This weekend was a long weekend on account of it being a bank holiday on Monday. On the Thursday and Friday leading up to it, I decided that I would go somewhere – but where? In a ‘throw-a-dart-on-a-map’ sort of moment, and with some names of places unknown being thrown into the air by Steve, I decided to go to ‘Winchester’. It sounded like a nice enough place. So on Friday night after school, I searched the web for B&Bs in Winchester. Finding a nice looking little place, I rang the lady, booked myself in for Saturday and Sunday night and then logged onto a door-to-door travel site to work out how to get from my place to her place. I wrote down the details, went home, and packed my bag.Saturday morning, following my little note, I walked, caught a bus, walked, caught another bus, caught a train, caught another train, and ended up in a little town called Salisbury four hours or so later. I looked around me, and thought ‘Odd. You’d think that Winchester would have more “Winchester”s written around its town – why is there “Salisbury” written everywhere?’ Probably because I WAS in Salisbury. But as I walked through the town looking for the bus station, I thought ‘Waitaminute. This is actually a very cute little town! A great place to spend a long weekend! Why not?!’ And so I did. There were pictures of the renowned Stone Henge everywhere. It doesn’t take a genius that I must be near by. So I walked around the town a bit and decided to visit the Henge the next day. Lovely little place – check out the photos – and caught the bus to my little B&B.
Surprise surprise, the B&B was in the middle of nowhere in a town called Romsey. Not really anywhere near Salisbury… Or Winchester… No buses run to or from Romsey on Sundays and public holidays. Lucky me. How the hell was I to get back into town tomorrow?
I unloaded my bits and pieces, and having only a couple of hours left before sun-down (and because public transport makes me tired and queasy), I took a walk through the quaint little countryside that is Romsey.
The next day, I got myself a taxi to drive me into town, where I went to Salisbury Cathedral, the cathedral which boasts the tallest spire in the UK. The taxi driver was a lovely man whose name I should have gotten but didn’t. He knew his facts well – and the way he was going on, that is, without stopping, I was incredibly surprised that as I walked around the Cathedral later, I actually remembered a lot of what he said!
Taxi Driver [with thick accent]: ‘…it’s got the highest spire in the whole UK it’s 404 feet do you know how many metres that is it’s easy to remember it’s 123 metres high the tallest spire in Europe is in Germany at the Cologne Cathedral but ours is the tallest one built entirely of stone theirs uses wood and bits it’s the most fascinating cathedral ours it’s built in 1220 they only took 100 years to complete building the whole thing over there you see St Thomas’ that was built in 1220 too because the workmen who were building the Salisbury Cathedral needed somewhere to worship on Sundays while they were building this one oh this the original Sarum wall by the way used to run around the town did you know why it’s amazing it’s all based on the calendar no no it’s all true there are as many pillars in that cathedral as there are hours in the year and there’s only been one person who’s ever told me the answer to that before I told her and it was an actuarist from America but there are 8760 it’s an easy number to remember and there are as many doors in there as there are months in a year do you know how many that is that’s right 13 and there are as many windows in that building as there are days in a year…’
You get the picture?
So anyway. Salisbury Cathedral – lovely. Surrounded by buildings just as old, and what I found quite interesting was the fact that a few backpackers had already beaten me to the place. Here I was thinking I was out pretty early for a Sunday morning. I think the original cathedrals were places to gather and stuff, it’s not just a big church. There are little chapels scattered within the cathedrals themselves, and you’re literally walking over the graves of people within the cathedral walls. There aren’t any pews or anything like that. So I’m walking down one side of the cathedral and the Sunday morning service is being broadcasted out of speakers. I’m thinking that it’s somewhere out the front and that perhaps I may as well stick around for the service and get communion. As I get closer to the centre of the heart of the cathedral, which is amazingly elaborate and decorated with intricate wood and stone carvings, there’s this bunch of backpackers taking it in turns to stand in front of an alcove of some sort among the candles trying to get spiritually connected with a higher being or something, arms held out to the sides, head sort of thrown back – I kid you not, they were taking it in turns. And all this time, mass is being conducted somewhere else in the building. I so wished I could have taken a photo because it seemed so silly. I kept walking and found a little chapel towards the front – as plain as you could find a chapel to be, ordinary little wooden chairs in rows with a small altar and a priest and a few regular local parishioners. It seemed a little odd to me that the group of backpackers had decided that the most ornate and decorated part of the cathedral was where they would get close to divinity when they could have just sat in on mass in the plain, boring nook at the front and really got close to the real thing. Ah my snobbish religious and spiritual sentiments. Where would we be without them?Right here: Sat through mass, had communion, then left (mass at 0800 is followed by a sung mass at 0900 which is followed by a full choir mass thing at 1100). Salisbury Cathedral holds the only one of the four remaining Magna Cartas that still exist which is still legible. As a lawyer to be, this I had to see. But was told by the lady that that area is closed until after the sung mass, and besides, it’s hard to see because it’s in the restaurant area by the coffee machine and people are always trying to get their coffees and – I know! WTF??!! It’s the Magna Carta! By the coffee machine??!! Sigh. I had to leave it because I had to catch the bus to the Stone Henge.
