Do You Hear That, Mr Andersen?

 I haven’t had a chance to write in a while, so I’m finding it hard to remember what has happened. Let’s see – after the laundry (which took a long time, but having clean clothes makes me feel less feral), we popped out to watch people’s umbrellas be destroyed by the wind at the Reichstag, and then headed into the Pergamon Museum. This turned out to be an extremely long line, which worried us, since it was only a couple of hours until closing time; luckily, C was able to work out that we could use our Museum Passes to jump to the head of the queue.

She asked to be taken to some awesome things; luckily, the Pergamon has quite a few of those, including the titular temple (which had been nicked by Russia, and given back at reuninification), a Greek market gate, and the impressive Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Our old friend Ashurbanipal made another appearance, as did muppet-faced lions. The special exhibit concerned a collection that had been in Dresden during the war – the building they were housed in was consumed by a terrible fire, and many of the stone sculptures that had been heated up exploded when firefighters sprayed them with water. The Pergamon Museum in West Berlin had kept the fragments, but the rights to the statues resided in the East; and people didn’t think that the statues could be reconstructed anyway. But it turns out that, with modern techniques, the documentation from the original excavation and patience, they could be; and the results are both impressive and sad.

We had a flight the next day, and we were a bit nervous about finding the airport and checking in, so we headed straight out after checkout; despite our misgivings, the flight out on Air Berlin was fine, and we had no problems getting to Vienna. After a few missteps, we managed to find our hotel – and discovered that we had free wifi and a free network cable. (If you were wondering where the last burst of photos and posts came from, wonder no more.)

It was getting a bit late to do too much sightseeing, so we decided to wander around the local neighbourhood, which seemed to have a bit of a Russian flavour, judging from the speciality dishes on the menus and the names on the businesses. But the nearest square and park was Mexicoplatz, which the city had dedicated to Mexico for being the only country to actively protest when Austria was annexed by Germany at the beginning of WWII. There was a wedding happening at the big church there, and we wandered back towards our hotel, looking out for somewhere to eat.

We picked somewhere that, to my eyes, didn’t look too hopeful – it was almost deserted inside, except for a woman smoking with her dog. (When we sat down, it turned out that she worked there.) But we had the special of the day: broth with shredded pancake, schnitzel with cabbage and potato salad, and some sort of chocolate cake. All of this, plus drinks, worked out to 10 Euro each; and it was pretty good, too.

(As a sidenote, we’ve had some dilemmas when it comes to tipping; we’ve tended to err on the side of caution, and add 10%. Yet another thing I will not miss when I come home.)

We got back and took advantage of the unprecedented internet access, and I said hi to my parents and Louise; unfortunately, there was some bad news from home for C from her Mum – C’s grandmother had suddenly gotten a lot worse. Fortunately, because we had access in our room, she was able to skype her Dad that night, and arrange to skype with both her parents the next morning. It was slightly odd to try to continue with a breezy update, which is one of the reasons I didn’t write anything much, mostly reading email and titling pictures.

The next morning, we got ready, and C talked to her parents. It’s times like this that Skype really comes into its own; I think it really helped them to be able to see each other. We then headed out to do something unchallenging at Schloss Schonbrunn.

But first, we accidentally went to a random antique fair. It all really happened because we were looking for a supermarket; we were on the Metro on the way to the palace, and thought that we’d poke our heads above ground, on the off-chance that we’d see one in or near the station. We had a bit of a look around, gawking at the Opera House like the tourists we are, and then… well, there was a sign. A “Sale” sign. How could I be reasonably be expected to resist?

I think that the place it was being held is normally an upmarket department store, but it had been given over to a score or more stalls of various antique vendors. I was particularly vulnerable to this, because I’ve been reading A Magpie’s Companion: A Guide To Things Found, which is full of useful tidbits like how to tell if British military uniform buttons are from the reign of a king or queen (round crown top vs. lobed crown top), and that they didn’t get the trick of weaving candle-wicks to curl over and be consumed by the flame until the mid-1800s, which meant you needed a special tool called a “snuffer” to trim the burnt wick off. I mention this because there were actually two snuffers at the fair (they look like scissors with a box attached to the blade, to catch the burnt wick), and I was very, very tempted to get one; but C correctly pointed out that 45 euro was a lot to pay for something that I really, really didn’t.

