Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Philadelphia

Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Philadelphia tickets: which one to buy

The cathedral stands on Logan Square, at the museum end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and entry is free. It is a natural stop on any walk up the parkway from the city hall to the art museum, and most guided tours of central Philadelphia include at least the exterior. Tours focused on the city's immigrant and Catholic history go inside and explain the building's defensive design, which is the detail that makes it memorable.

Architecture walks pair it with the Victorian and Beaux-Arts buildings along the same avenue. There is no ticket and no timed entry, but the doors close outside service and visiting hours and the schedule is posted. Parking nearby is difficult and the subway is the sensible approach. If you are walking the parkway with the art museum as your destination, half an hour here at the start is well spent, since the interior is considerably more elaborate than the plain street front leads you to expect.

Visiting Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Philadelphia: what to see

Construction began in 1846, two years after anti-Catholic riots in which churches in the city were burned, and the architect's answer was a building with no windows within reach of the street. The lower walls are solid brownstone, and all the light comes from high above, which gives the interior its particular quality: a dim lower zone and a bright dome. Napoleon LeBrun designed the church in Renaissance Revival style, and the dome and the columned front were added after 1850 to a revised design by John Notman.

The model is clearly Roman. Inside, the crossing opens into a coffered dome, the walls carry paintings by Constantino Brumidi, who later decorated the United States Capitol, and the seating runs to about two thousand, the largest Catholic church in Pennsylvania. Side chapels hold the shrine and tomb of Katharine Drexel, the Philadelphia heiress who founded schools for Black and Native American children and was canonised in 2000. Two popes have celebrated mass here.

Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Philadelphia opening hours and the best time to go

Weekday mornings are quiet and the dome is at its best when the sun is high. The parkway outside is closed for events several times a year, including the large public gatherings that came with papal visits in 1979 and 2015, and for parades and festivals in summer; the city publishes the closures. Sunday mass fills the church and the music is worth attending for its own sake. Winter afternoons are dark inside.

The square in front has a fountain and is a pleasant place to sit, with the science museum and the library on either side and the art museum ten minutes further up the avenue. Philadelphia is walkable and this is the one point where the museum district meets the business district, so the cathedral often ends up as a pause between the two rather than a destination. Thirty to forty minutes inside covers it comfortably.