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Bath & Salisbury | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The last stretch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Tender steak and hill forts | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The next morning we finished up some quick last minute stops, enjoyed a lovely concert of organ tuning at the abbey and display of porcelain spaniels at the gallery, then boarded the train for Salisbury, home of tender tasty steak and a lot of old stuff. Salisbury is great, very much a medieval town, narrow alleyways and Tudor style everything. You could drop me there blindfold and I would instantly know I was in England. We bumbled our way to the bus station and grabbed the number 8 out to Old Sarum. |
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| Downtown Salisbury on market day | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tickets squished in our fingers, in we went, intruding into the fort as the Saxons and Normans did before us (there was a lot of Viking memorabilia in the gift shop, however no evidence or literature stating they had ever been there, much to my dismay). I broke away for a bit, trodding along same wall that, I thought a lot about the people who did the same thing, walking the wall for so many different reasons. The place seemed to draw out a deeper respect in me, it�s hard to describe. I was quite sad to leave the fort, or what was left of it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Old Sarum - an Iron Age hill for outside of Salisbury and the original location of the town itself. All that remains is are the base of walls, a few stairwells, and a recruiter from the national trust. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Church and state... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We boarded the bus, riding top deck, an interesting adventure all in itself, and after grabbing every possible piece of literature from the tourist info centre, decided to head over to the Cathedral and catch a gander at the Magna Carta. Salisbury Cathedral is probably the most impressive of the cathedrals we visited, even though, as was the case in every church or cathedral or abbey I�ve gone to since being in the UK, I always end up with this great sense of reverence and then monks chanting Veni Veni Emmanuel in Latin through my head. Some of these churches though are just a trifle over the top for me though. I think what I liked | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Corridor within Salisbury Cathedral | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| most of this one, though, was the chapter house, home of the Magna Carta. The document itself is great, but after a minute or so you�ve seen it and say �gee, that�s swell� or if you�re me, �King John the idiot on paper, how neat!� and move on. But fret not, the chapter house has a great little wainscot that depicts scenes from the books of Genesis and Exodus. Let me tell you, the picture of Cane putting a sickle through Abel�s head (I know you�re thinking that�s morbid and disturbing) is really cool. And so with that lasting image we left the cathedral, had a lovely picnic on the ground and headed back to our hostel, the YHA in Salisbury which is the Funky Hostel in Bath�s nice, neat, clean and tidy alter-ego and settled in for a rousing episode of Weakest Link. Getting back to Carmarthen was a bit of a trick. First I stupidly got us lost in Salisbury going to the train station, it was a nice little detour along the river, but we just wanted to get back. We had been travelling for four weeks, we were tired and achy. And after a few hours of musical chairs on the train we had the hike back to campus which is all uphill and I stupidly threw my back out under the weight of my backpack (one postcard too many!); in this state we stumbled back into Quim House, glad to be home, feeling much more travelled and confident in our train hopping abilities and having some of the wonders of the British world tucked under our belts, even if some of them smelled like cabbage or masquerade as historic wonders when they should be filed under historic housing projects. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| all photos by Lauren Quinsland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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