So I bought a bunch of old WWII-era notes instead; but I’m still thinking about those snuffers. I think I like them because they’re representative of how little changes in technology can eliminate whole classes of objects, and suddenly you’re left with this eddy of artifacts that young people look at and go, “What the heck was this for?” Like the screens you could buy to make your wee TV image bigger, or (increasingly) paper dictionaries.

The others had fun browsing the stalls, and I think that some purchases were made; and then it was back on the train, and out to the palace.

The first thing we did was to have a traditional Viennese apple strudel, as well as the untraditional accompaniment of a gin and tonic (in honour of C’s grandmother). We then continued our tradition when it comes to impressive, well-known palaces, and stuck to the gardens. I don’t know whether it was the drought, but the gardens at Schloss Schonbrunn seemed much prettier than the ones at Versailles. And while there were no musical fountains, there was a labyrinth section (with things like a foot-operated glockenspiel and puzzles, as well as a pretty cool children’s playground), and a zoo.

We went to the zoo, even though we realised that we wouldn’t get to see everything. Most of the explanatory signs were in German, so I had to rely on my extensive reading of Gerald Durrel books to guide me; though there’s no need to explain how cool it is to see a couple of rhinos, or hippos, or piranha, or archer fish, or mud skippers, or giant tortoises, or a baby panda, or jellyfish, or giant snakes… C commented that she was surprised by how freaked out the snakes made her. Oh, and there was a kea, who had a bucket with some holes punched in the top; we watched it tipping it around, making the fruit inside fall where it could get it.

We then ran the gauntlet of incredibly cute fuzzy toys with only minimal casualties, and then headed back to the hotel. Then we ran into a cuteness assault that we couldn’t avoid – we skyped with my second-youngest niece, who seemed gratifyingly pleased to see us. (Her mum might have been there, coughing away, too.) C also talked to her brother and his partner about what was happening.

The next morning, C talked to her brother, and found out her grandmother had died while we were asleep.

She managed to talk to her Mum & Dad, who told her that she had strict orders from her grandmother to finish her travel. Her mother had been sitting with her grandmother as much as she was able, and her grandmother had opened her eyes and looked at her mother for a little while before she passed away. C wanted to come home immediately, but her mother was adamant; and in this particular battle of wills, C’s mother has won so far.

We checked out, and went to the train station to drop of our bags. Operating the automatic lockers proved fairly challenging, especially since they did not return money if you got anything wrong; still, the prices were far, far more reasonable than London’s.

We then went to St Stephen’s Cathedral, which was impressive in the way that cathedrals are. The stained glass had almost all been destroyed during the war, and the walls were still discoloured from fires. The guy at the shop was the least helpful of any of the staff of such shops I’ve been to, but I got a history of the cathedral, and a German version of the myths and stories associated with the cathedral that I hope to read with the help of C and Google.

After that, we walked around Vienna for a bit, taking in some of the pretty bits. We went to the Sissi and silverware exhibit (though we were hustled through the silverware/tableware section, owing to the approaching closing time). You got a feel for the crazy opulence of the court, and the cost of it all; but the presentation was definitely not pro-Sissi (aka Kaiserin Elisabeth). She was portrayed as a bit of a narcissist, who was seized on as a marketing tool after she was safely dead and unlikely to mess up the image that people wished to portray and use. Kaiser Franz-Joseph, on the other hand, was portrayed as a besotted but dutiful and honourable man. But to modern eyes, there were a few weird things going on. For example, there was a rule that a course is finished when the emperor finishes it, and because he was courteous, Franz-Joseph did his best not to finish before others were done. But he didn’t eliminate the rule.

We walked around through the city a bit more, and then headed to the station for dinner and our sleeper train.

 The next day we were bound for Ghent, so we had the last meal of croissants and cornflakes (hoorah for free breakfasts), and then we were off to Gard du Nord. Negotiating the ticketing system wasn’t too bad, and then we were on a train, and couldn’t do anything for a while.

I quite like train travel. Once you’re on, you’re on; it doesn’t feel as claustrophobic as plane travel, and if you don’t feel like reading, you can just look at the scenery. Instead of being good and writing the blog or postcard, I vegged out and read – that was the first time I’d had the opportunity to do that in a while.

Soon enough, we were in Ghent. I’d looked up how to get to our hotel, and we negotiated the tram system fairly successfully; unfortunately, it varied between being clear, lightly drizzly, and seriously raining. We were a bit damp by the time we arrived… only to find that we couldn’t check in quite yet. So we left our bags, and headed out into the changeable weather to find somewhere to eat.

