Morning at the mission.

This morning I had cinnamon cookies for breakfast. 🙂 They were a shortbread made with whole wheat flour. Hey, its like having adult graham crackers when you get up from your nap.

Then to the Mission.

This is the “queen of the missions”, San Jose. It is interesting partly because of the many times it’s been restored.

Built as a mission by Spanish franciscan friars in the 1700’s, later repairs in the 1800s made by the German benedictine monks, they repaired some of the moorish style arches and updated  them with gothic arches.

During the 30’s the wpa rebuilt the outer ring of the fort as it would have been originally, but they didn’t have perfect understanding of what it should look like and made some architectural mistakes.

Now, that work is over 70 years old and is historic in its own right, so those “mistakes” are part of the heritage.

The church itself is still in operation, and the parish is in charge of maintaining the building tho it is on the grounds of the national historic site of the mission. The front stone carvings around the entry are beautiful reproductions of the original work.

The facade would originally have been colored with frescos, long gone, but for a small area to show what they might have been like.

The interior of the church is warm and simple and beautifully inviting.

All in all, it is an amalgam of history. Fact and better facts piled on top of itself.

The day is glorious, tho cold and windy, clear blue skies.

And

We are off to the coast for our next stop.