Arches

from the portico of the Franciscan Monastery in D.C.  Yet another place I'd not visited in my many years living here... 

It's a bit of a strange concept actually: about 800 years ago, the Roman Catholic Church entrusted the guardianship of the Holy Land and other shrines of the Christian religion to the Order of St Francis. This work has grown to include support of schools and missions in the Holy Land, as well as care for refugees and other needed people in the region. And, it includes this monastery, built in the late 1800s, that contains replicas of the shrines one might find in the Holy Land, including a small catacomb and actual relics. The monastery and its gardens are beautiful, but the replicas -- if you've seen the real thing -- are really fake looking. So mixed feelings about it all.