It’s quite intimidating to choose somewhere when none of you speak the language. We ended up going to Ekxi, which appeared to be the equivalent of Pret/Wishbone, where I had a very nice lasagne and juice, and an adequate lemon meringue pie. We then wandered around the stalls of the Ghent Festival until we could check in.

While wandering, I bought some sweets that are apparently a Belgian speciality, dark purple cones called something like “noejes”. They were actually too sweet for C to handle! They were meant to be raspberry flavour, but they were mostly sugar-flavoured; there were non-traditional coloured ones as well. They have an outer coating like Pascall’s wine-gums or jet-planes, but the inside is much more runny. You can get a similar syrup for desert topping as well, but I didn’t.

After lolling around in the luxuriously big room, enjoying the comfort of not having to climb up into a bunk-bed (on my part, at least), we decided that we should have some dinner, and ventured back out into the rain. After much wandering and appreciation of the free live music (and purchases of vital chocolate supplies), we ended up in what I think was the Grossemarkt, a big barnlike room with what I sincerely hope were fake hams hanging from the ceiling. I got around the difficulty of understanding what the different signs on the food stall meant by simply asking the person behind the counter what they’d recommend, and going with that. (It was a burger-like thing with a nice cheese, lettuce, tomato, and bacon chunks, with a mustard/mayo sauce; it was very tasty.) C & Margie had cherry beers, and they helped me try vanilla, citroen and apple jenever (which is a kind of gin), and then we made our way home.

The next day we slept in. Quite a bit, in fact; we didn’t start stirring until around half-past ten, and didn’t get out the door until sometime close to midday. While we were getting ready, Margie received some sad news from her family via text– an uncle in Thailand, who has been ill for some time, had died that morning, so we decided that we needed some connectivity, to see (among other things) if there was a Buddhist temple nearby.

We strolled down to McDonald’s to get something cheap and use their free wifi. Did you know that they have different flavour McFlurries in Belgium? There was a fruit one, a speculaas one, and one flavoured like the traditional Belgian sweet I mentioned earlier.

We went to look for some shoes to give the others more non-wet options, and then a weird thing happened. In the middle of Ghent, taking pictures, was a group of Thai monks and their driver/interpreter (who spoke German, French, Dutch, English and Thai, and may have spoken more). Marige was a little overcome by the coincidence, but managed to ask whether she could make them an offering for her uncle. So we went to a cafe, she served them drinks (putting them on the table in front of them) and made her offering, after which they chanted some prayers. And then got some photos with us, and gave Margie a card with their website so we could swap photos. (Talking to one of the monks, it turns out that a friend of his was sent to the temple in Wellington, so he might well have been at my brother’s wedding!)

(This also meant that I couldn’t be annoyed at how late we were getting away to see Bruge, since it was obvious that what happened was simply meant to be.)

We got to Bruge around 4pm, which meant that our visits to the Chocolate and Frite museums were limited to their respective giftshops, and we didn’t manage to find the Tintin museum at all; we did have dinner at a nice riverside restaurant, where I had a half-chicken “in a Belgian style” (with mushrooms, beans and bacon sauce). And we got to wander around the town of Bruges, looking at the lace, the swans with cygnets riding on their backs, and the lovely old buildings.

And then it was back to Ghent and their festival; we just had time to go to the specialist jenever pub (we tried lychee, pineapple, mango, passionfruit, and their version of vanilla), buy some doughnut-pods in a cone (where I also bought a bright blue “tropical” slushy, against Celeste’s strong advice), and grab something for breakfast before going back to the hotel to pack and get a relatively early night.

The next day it was up early, and off to the train station to catch a train to Brussels, and then a two-hour train to Colonge, and then a five-hour train to Berlin; hopefully, it will all go smoothly.

On Bastille Day, we got off to a later start, and took the Metro back to near the Musee d’Orsay, to see the tail-end of the military parade. (We got an accordion/clarinet duo on the train with synth backing in one of our carriages, which made the lone guy with an accordion who jumped on next seem much less impressive.) Seeing all the different uniforms (and the way they were varied for the women serving) was neat, and we got a few photos with the General Assembly building in the background, but after a while we decided to take advantage of all the crowds watching the parade and not going to the Louvre (which is free on Bastille Day), to got to the Louvre. (We also entered via the Lion’s Gate, avoiding all lines.)

