The other “Minnesota Twins”

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The Baseball Twins are well known but not many people outside of the state know that Minnesota has another set of twins. While fraternal and not identical twins, Saint Paul’s State Capitol Building and The marvelous St. Paul Cathedral dominates the city’s skyline. At night, both are lit up and glow and glow like two guardian angels. In an earlier post of “Globetrotting Grandpa,” we covered the ornate and mesmerizing cathedral today, we explore the white marble State Capitol building’

The Minnesota State Capitol and St. Paul’s Cathedral stand a little less than a mile from each other. First-time visitors often can’t tell which one is which from a distance.

I have been to all fifty states and have endeavored to visit the state capitol building in each of them. So far, I am only about halfway through. I have read extensively about all of them and have seen pictures of each. At first glance, many seem identical. Most of them are domed buildings (Alaska, North Dakota and Nebraska are exceptions, their capitol complexes look more like office buildings), But even with these, once you look closer, each is unique.

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If the dome design looks familiar, it is because the Minnesota Capitol dome is based on Saint Peter’s dome at the Vatican. In fact, this dome is the second largest self-supporting dome in the world, after the Vatican. 

The Gold Statue you see on the building is called “the quadriga” which is a four-horse chariot. While the statue has been around for over a century, it was just refurbished last year.

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St. Paul’s Cathedral as seen from the balcony of the state capitol. 
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The detail work on the quadriga is intricate

Inside the attention to detail is just as precise. Friezes, multi-colored marble and beautiful paintings fill each wall.

 Both of the Twin domes offer free tours and are worth the time to visit. Just make sure you have plenty of space for pictures, as these twins are quite the lookers.

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