Rapher's Log - Stardate 05/30/16
Bank holiday Monday, and it's time to head out of town again! (three posts in one day, can you handle the excitement? *G*)
What song? This one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT0Jh9lUhrc
Yep, that's where we were headed today - Winchester. This was not unlike Salisbury, we had the option of getting our train in any number of stations. Nope, not this time, Southwest Trains. We went to Waterloo and got the train directly from Waterloo, at 8:35. Got to Winchester around 9:40 and headed for...*cue music*...Winchester Cathedral. Walked through yet another pedestrian area. The main reason being that we figured it'd be open, this being kinda early and it being a holiday. We passed a museum that we thought we might go back to later (the City Museum), as well as seeing a number of bollards near the Cathedral that were all painted differently - one had the Mona Lisa, they were all different. That was cool.
Got inside the Cathedral, which, as far as cathedrals go, wasn't huge...but still nice. My knee was already acting up, so I was spending time looking for benches upon which to plant my butt. Sandra would wander off and look around, we'd connect, go off again. One funny moment was when Sandra came out of one area and turned around and noticed me sitting down. She was just about to say something when the organist suddenly came to life! Just went absolutely nuts, playing loudly. Both of us reacted in a quite surprised manner. Sandra later joked that she was expecting the Phantom of the Opera to show up. I shot a video of the over the top organ which, naturally, stopped while I was filming.
Something we found out was that Winchester had connections to my favourite historic document (and yours! *G*) - the Magna Carta. The Bishop of Winchester at the time joined the Crusades and accompanied King John to Runnymede for the sealing of the Magna Carta. Aside from a plaque stating this in the Cathedral, there was another plaque for the Magna Carta in another spot in Winchester. Oh, we also found the final resting place for Jane Austen within the Cathedral too. One quick stop at the Gift Shop (where we bought nothing, surprising considering how many fridge magnets I bought this trip!) and we were off to the Pedestrian area.
One thing about this area of Winchester, you need to look up. There were lots of things to see overhead in the pedestrian area. We also got to witness a bit of an altercation between a few buskers/panhandlers. One guy was trying to get money from people on one corner, another guy started to set up his gear for playing music, diagonally across from the first guy. Ooh, he didn't like that, spoke to Mr. Musician angrily, went inside the nearby store to talk to them...heard him later, still complaining about how this happens all of the time.
Ooh, Winchester drama!
Lunch was courtesy of Starbucks, then we headed up High Street toward main stop #2 - The Great Hall & Medieval Gardens. Within the Great Hall is a mock up of the famous "Round Table" - as in "Knights of the ... ". Oh, on the way to this spot, we had stopped to take some pics by this fountain when an older lady offered to take our pic. Something we never do, so we agreed. Oh dear...she was so shaky while trying to take the pic, both of us figured the picture would be blurry, but both pics turned out pretty good. We also saw a statue of a naked man on a horse, titles "Horse and Rider". No pretention here!
Anyway, the Great Hall. It was cool, lots of stained glass windows dedicated to the various Knights. I was disappointed, though, Bugs Bunny lied! There was no "Sir Loin of Beef" there. *G* There was also a statue of Queen Victoria (with a sneaky Victorian figure behind her). The garden outside was quite nice, gorgeous arched area, snapped lots of pics. Went back inside and hit the gift shop. Yeah, spent money there. I couldn't resist, had to buy a "Monk bear". A little stuffed bear in a monk's outfit. So cute! Left there, snapped some pics of the exterior, including the Magna Carta plaque that was there and then decided it was time to return to London. Thankfully, we had an 'open return' ticket, so we didn't have to stick around, waiting for a later train. We decided to get the 2:18 train.
Yeah.
The disadvantage to this ticket type was that there were no designated seats, so you take what you can get. And, mid afternoon on a Bank Holiday Monday...there were none to get. Holy crap, it was jam packed. We walked through a few carriages, stepping over people that were sitting on the floors. When we started to meet people coming the other way, we just gave up and stood in one of the foyers. I was so tempted to get off at the next stop to see if a later train might be better, but I didn't. We ended up standing for most of the hour long journey. Yeah, just what I needed.
Actually, where we weren't walking, it wasn't as painful as I was thinking it would be. There were funny moments too, like when the guy with the food trolley tried to get past us. There were nine of us standing in the foyer area where the doors are. It took some maneuvering for us to get out of his way to get past. At one point, later, a woman came through and was quite perturbed that we didn't make like she was Moses at the Red Sea, and part for her. We all told here there were no seats in the remaining cars but she didn't believe us.
It was hard not to laugh at her and point when she came back, minutes later, having discovered that there were no seats to be had.
When we got to Clapham Junction, much of the train emptied out and we got seats for the last 10 minutes. Woo hoo! Once again, grabbed some groceries at Sainsburys, and spent the evening in the room, watching a countdown of the 100 Greatest Toys, hosted by Jonathon Ross. Granted, it did have a UK spin on it, but there were quite a few familiar (and funny) ones on the list.