We had a strict regime in the Louvre – trekking from highlight to highlight. I’m not sure that this is the way that I would have chosen to see it, if only because I don’t feel that I got as much out of it as I could have. That bastion of the Louvre’s marketing, the Mona Lisa, was both small and far away – the crowds in front of it are large, and I’m not sure that it’s the most conducive way to appreciate its genius. I liked some of the paintings and statues that we saw in passing, but anything that was featured on the Louvre map seemed to be surrounded by tourists trying to establish that they’d really been in the same general area as something famous. That said, I was unreasonably pleased to see the Code of Hammurabi – not just because it was another check on my “We’re the Mesopotamians” list, but because it’s the first time in history that civil laws were written down, rather than justice relying on custom, memory and the whim of authority. It’s also a big black rock with writing all around it, written so many generations ago I find it had to grasp.

We returned to the Tuileries for lunch, sitting in the shade of the trees, and then continued on to the Champs-Elysees to be intimidated by the shops. (We tried booking tickets to Eurodisney, but were foiled after an excessively long time in a line, followed by not being able to get the discount from Visit Paris; in the end, we decided not to go after all.) However, C and Gemma managed to satisfy a desire to have a coffee on the Champs-Elysees, so all was not lost.

Some of us retreated to a Fnac to regroup, and slowly various members departed until it was just C, Gemma and myself. C managed to buy something, and then we headed towards the Metro, only to find our train entrance mysteriously blocked by a group of milling, confused and frustrated people.

We now know that “colis suspect” means “suspicious package”, or “some idiot tourist has left their luggage behind, and now the French have to blow it up.”

We decided to try an alternate route home; I noticed that we were passing the Louvre on the way. I decided to strike out on my own, since there was a lot of the museum that I’d failed to see, and someone had said that it was open until 9pm. Unfortunately, it appears that it closes early on Bastille Day – at least, earlier than I arrived there. So I got a replacement pen to write postcards with, and hopped on what I hoped was the train back home.

Several changes later, I arrived back, we had some dinner, and C did some research to see whether it was possible to see the fireworks from Sacre Couer. Some of the internet resources said that you could; and the crowds at the top suggested that you might.

You can’t.

However, we did get to see a lot of fireworks across the rest of the city, some of which may have been Disneyland from. And among the crowds on the hill was an African band playing, someone randomly launching fireworks over the crowd (and sometimes into the trees), and a guy climbing a street-light and doing football tricks while holding himself out with his arms. We headed back soon after realising that the changing glows towards the Tower’s searchlight meant that the fireworks were already happening, and that’s when we saw the guy peeing on a wall (and being photographed by a friend with a camera-phone), completing our Paris day.

Speaking of classic Paris, at some point during this day (I can’t remember when), we saw someone with three cards on a table gently parting someone from their money. I find that particular hustle a lot more acceptable than the whole “intimidate people into taking a crappy string bracelet and then extorting money” scam, since (a) it involves skill and cooperation, (b) you can’t get scammed unless you’re greedy, and (c) you can’t be coerced into participating. Actually, we seem to be collecting the set: Meredith was approached with the ring scam, and as we were walking along she also got the “I just need 25 Euro to get back to my hotel at Euro-Disney”; Margie had the variant, “My house burnt down, can you help?” I’m waiting for someone to leave an antique violin as a guarantee that they’ll pay, and to be asked to help a princess held prisoner in Spain… It’s a bit tiring to have to be on your guard all the time, and I’m looking forward to the Lake District and Hay-on-Wye.

[I'm going to have to post the most recent two days separately, but I wanted to get something up now.]

Lugging our gear was pretty much what I expected. We left Portsmouth with plenty of time, but we got off the motorway too early, and experienced the extended crawl that is London traffic, with the added “margin of time trickling away” thrill. But in the end there were no problems handing off the car; however, it started to rain, and the car drop-off point was not handily at a tube station, so there was a certain amount of wet trudging. Nevertheless, we eventually made it to King’s Cross, where Meredith dashed off for Amsterdam EuroStar train.

C’s brother wasn’t finished work yet, so we went and paid the exorbitant left luggage rates (eight and a half pounds per piece!), and then headed towards the British Museum. Margie pointed out that this would take us towards the excellent comic shop Gosh London, lair of the infamous Andrew. Margie hadn’t seen Andrew for eleven years, but they’d played together in a game run by Morgue, and that will mark a person. (I also know him well enough through Morgue to be a Facebook friend.) He was about to go to lunch, so we popped into Pret and chatted for a bit about London, babies and the state of the comics retail industry.

