We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.
-Winston Churchill
Being a UNESCO junkie, I am more than happy to go out of my way to visit a site I have not seen before. I use the free phone app UNESCO Sites by TripBucket and feel a twinge of satisfaction whenever I check off a site as visited (I’m up to 73 sites and have more than 900 to go). So, with the opportunity to see Croatia’s Cathedral of St. James in the lovely coastal town of Šibenik on my way out of Split, I jumped at the opportunity. This beautiful Gothic and Renaissance style stone church was built in the 1400s and features stunning decorative carvings throughout the outside and inside. Unfortunately, photos are not allowed in the building’s cool, stark interior so I didn’t get a picture of the building’s unique vaulting and dome construction, or the “remarkable frieze decorated with 71 sculptured faces of men, women, and children, also illustrate the successful fusion of Gothic and Renaissance art.” Regardless, seeing a church molded by the distinct styles of three successive architects over a period of a hundred years was fascinating and well-worth the rush of satisfaction earned when I checked it off my bucket list.