Another out of towner tomorrow...but we had to find the Elusive Eighth Trinket!
What song? This one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT0Jh9lUhrc
Yep, that's where we were headed today - Winchester. This was not unlike Salisbury, we had the option of getting our train in any number of stations. Nope, not this time, Southwest Trains. We went to Waterloo and got the train directly from Waterloo, at 8:35. Got to Winchester around 9:40 and headed for...*cue music*...Winchester Cathedral. Walked through yet another pedestrian area. The main reason being that we figured it'd be open, this being kinda early and it being a holiday. We passed a museum that we thought we might go back to later (the City Museum), as well as seeing a number of bollards near the Cathedral that were all painted differently - one had the Mona Lisa, they were all different. That was cool.
Got inside the Cathedral, which, as far as cathedrals go, wasn't huge...but still nice. My knee was already acting up, so I was spending time looking for benches upon which to plant my butt. Sandra would wander off and look around, we'd connect, go off again. One funny moment was when Sandra came out of one area and turned around and noticed me sitting down. She was just about to say something when the organist suddenly came to life! Just went absolutely nuts, playing loudly. Both of us reacted in a quite surprised manner. Sandra later joked that she was expecting the Phantom of the Opera to show up. I shot a video of the over the top organ which, naturally, stopped while I was filming.
Something we found out was that Winchester had connections to my favourite historic document (and yours! *G*) - the Magna Carta. The Bishop of Winchester at the time joined the Crusades and accompanied King John to Runnymede for the sealing of the Magna Carta. Aside from a plaque stating this in the Cathedral, there was another plaque for the Magna Carta in another spot in Winchester. Oh, we also found the final resting place for Jane Austen within the Cathedral too. One quick stop at the Gift Shop (where we bought nothing, surprising considering how many fridge magnets I bought this trip!) and we were off to the Pedestrian area.
One thing about this area of Winchester, you need to look up. There were lots of things to see overhead in the pedestrian area. We also got to witness a bit of an altercation between a few buskers/panhandlers. One guy was trying to get money from people on one corner, another guy started to set up his gear for playing music, diagonally across from the first guy. Ooh, he didn't like that, spoke to Mr. Musician angrily, went inside the nearby store to talk to them...heard him later, still complaining about how this happens all of the time.
Ooh, Winchester drama!
Lunch was courtesy of Starbucks, then we headed up High Street toward main stop #2 - The Great Hall & Medieval Gardens. Within the Great Hall is a mock up of the famous "Round Table" - as in "Knights of the ... ". Oh, on the way to this spot, we had stopped to take some pics by this fountain when an older lady offered to take our pic. Something we never do, so we agreed. Oh dear...she was so shaky while trying to take the pic, both of us figured the picture would be blurry, but both pics turned out pretty good. We also saw a statue of a naked man on a horse, titles "Horse and Rider". No pretention here!
Anyway, the Great Hall. It was cool, lots of stained glass windows dedicated to the various Knights. I was disappointed, though, Bugs Bunny lied! There was no "Sir Loin of Beef" there. *G* There was also a statue of Queen Victoria (with a sneaky Victorian figure behind her). The garden outside was quite nice, gorgeous arched area, snapped lots of pics. Went back inside and hit the gift shop. Yeah, spent money there. I couldn't resist, had to buy a "Monk bear". A little stuffed bear in a monk's outfit. So cute! Left there, snapped some pics of the exterior, including the Magna Carta plaque that was there and then decided it was time to return to London. Thankfully, we had an 'open return' ticket, so we didn't have to stick around, waiting for a later train. We decided to get the 2:18 train.
Yeah.
The disadvantage to this ticket type was that there were no designated seats, so you take what you can get. And, mid afternoon on a Bank Holiday Monday...there were none to get. Holy crap, it was jam packed. We walked through a few carriages, stepping over people that were sitting on the floors. When we started to meet people coming the other way, we just gave up and stood in one of the foyers. I was so tempted to get off at the next stop to see if a later train might be better, but I didn't. We ended up standing for most of the hour long journey. Yeah, just what I needed.
Actually, where we weren't walking, it wasn't as painful as I was thinking it would be. There were funny moments too, like when the guy with the food trolley tried to get past us. There were nine of us standing in the foyer area where the doors are. It took some maneuvering for us to get out of his way to get past. At one point, later, a woman came through and was quite perturbed that we didn't make like she was Moses at the Red Sea, and part for her. We all told here there were no seats in the remaining cars but she didn't believe us.
It was hard not to laugh at her and point when she came back, minutes later, having discovered that there were no seats to be had.
When we got to Clapham Junction, much of the train emptied out and we got seats for the last 10 minutes. Woo hoo! Once again, grabbed some groceries at Sainsburys, and spent the evening in the room, watching a countdown of the 100 Greatest Toys, hosted by Jonathon Ross. Granted, it did have a UK spin on it, but there were quite a few familiar (and funny) ones on the list.
Another out of towner tomorrow...but we had to find the Elusive Eighth Trinket!