That's right, ND is it's own city, with a zip code, police dept, and fire department. It's only a short 40 mile drive from our "home", so off we went.
This is one of the two main roads into the campus:
Not very impressive, huh? The Golden Dome in the distance and a tree lined street….
Here are two views of the Visitors Center:
Starting to get a feeling where this is going?
Notre Dame was founded in 1842 by Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C, a priest of the congregation of Holy Cross. The University was governed until 1967 by the Holy Cross priests, when governance was transferred to a board of lay and religious Trustees. The University holds it's Catholic identity very firmly, and the statutes require that the President of the University be a Holy Cross priest. We joined a tour of the campus that was led by a 2nd year student who walked backward for an hour and a half while describing many of the buildings and points of interest. Our first stop was the Grotto of our Lady of Lourdes, a favorite place to pray and contemplate (particularly before home football games!)
Our second major stop was the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Now, irregardless of one's religious preferences, this is a beautiful place to worship.
The altar area was magnificent, with painted murals on the ceiling above. If you look carefully just to the left lower center, a figure with a 3 leafed clover appears….can you say Irish?
Adjacent to the Basilica is the Main Building, so named because it was one of the first buildings of the modern era. Built in the shape of a cross, it houses offices and administrative suites, as well as the home and office of the President of the University. It's said that when winter snows fly, the decision to have classes or shut down the school is determined by whether the president can get to his office….since he lives there, they always have class! This is one of the halls in the Main Building showing the exquisite decor. The murals depict the arrival of Columbus in the New World. Can you imagine attending classes and studying in this building?
In the center of the Main Building is the rotunda. Under the Golden Dome, it represents the center of the campus.
The outside of the rotunda, of course, is the Golden Dome.
The Main Building, including the figure of the Virgin Mary is 230 feet tall, and is plated with a fist sized amount of gold. Every ten years the dome is cleaned and the gold removed and replaced. A small amount of the removed gold is placed in every Notre Dame football helmet and is also used for the seal on graduates diplomas. The stairs that you see have an interesting story. It's said that in the early days, a student became locked out of the building when it was used as a dorm and spent a cold night on the steps. Discovered the next morning by the rector, he was punished by never being allowed to use those steps again, instead being required to take a circuitous route through another part of the building. To this day, the steps are not used by any undergraduate to go either up or down. On graduation day the new graduates are allowed to use the steps one time as a symbol of their achievement. Our guide took the long way around while we tourists used the steps!
The adjacent Basilica has a spire with a cross on top that is 235 feet high, symbolizing the higher power of Jesus. No building on campus is allowed to be taller than the Basilica.
Right next to the Main Building is the Hesburgh Library, with it's reflecting pool and mural of Jesus. The library is at the exact opposite end of the South Common from the football stadium and its goalpost.
Which has resulted in the rather casual nickname of "Touchdown Jesus".
The football stadium is closed for the summer due to artificial turf being installed, as you can see in the photo above, but we were able to get up and personal with the Gipper, Knute Rockne.
After a great lunch on campus at Legends restaurant, with a theme of all the sports heroes of Notre Dame, we headed into Michigan to have a look at Lake Michigan. We finally arrived in Benton Harbor, MI, where we found that all access to the Lake was required a rather hefty fee. A little bit of exploring got us to Rocky Gap County Park, just a few miles north of BH, where we could park and walk on the beach without charge.
A few miles south, in the town of St Joseph, we stopped momentarily in a no parking zone to snap a photo of a very nice beach. We wished we could have visited, but we didn't have enough time left in the day to justify the parking fees.
This was very interesting, and brilliantly beautiful.
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