Friday, April 3, 2015

Day Three - Southwest of London Part Two


Now it is time to continue our tale of day 3 in the Southwest and South of England. After the early morning at Stonehenge, we had a large breakfast at the Amesbury Archer Harvester restaurant. Kind-of the UK equivalent to Bob Evans. Not exactly the same, but quite similar. We then headed to Salisbury for the cathedral there. Called the "single most beautiful structure in England" by Bill Bryson (my favorite writer), it certainly lived up to the billing.

On the left we see the sunlight coming through the stained glass in the quire.


On the right is the oldest working clock in England (and possibly the entire world) which dates from the late 1300's.

In addition, we got to one of the original copies of the Magna Carta that is celebrating it's 800th birthday this year. Amazing considering that I usually manage to lose important papers within a day or two.

The fine face pictured to the right was also found in the Salisbury Cathedral. I liked the looks of him, so here he is!

Following the visit to the Cathedral we headed further south so that we could visit some other sites in the area and also enjoy the southern coast of England. Our next stop was Titchfield Abbey. Quite a challenge to get to (two wrong turns and a stop at a garden shop for directions), it began life as an Abbey, but following the move to the Anglican church, it was turned into a private residence. Not much of the original Abbey remains, but the remains to the residence (with small parts of the Abbey) is quite impressive. Because of the change in church, most remnants of the Catholicism were removed from any property in the possession of the crown, but some small bit remained.


Along the route to our next destination, we stopped to pick up some groceries at Waitrose so that we could have a picnic lunch. We decided that another welcoming face would make for a great picnic location, so we dined inside the outer walls of Portchester Castle.


 After our meal of bread, butter, cheese, grapes, and crisps, we toured the castle itself. This one had an excellent audio tour that we really enjoyed - it had a couple different characters and told the history of the castle along with somewhat personal stories. Very enjoyable. Here is the view from the first floor and below is the view from the room looking out on the church and the water within the outer walls.










After the tour of the castle, we walked the full perimeter of the outer wall. The outer wall itself is pretty impressive. Dating from the 3rd century, the Roman walls seem to have withstood the test of time better than the main portions of the castle which are between 700 and 1000 years younger! I particularly liked the idea of something very young which would likely only live for a few days in front of something that has seen close to 2000 years of life.




After the castle, it was simply the long drive to Horley, where we were staying at a bed and breakfast for the next two nights. The dinner in Horley was not altogether memorable, although the beverages enjoyed will be shared later! See you on the East Coast soon.

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