October 22nd
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We awake, do the morning things, and discover that the toilet isn't filling properly. On the way out, we let the gal at the front desk know that there's a problem, and she promises to have the maintainance man look at it. We wander off to the Big Breakfast Bar and I have a big breakfast. Brian tries the kedgeree, which is curried eggs and rice. It doesn't seem like the kind of breakfast I'd want, but he says it's good. I like our waitress, too.
As we're eating breakfast, we hear Dean Martin singing That's Amore. This is the second
time we've heard the song on this trip, and the first time was in Cork (at a bar with the clock
projected onto the wall), where I had to explain why it made me think of baseball. ![[Footnote28]](images/foot.gif){kind=small}
Breakfast is done, and it's raining a bit. We're still too early for the tourist centre, so we stop by a camera shop so Brian can buy some more film. From there, we head to an ATM and get some more local currency and then the tourist centre is open. We grab a few postcards, pamphlets about local attractions, and decide to head over to the Cathedral. If nothing else, it's indoors, and we won't get rained on if the weather stays uncooperative.
Okay, we're at Salisbury Cathedral. We take a few pictures of the exterior, then pay the
admission and I try and take pictures of the interior. Only a few of them come out, since I
still haven't remembered just how slow my camera is. It's pretty cool, and I'll fill in more
description when I add the pictures.
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The Postern Gate at Old Sarum |
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Sheep Guarding the Ramparts |
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After the cathedral, we head out to Old Sarum. This is actually a pretty easy bus-ride out,
(using the Wilts & Dorset Bus Company)
but we start up the path that's right at the bus stop, and the gate on that one is closed. Huh.
After walking back down to the road, we come up the road leading to the parking lot, and all
is well. While it's cloudy out, it's not raining, and our luck with the weather seems to be good
again. Again, lots of pictures will be inserted here, and more commentary when I have the
pictures to talk about.
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Old Sarum Cathedral (no construction!) |
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One interesting thing about Old Sarum (an aerial picture is available on the South Wilts Places to visit page) is that there are actually two moats around it (you can see them at the top and bottom of the frame in the picture of the old cathedral). As you walk up from the road, you only notice one (the inner one), but the outer moat is some pretty impressive engineering, too. The outer moat is 70 or 80 feet deep by my estimate, then there's an about 100 yard gap, then the inner moat, and then the old castle.
Once we're done looking at Old Sarum, it's time to head back to town. As we start walking back to the bus stop, it starts to rain, and traffic has picked up. I guess Friday rush-hour starts early here, too. There's no shelter at the bus stop, and even with water-repellant jackets, we're pretty soggy dogs by the time the bus arrives. On the way back into town, I notice that double-decker buses are a darned good idea on these smaller English streets. You lose about a dozen seats to the stairway, but that's out of double the total you would have otherwise had. One of the city buses we have in Minneapolis isn't that much bigger in passenger capacity, but would be totally screwed trying to navigate some of these corners.
We return to the hotel to dry off a bit. Of course by the time we're there, it's stopped raining again. The toilet that we complained about earlier in the morning still isn't fixed, and it's starting to vex me. Brian takes another look at it, and thinks he's got it figured out. He attempts a fix. We'll see how it holds up.
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Salisbury Cathedral lit by Sunset |
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Salisbury Cathedral at Sunset |
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As we're sitting there trying to figure out what's for dinner, we notice there's a beautiful sunset about to happen. The clouds are breaking up to the southwest, and it promises to have lots of color. We decide to head over to the cathedral for some sunset pictures, and they'll go about here.
After sunset, we wander about a bit trying to find a place to eat dinner. We end up back at Chough, but first, when the keg we're drinking from goes flat, the barmaid spashes the glass around as she pours to give some semblance of head (I end up asking for a different brand of beer) and then we're told that the kitchen is closed, because they get busy on Friday evenings. Sigh. We finish our beers, and vow never to return (which is pretty easy, since we're leaving. town tomorrow)
Dinner ends up being at a historic fish & chips joint. The building is fairly rare in that it's a wood-frame building in Salisbury, where most of the construction is stone or brick. It actually used to be an alley between two brick buildings, but at some point an enterprising chap built front and back walls, floors, ceilings and roof out of wood, and here's the shop. There are no side walls, though. They're what used to be the external walls of the adjacent brick buildings. The fish is tasty, and I'm happy we stopped here instead of the McDonalds I was threatening Brian with if we didn't find something that looked good soon.
After dinner, we're off to the Slurping Toad for a few pints. We end up sitting at the window which is adjacent to a pedestrian shopping mall. Most of the stores are closed, but there's a good amount of traffic going by, so we've people to look at. This place has very heavy security for the size of the crowd. There are at least two door-guys, and a few working the floor. They all have walkie-talkies with earpieces and are trying to adopt a secret service kind of demeanor. It does keep the crowd well behaved, but there's not that much crowd, so I think they're kind of overdoing it, especially since the large group that was near the bar earlier leaves at about 10pm. We're not far behind them.
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