, location and seniority...
I can't believe that something that is 900 years-old is still standing, let alone that it's still practicing and you can walk around it and more-or-less live in it happily. Plus they had a playground!
Our canon guide (whose name I embarrassingly forget) was an incredibly chill person too. Pretty much every guide we've had on this trip has been great. He recommended some wine to me. I'll have to go back to buy a few bottles to take home.
I actually enjoyed hearing our guide talk about the recent administration and financial challenges of the Catholic church more than the history behind it. Since we've been talking about the church in the past tense so much, it began to feel like an institution that only existed in history. Hearing him talk about it's problems in the modern day and the church's current relationship with the state brought my view of the back into the present. It was interesting to hear him talk about how the Catholic church is trying to recover from all the bad history surrounding it. After meeting our guide I think that my view of the Catholic church became more humanized.
More relics and reliquaries
The detail is astounding
Not even the emperor can hang on to this crown
Big empty reliquary
First depiction of a black person in western art
(not that you can tell in this photo...)
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