We then hied ourselves to the Museum to briefly scratch the surface of the Antiquities Wing, seeing things like the Rosetta Stone and the palace of Ashurbanipal (who may be familiar to some of you from the They Might Be Giants song, “We’re the Mesopotamians”). Then we hung around the front of the Museum waiting for Drifter to come and whisk Margie off to his flat (where she was going to crash), and then heading back to the flat, briefly stopping to grab some apple pie and ice-cream. This was our first experience of the Tube in the (tail end of) rush hour traffic; feeling the Tube doors ruffle your hair as they shut just above your head can be a bit alarming.

The next day we decided to have a bit of a rest and reorganise, and then met Margie at Boroughs Market (where we encouraged Margie to eat a giant German hot-dog); we then walked to London Bridge, and then along the waterfront to Tower Bridge, stopping and admiring the Tower of London. We then went back to the flat and met C’s brother (who we shall call… D), and headed out to Soho/Chinatown to find some dinner.

We walked for a long, long time – it turned out that D’s partner (K) is an essential component of the food-place decision-making process, and she was having work drinks. Luckily, she was able to meet us, and (after a bit more wandering and a surprise tuktuk ride) dinner was had. This was followed by a late-night visit to M&M world, and then we walked through Piccadilly Circus. (And then we tried to catch the Tube home, along with, it appeared, all of Piccadilly Circus.)

The next day the partners decided that this would be C & D’s day to do their duty for their mother. I should explain – their mother had spent many of her formative years in Putney, living in a lovely house among many other lovely houses while her father did diplomatic-type things. We were under strict instructions to take C & D there; to go to the Green Man pub (which had been her “regular”); and most importantly, to take plenty of photos. And so plenty of photos were duly taken, with only minor rebellions on the part of the siblings. The pub was very, very good, and I believe D & K have plans to return. I also discovered the joy (and danger) of good alcoholic ginger beer.

We were meant to go to a barbecue at a cousin’s place; since there was a two-month-old baby that C had not met, we wanted to take her a present. And because she has a three year-old brother, we wanted to take him a present, to stop him being jealous. Picking a present for a baby was relatively straightforward, but the three year old caused us some dithering – we knew he had a Thomas the Tank Engine obsession, but didn’t want to get him something that he already had. We eventually selected a yellow digger that looked like it might fit a small train in it’s maw; he later took it to bed with him. Present success: achieved.

The next day we decided to go to the Tower of London with D & K. The Tower Guards who give the tour are all ex-Sergeant Majors, and have been since the Duke of Wellington’s day; this means that they are mostly men, have voices good at projecting to the crowd, and have an interesting range of experiences (one of them briefly mentioned guarding Rudolf Hess in Spandau Prison – Hess being one of the last prisoners to be held in the Tower, coincidentally). The crown jewels were as impressive as the line for them made them appear – a line which moved quite smartly, by-the-by. Almost all the regalia was post-Cromwell, since it all got sold off or melted down during his Protectorate; I suspect that this contributed to its impressiveness, since it would have been a show of the restored monarch’s legitimacy.

And the diamond in the sceptre is big. Really, really big.

There were also a whole bunch of oddities, like the crown that was made for Queen Victoria to go to India to be crowned with (which hasn’t been used since); they had hired jewels to be used in this (and some other crowns) when they were worn officially, and the jewels had been replaced by paste versions when we saw them.

We also went into the White Tower, which has exhibitions from the Royal Armoury. It’s interesting to see the different bits that they’ve managed to keep, and how different ages have regarded these sorts of artifacts – they showed a bird made out of bits of obsolete guns, for example, which probably wouldn’t happen now. (Well, apart from a dragon.) I also learned that livestock that falls off London Bridge still technically becomes property of the person who runs the tower. There was enough to see that we ended up losing D & K (who had to hurry off to do their weekly shop); in fact, we ended up being kicked out, as they closed soon after. We headed out to Camden to be shown around the Stables market and have a lovely Italian dinner and sorbet with Margie and Drifter. Plans were made to get to the station on time for our trip to Paris.

So the next day, we got up extra-early, fitting in showers between the different flatmates, and then it was off to Kings Cross/St Pancras again, handily beating the rush-hour. We had a restful breakfast at Pret, watching the passing travellers, and then soon after Margie turned up it was off to check into the EuroStar, where I dozed fitfully. We arrived at Gard du Nord, and then to the surprise of all (including myself), I successfully navigated us to our hostel. On the trek up to the fourth floor, we discovered that we have quite a nice view of Sacre Coeur, so we traipsed up for a visit. Except we remembered that we hadn’t had lunch, so we stopped on the way for some traditional French food (I had a croque monsieur and an Orangina); the service was not particularly fast, but the food was fine, and we negotiated the minefield of tipping adequately.

