The other people in the hostel were fairly noisy this morning. I ended up waking up at 7:15 after going to bed close to one. Annoyed and tired, I decided I might as well get up and shower so we could get ourselves together and get on the way to Stonehenge.
We headed down to breakfast or at least where there was supposed to be breakfast. The guy showed us where it was going to be set up but it was 8:15 and there was no breakfast. So we took some cornflakes and I took some milk, which I am assuming belonged to the hostel and if it didn't I really didn't give a shit. I don't normally do that but hey, where the he'll was the breakfast?
We got in the car and headed to Stonehenge. Luckily the drive was pretty easy, not like last night's debacle. You can see Stonehenge from the road. Actually, if you're real cheap, you don't have to pay to see it at all. Had we not paid for the heritage pass I think Jess would have been happy to just view it from the road. I on the other hand needed to walk around it so that I could take pictures from different angles.
While I was taking pics, Jess was walking around the and listening to the audioguide. At one point when I caught up, she was being swarmed by Asian tourists. They really are like mosquitoes. The were all around her, taking their pictures and basically forcing her out of the area. It was quite humorous.
We walked the entire route around the area. To be quite honest, it was a bunch of big stones standing up and a few on top. Yes, I get it, how the hell did they get them there from Wales back then. But overall, it's a bunch of stones. I did manage to get some cool pics.
After being overawed by Stonehenge we decided to hit Woodhenge. Basically the same idea but with wood. Well, at some point it was. Now there are concrete posts where the wood was and there was a guy there cleaning off the tops of posts. It was a fucking rip off. It was part of the pass but in general it was a bit of a let down and pretty lame. Woodhenge.
We needed to get to Salisbury by 1 for our tour of the cathedral's tower but had to make a stop at Old Sarum first. this was the site of William of Normandy's castle or at least one of them. It is on a big hill and must have been quite imposing at one time. Now there are barely mortared walls no more than three feet high at their highest point. It was cool to see. There was also a cathedral there, one that would later be moved to Salisbury. Not physically, they just moved because the area and the castle itself were basically abandoned. It was really foggy here today and we could barely see anything let alone Salisbury.
We headed straight in to Salisbury and to find parking. We had a little while to get some food before heading over to the cathedral. We went to the Market Square where every Tuesday and Saturday they have an outdoor market. If you think it was some kind of coincidence that we were here on a Tuesday, you're wrong. The square where the market was was very cool. The tops of the shops were very medieval. We stopped at some guy who sold Greek food but I am not sure if He was Greek or not. Jess got some snacks and some dolmades and I got some bakalava - which for the record was fucking awesome! We continued to walk and ended up at a Thai place so I got some sort of beef and veggie thing with a skewer of chicken (because you can never go wrong with meat on a stick) and Jess got us a few spring rolls. The food was decent, the bakalava better and aside from eating really fast and feeling like I swallowed a guinea pig, it was a decent dining experience.
We dashed the rest of the way to the cathedral and mused why we always get heartburn and headed in to the tour. Robin our tour guide was a very knowledgeable guy and told us everything about the tower. If you ever have the opportunity to go and get an extensive tour of an old tower in a cathedral I highly recommend it. Just seeing how they made some of the joints was amazing.
Even more amazing was how they hand picked some of the boughs they needed dependent on their shape and thickness. Much of the original wood from 1200 is still there. We walked a total of 332 steps I believe and got to see some amazing engineering shit. There was even medieval metal supports in the stone in the towers. There was so much addition stuff added throughout the years it was really a surprise to see all of it there. We were even able to go outside at the bottom of the spire - which the extended further upwards. All in all well worth the hour and a half tour and additional three pounds each. So if you find yourself in Salisbury I strongly recommend going on this tour. Not only that, but there is a copy of the fucking Magna Carta! Waaaaaaaay cool if you're into history or if you even remember anything from social studies - the nobles forced bad King John to sign their liberties into law. Awesome.
We walked out of the area and were headed back to the car when I realized that we had forgotten to find the geocache near the cathedral. We raced back because we needed to be back at the car for 4:15, found the cache (a virt) and then headed back to the car. There were a few things we didn't get to see, so we decided that we'd put in for another hour and head back out to St. Thomas' church, named after Thomas Beckett. There was a painting on the arch which was there from I think the 1400s the latest was painted over during the reformation and then rediscovered in the 18th c. We then walked back to the market square to get me some shorts to wear in to one of the baths tomorrow and then some shots of the area. With that out of the way we headed back to the car and on to Bath or just outside of it.Now, I have to stop to say, and I hope I am wrong but there's a good chance something horrible will happen to England within the next six months to around a year. Everywhere we go, we leave destruction. When we went to New Orleans, Katrina hit a few weeks later. We went to Iceland and about 14 months later, the volcano blew, Spain - the economy collapsed (thought I am not taking credit for that one with the way we were spending money) and now New Zealand, the first earthquake and now this one - so scary, we were there, in that church, listening to the choir one night.
So, if you plan on visiting England, do it soon, or after a year and a half or something.
We had some minor difficulties getting in to the B&B this evening but nothing major as we're quite resourceful. Ian, the man in charge is real nice and seems to share many of the same political views we do. He pointed us in the direction of the local pub and the food was quite tasty, I had a nice lamb shank and some veggies and Jess, that's right, had a bunch of veggies. I had two new beers, Doom Bay and Butcombe, two bitters that were fairly local brews. After eating we retired to the other room of the pub near the fireplace and hung out for a bit.
We headed back to the B&B and Jess decided to shower but needed assistance. Get your minds out of the gutter. She couldn't figure out how to turn the shower on. Don't laugh because it's not as easy as you would think. As a matter of fact, I am still not sure what you need to do to turn it on. She showed me everything and told me that she pushed every button and what do I think. She even informed me that she "Pulled the fish", which was hanging on a string outside the shower. We decided to try to turn on the tub and then press the buttons and that didn't work, so I yanked on the the fish again and voila - water.
We're sitting in bed and amazingly, Something About Mary is on - we've had numerous references to this movie this trip including seeing Magda and the song Build Me Up Buttercup. When we left, we were in the same spot we saw Cameron Diaz when we left JFK for NZ, not to mention a scary Chris Elliot reference the week before. I'm going to check my hair gel now.
AAAAAaaaaaa!!! It was that exact part!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment