I do know that today they are arriving in a self-catering apartment just south of Bath, where they'll be for something like five days. Their plan is mainly to eat a whole lot of food from Marks & Spencer, look at cricket pitches, have tea in the famous (and so delicious) Pump Room at Bath, and do whatever sightseeing in the area takes their fancy. I'll certainly post more info if we hear from them again!
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Earlier this week, I ended up having an even better cathedral outing than I'd hoped. David decided to ditch the half-day of work he was planning on Monday before leaving for Leeds and drive me to Peterborough and Ely instead!
So I didn't have to deal with the London Underground or any trains that day, and I got to have my favorite travel partner with me. Then on Tuesday I went to Lincoln by myself on the train as planned. We didn't make it to Norwich, but three out of four ain't bad at all. And we had sunny weather the whole time!
Peterborough and Ely are both in Cambridgeshire, not too far north of Cambridge. It took us a little over two hours to drive to Peterborough, and the countryside around there is really lovely.
Peterborough Cathedral
Peterborough Cathedral was a good one. Sadly, its most unique feature, the west front, was entirely covered in scaffolding. But this is what it normally looks like:
But we still got to see the rest of the exterior and the nice interior. Most of it dates from the 1200s and is in the Norman or Romanesque style.
Exterior of Peterborough Cathedral.
Firefighters were practicing going up in their lift-chair-thing in the cathedral yard while we were there, which David especially enjoyed.
Interior of Peterborough Cathedral.
One of the most interesting features inside was the ceiling, which was painted with designs and pictures in the 13th century. I've never seen a similar ceiling anywhere else.
The ceiling from beneath the pretty tower vault - painted bit at the top.
Closer look at the painted ceiling.
The other interesting sight was the tomb of Catherine of Aragon, the unlucky first wife of King Henry VIII. After she failed to bear Henry a son (though she did have a daughter) and he became very interested in the childbearing hips of Anne Boleyn, he asked the Pope for permission to get a divorce. The pope refused, mainly because Catherine had powerful relatives in Spain. So Henry declared himself the head of the Church of England, got his divorce, and that was the beginning of the English Reformation.
The title above her tomb is "Katherine, Queen of England," which is rather touching because she was denied that title upon her death. She did have a daughter, as you probably know, who later became the queen known as "Bloody Mary."
More info and photos at Peterborough Cathedral on Sacred Destinations, and more photos here on Flickr.
We both agreed this cathedral was appropriately large, good and old, and with some interesting features, but neither of us was blown away. I began to fear that even I was becoming jaded from the privilege of visiting so many cathedrals. Fortunately, the next two took away that worry! They were both fantastic, and in quite different ways.
But first, our stomachs demanded we make time for lunch in Peterborough. The town center was right next to the cathedral and was historic and pleasant. In the center of it all was an old man preaching about salvation and the Last Days from a small wooden lectern, and his small audience included two young Mormon missionaries resting on a stone wall.
Market hall in Peterborough. The preacher is among the crowd to the right.
We had a very good lunch of toasted sandwiches and chips at a tea room not far from the market hall pictured above. It must have been geared to tourists, as the menu proclaimed it "A truly English experience." We didn't really agree - we thought it looked like Elmer's. But it was very tasty and the waitress was super nice, so we were very happy.
Ely Cathedral
Ely (rhymes with "freely") Cathedral was about an hour or so from Peterborough, in the exact opposite direction of Leeds. I felt terrible that David was going so far out of his way for me, but he said he didn't like the idea of me traveling alone all day and wanted to see the places too. What a guy!
Things went well from the moment we arrived in Ely. Places to park were scarce, and yet we found a free parking spot on the street almost right in front of the cathedral. We could hardly believe our luck - parking is one of the biggest headaches in our UK travels.
The next pleasant surprise was the approach to the cathedral, which was green and shady and very beautiful. This accounted for a lot of why we liked it so much.
The west front (above) has quite a unique appearance, primarily because the smaller tower that once stood on the left (to match the one on the right) fell down a few hundred years ago. It has never been rebuilt, leaving the cathedral with a rather lopsided look. I am a sucker for unique features, such as the crazy scissor arches at Wells Cathedral, and I like this one a lot as well.
We started by walking around the outside, where we got this nice view:
and met these silly characters:
When we went inside, we learned that a tour of the "octagon" was leaving in five minutes. Always happy for a good view on a sunny day, I went ahead and joined up (David opted out).
The octagon is an unusual central tower that has never been done anywhere else. It was built in the 1300s after the original Norman tower fell down (a lot of things have fallen down at Ely). It involved moving the pillars, strengthening them, and then constructing a structure made of 200 tons of English oak timbers decorated with stained glass and roofed with lead.
View of the octagon from outside.
View of the octagon from below.
A closer look.
The tour was seriously cool. All the stairs didn't even seem too bad, since they were in small sections.
First we emerged on the second level of the cathedral interior, where we had a nice view of the transept (cross-arm of the church).
Then the stairs got steeper and narrower as we climbed up farther...
On the way, we walked across the top of the bridge-like area that connects the Lady Chapel (left) with the east end of the cathedral (right).
And finally we entered the octagon itself, where the guide explained a bit about the physics of how the oak timbers (which are something like 800 years old) hold it all up.
The wooden panels pictured above are the backs of the angel paintings in the tower. These swung open like doors, allowing us to stick our heads out and peer straight down to the floor below. Talk about vertigo!
Our guide talking about the history from across the octagon.
And the magnificent, dizzying view to the floor below!
And even then, we weren't done climbing. Another short set of stairs brought us up above the wooden angels to the roof, where we stood outside the stained glass windows of the octagon and had more magnificent views.
The octagon and stone pinnacles on the roof.
View of Ely and the pretty landscape from the cathedral rooftop.
There's a complete photo gallery (215 pics) from Ely Cathedral now online at:
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/england/ely-cathedral-pictures/
Leeds
From Ely it was another two hours or so to Leeds, which is a huge city. The very wide and well-lit cloverleaf freeways almost made it feel like we were in L.A. But our sat nav guided us well to our hotel, where we arrived around 7:30pm.
As mentioned in a previous post, we got to stay in the plush Malmaison Leeds on O2's dime (or 5 pence, as it were). It was as fabulous as we'd hoped, even though David said the room was smaller than the one he had last time. It was modern and hip, the bed was a huge improvement over our creaky one at home, and the shower was fantastic. As usual, we did not want to leave, and it was a shame we didn't actually spend much time there.
Above is what we had for dinner - sandwiches via room service! David didn't feel like being sociable with his workmates after such a long day (and I didn't either), so we hid in our room with our sandwiches and TV and had a grand time.
The toiletries in the bathroom were fun, particularly the breath spray called "Snog Me Senseless."
Tuesday morning, I set off for the train station (handily only a couple blocks away) at 8:07 hoping to catch the 8:20 train, and just made it! And after checking out, David headed over to the O2 office for his day of meetings that began at 10am.
My train ride went pretty quickly and smoothly. I started out on a huge Leeds-London train that had well over a dozen cars and was mostly filled with business commuters, then changed over to a tiny green choo-choo-er with only an engine and one car for the rest of the way to Lincoln.
I'll save Lincoln Cathedral (which is the very best of the three) for another post...
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