One of the things that I’ve noticed about the part of Paris that we’re staying in is that it feels a lot more feral than any of the places we visited in London. There are a lot more beggars, for a start, and a lot more scam artists – I was accosted by five or six. Some of them had fake petitions they want you to sign to occupy your hands while they pick your pockets, and the rest were “friendship bracelet” sellers, who were quite aggressive in wanting to tie the bracelet to your wrist – apparently they then demand 20 euro for this act of friendship. I actually had one touch me and demand whether I wanted to fight after I told him no twice; I told him, “Non!” louder, and kept walking.

There were other people with blankets with pull-strings on the corners (to more easily gather their wares and run if the police appear); the weird thing is not the terrible junk they’re selling (4 for 1 euro!), but that I noticed that the exact same junk was available from the local tobacco shop for 22c. Why they need a three-cent mark-up over a fixed retail store was unclear to me.

We looked at the view, and then looked back at the cathedral. I thought I told C that I’d just pop up to the Cathedral door to see if there were prices and/or opening times; unfortunately, she didn’t hear me, and I didn’t notice that they actually went into the cathedral. So I returned to where I thought they were… and they weren’t there, Meanwhile, C & Margie were walking through the cathedral, getting more and more annoyed that I was lagging so far behind, and that they weren’t able to find me. I hoped that they might have gone in (rather than wandered off somewhere else, or been kidnapped), but I decided that it was best to stay at the last place I saw them. It seemed like a long time before C appeared.

Then they kindly walked through the cathedral with me, so I could have a look at it.

Then it was down to brave the hawkers a second time, and back to the hostel where we were meeting Meredith & a friend of C’s who I’ll call… G. (I should really get around to getting permission to use names on this blog.)

Meredith hadn’t gone up Sacre Coeur, so we started traipsing up the hill again… but Margie, C & I decided to stop partway up, and admire the two-story carousel, and marvel at how many cigarette butts were in the grass we were sitting on.

We didn’t really want dinner, but G had some bread and cheese for us to help her eat. Then it was back up four flights of stairs, and to bed.

In the end, we didn’t manage to do very much of anything in Portsmouth, other than haunting the streets in an attempt to find our lodging. But I don’t regret anything, because we saw all sorts of cool stuff on the way.

C has wanted to see a standing stone, so our first stop was Avebury. We didn’t get to see everything (I want to go back and look at the museum), but it was the first chance that we’ve had to take advantage of our NZ Historic Places Trust memberships, and it was really worth it. The old st

The second chance we had to use our Historic Places memberships was for parking at Stonehenge. We didn’t go in, opting to stand behind the fence next to the road in the light drizzle, but you’re not able to get very close regardless. One of the things that struck us was how small the site was, compared to the cathedrals and monuments that we’d been seeing; but once the age of the place started to sink in, it gave a certain perspective. I could imagine going back for a proper look one day.

Our final tourist stop was Salisbury Cathedral. Once again, we managed to accidentally get caught up in a tour; this meant that we got to see things like the dip-stick they use through the floor to make sure that there is enough water in the ground underneath the cathedral (since if the ground dried out too much, the walls might shift even more than they have, and there might be an accident). It was interesting in a completely different was to the other two cathedrals we’ve seen – because they shifted the site where the town was in the 12^th century, they were able to start from scratch, and because they finished building it incredibly fast (under 40 years), all the main features were in one consistent style. One of the guides speculated that the fact that there wasn’t any religious house associated with the Cathedral (no nunnery or monastry), they may have gotten off more lightly during the Reformation than other centres. Oh, and they have a working mechanical clock that was made in the 1300s, with all the mechanisms out on display. And one of the three copies of the original Magna Carta, which was… quite small, considering how important it ended up being.

We then headed into Portsmouth, where we were unable to find our accommodation until we gave up and asked a helpful barman; we then checked in, and popped into an Aldi to grab something to eat. It was… odd. Margie suggested that it was what it might be like if there was a supermarket that only carried Pams-brand products; and no-one seemed very happy to be there, including the staff. But we managed to scrape something together (cursing the fact that most places have no microwave or fridge – I had pot noodles), and then watched a bit of BBC news, chatted for a bit, and went to bed.