eople, of course, like to look at pretty things: Charlize Theron, Brad Pitt, sunsets, waterfalls, Ferrari automobiles, cathedrals. The last two might have something in common. The late French critic, Roland Barthes once said such exotic cars were the equivalent of today's great Gothic cathedrals. Maybe so and the majestic churches of Medieval Europe are on many persons' must-see lists when they head what for them is the Old Country.

There are plenty to see: Cologne Cathedral in Germany; York Minster and Canterbury Cathedral in England; and Chartres and Notre Dame in France, merely to look at those three countries. It is poignant to consider the back-breaking work that went into those masterpieces - and how long it took. Notre Dame, more than 700 years old, the most visited tourist attraction in France - more popular than the Eiffel tower - had its foundation stone laid in 1163 and was barely completed in 1250.

Remember the tale of the tourists passing a yard where stone masons' tools screamed as they toiled. "What are you doing?" one visitor shouted to a worker above the din.

"I'm cutting blocks of granite," he answered. They moved on. They approached another worker. "What are you doing?" the visitor asked again.

The worker straightened up, wiped his brow and replied, "I'm building a cathedral."

The workers who built the great churches of Europe would essentially never see the completed work. But they have left the splendor of their labor for the following world to enjoy. How architects and historians must think, Oh, if only those walls could talk! Fortunately if there's one thing the faithful do, they document the lives of their churches. There's more than a pretty face to the churches of Europe. There are their stories.

Austria

Some of the lesser known European churches get little press today. The Church of St. Charles in Vienna, for example. Built in 1727 by Fischer von Erlach in a city square redesigned by the 20th century sculptor Henry Moore, the massive church with its 236 foot-high dome has been called "the biggest Baroque church north of the Alps." But it has also been described by Vassar's Frances Daly Fergusson as "among the most widely discussed and disparaged monuments of eighteenth century Europe ... the none-too-inspired dead end of the Baroque."

Critics have called it a mishmash of styles from its Greek Corinthian columns at the portico to the Roman columns like Trajan's, with the Viennese Baroque touches on the green coppered dome -- but apparently the Emperor Charles VI was under pressure to keep his promise to the Almighty in 1713. He had, after all, promised to have it built as tribute if God brought the Black Plague to a halt in his city. It was presumably important to show the people that emperors, like today's politicians, talked to God. We like it. The church not our politicians. The church is impressive and maybe cathedrals should be!

Switzerland

The simple but incomparably beautiful parish church of St. Idda in the Disney-like hamlet of Bauen in Switzerland overlooks the Lake of Uri. Until 1956 his fascinating village of less than 200 inhabitants could be accessed only by boat through the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons -- or if by land over steep "ferocious" mountain trails.

The village is now easily visited on the Swiss Tourism route to Burglen, a town of about 4,000 in the same canton of Uri, the supposed home town of William Tell. Burglen has the expected statue and a museum to his legend -- even though historians find proof of his existence hard to find.

France

Sète, a former Roman settlement, is now the largest fishing port on the Mediterranean. Its 40,000 Italian and French inhabitants stage an annual water tournament every August when sailors compete, jousting in the main canal from gigantic rowboats. The winner's name has been engraved since 1666 on a shield in the town's Paul Valéry museum.

The upper part of Sète climbs up Mont St Clair. Those prepared to tackle the 500 steps to the top find there a memorable little chapel Notre-Dame La Salette. The chapel was converted from a ruined fort destroyed by Cardinal Richelieu in 1632. Entering this chapel is like stepping into the Middle Ages even though the frescoes were painted last century by the artist Jean-Claude Bringuier. Both the little Swiss parish church at Bauen and this modest chapel in Sète that receives a pilgrimage of fisherman's wives every year seem perfect for private prayer and meditation. Neither bears the trappings, the excesses of organized religion.

Russia

If religious institutions sometimes intimidate, what can be said about the Eastern European Orthodox churches that believe, in design and décor, More is Better? Russia, for example, with the arrival of communism went the other way. Magnificent churches were turned into ice-skating rinks, gas stations, even prisons. One was converted to an atheist museum! The Orthodox Church has undergone a complete renaissance now; churches have been rebuilt, restored and re-painted inside and out. Although some look like gingerbread houses many are so beautiful they make visitors catch their breaths. We have two favorites: one in each of Russia's two best known cities.