The Stone Henge… I decided to catch an ordinary bus which goes past the Henge rather than catch the tour bus. A grand saving of – woo hoo! – ten pounds! I told a few people I went to the Stone Henge and they were all ‘Wow! Didn’t you just love it?! I loved the Stone Henge…’ and so on. Um… To be honest, I felt silly. There’s no other way to describe it. The whole time I walked around these big rocks all I could think was: here we are. I’m standing in the empire that went around the entire world trying to colonise the inhabitants of other countries, trying to ‘civilise’ them and ‘assimilate’ them ‘educate’ them and ‘Catholicise’ them and so on so that they’d be essentially enlightened and advanced enough to be a part of the commonwealth, fighting for the good of God and King… We’re now in the 21st Century, we’re as technologically sophisticated, as mentally evolved, as culturally progressive as we have ever been in history (or so we like to tell ourselves) and yet here we are. This is what that same empire is offering as its symbol. Rocks. We’re paying money to gawk at and take photographs of a pile of rocks. It was a little bit like climbing Uluru. On its own – on my own – it would have been a spiritual experience. Surrounded by a million other people clicking away on their camera-phones, walking around a fence with a self-guided-tour walkie-talkie on a lanyard around everyone’s neck and having to pay a good deal of money to do it? It takes the whole mystical experience away.
Cynicism aside. Yes, it was good. Yes, it is amazing that they dragged all those rocks all that way. Yes, it is amazing that they were so accurate with the calculations as to create such a large-scale calendar. I did have a good time. I took some photos too. And see? there’s one of me in it smiling! One good ‘do-you-want-me-to-take-a-picture-with-you-in-it?’ offer deserving another.Seriously. It was good.
On the way back, I asked the bus driver – who by sheer chance was the same bus driver who brought me there in the first place – to drop me off at Old Sarum. Strange that I was the only person in the entire bus. Creeps me out a little whenever that happens. Reminded me of that ride from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh… a story for another time.
Old Sarum was cool. You can picture the civilization all those years ago. William the Conqueror gathering all his barons to this fortified castle to swear fealty to him. Odd that I enjoyed Old Sarum more, but I think it comes back to that whole point of crowds. There were a few people walking their dogs there, but that was about it. It was easier to feel connected to the place – to feel that there’s something special about it – when there were fewer people around. Check out the photos.Getting back into town was a nightmare. No busses. I ended up walking for a couple of kilometers until I was just outside Salisbury and a bus came by – the very same bus driver! – and he was good enough to just pick me up even though I wasn’t by a bus stop. It was too late to try to get to see the Magna Carta, so I went and had some pizza – Mark’ll tell you I’ve been craving pizza since I got here! – and ordered myself another taxi back to the B&B.
He was a sweetie of a taxi driver too. Name’s Clive, and gave me his phone number so that if I’m ever in that area of town again, I wouldn’t have to stay at a B&B – I could go stay at his place. Yeah I know, sounds creepy, but isn’t that what travelling’s all about? Meeting people? And where would I be now without Steve? And wasn’t that how he and Clare met? Mmm. Restores your faith in mankind doesn’t it?
So all in all – a pretty darn good Sunday.
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