Moscow

Maybe all roads do lead to Rome but in Russia the steps taken by tourists bring them to Red Square. It's a bit spooky to stand there. As in every country with a history bad things have happened there, things that might have scared even James Bond. So why not us? And we neither speak Russian nor understand those Cyrillic hieroglyphics. But St Basil's surely soothes the savage breast.

St. Basil's Cathedral, originally called the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat, was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in the middle of the 16th century and completed in 1561 to celebrate his victory over the Mongols in 1552. In legends not unlike those surrounding the Taj Mahal in India, the architect is said to have been blinded by Ivan to prevent his creating other churches as beautiful. (Ivan was, after all, called "the Terrible.") No church could have a more elaborate and stunning exterior although the acerbic French diplomat, the Marquis de Custine, was critical of those who could "worship God in this box of confectionary work." Some diplomat! However, he uttered his remark around 1839 by which time he had changed careers and become a travel writer!

The cathedral has led a checkered life and avoided destruction many times, once when Napoleon tried to blow it up on his retreat from Moscow and later when the Bolsheviks came to power. The statue beside the cathedral features two heroes from Russia's "Time of Troubles" when, after a tsar died in 1598 -- until the Romanovs came to power in 1613 -- the country was wracked in dissent and anarchy. The bronze monument was erected in the center of Red Square in 1818 but Stalin felt it impeded the Red Army when it marched on parade so he moved it to the front garden of St. Basil's in 1936.

St. Petersburg

Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in this city in 1881. A revolutionary threw a grenade that startled the tsar and when he stepped out of his carriage to deal with the radical, another assassin exploded a second bomb. The tsar fell mortally wounded on this spot where now the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood stands. The tsar's son, who became Alexander III, ordered the church built as tribute to his father. He required its architect, one Alfred Parland, to base the design on St. Basil's in Moscow and on the 16th and 17th century churches in the Volga town of Varoslavl. He wanted a Russian Revival style to distinguish it from the Baroque and Neo-Classical architecture that dominated his city which he felt showed its contamination by the West. The church, erected between 1883 and 1907, elaborate as it is cannot compare to the extravagant external decoration of St. Basil's. The interior is another matter.

The area of about 80,000 square feet of mosaic tiles in the interior (as counted by most authorities) is exceeded only by the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis in our own Missouri. The mosaics are eye-stopping. You stand surrounded by color and lost in time. It is gorgeous. Like all Russian churches that had to deal with Lenin and Stalin it has suffered. It was looted by the Bolsheviks in the 1917 revolution and turned into "a garbage dump." Later in World War II during the German siege of the city (it was called Leningrad then) which started in 1941 and lasted 900 days, two million inhabitants died of starvation and Russia's notoriously harsh winters. The building was used then as a mortuary for the corpses and subsequently as a warehouse for potatoes and ultimately for the props for opera and ballet theaters. Russia could not allow this famous church to simply disappear and for almost 30 years restoration was funded until once more the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood was considered ready to face its people. It has not yet been re-consecrated so remains a dazzling non-functioning church but a homage to one of the many Russian tsars who did not die in his bed.

Romania

Even if you leave Russia to walk the streets of Bucharest in Romania you can't avoid churches that have suffered over the years. One, St Nicolas, even has an alternate Russian name: the Bucharest Russian Church. The church - it sits in Old Town near University Square - was built in 1909 so members of the Imperial Russian Legation would have a Russian Orthodox church for worship. It was magnificent with its gold-covered seven onion domes.

When World War I broke out in 1914, in anticipation of Romania's invasion by the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria; isn't it nice to have neighbors) everything of value in the Church was sent for safety to St. Petersburg where it was immediately looted by the Bolsheviks in their 1917 Uprising. The Russian community in town restored the church in 1921 but their priest died in 1935 and once more the church changed hands. "It later became," said our guide, "the 'Students' Church' where students from the nearby university could go to pray for favorable examination results even though, like many students, they really hadn't done any studying!"

Seems students are the same the world over.