ABC Tour (Cathedral, Castle)

Yesterday morning  morning we played the tourist.  A.B.C.!!!

Winchester Cathedral was also lovely to visit. An organist was playing while we were there, which was a nice background.

Once again the architecture is truly amazing.

I loved this patchwork design.  It is actually floor tiles dating from the 13th century!!! 

There was a variety of designs.

Apparently they are the oldest tiles in England.

Jane Austin is buried un the Cathedral.  At the time of her death there were only four people in attendance at the funeral and it had to be over before the usual morning service.  As time progressed the clerics asked was there something special about that woman as so many come to visit here grave.  Now there is a lovely memorial.

Once we had finished in the Cathedral we went and found the City Mill.  This was rebuilt in 1744, so I don’t know how old it is.

It is only quite small and straddles the Itchen River. It was restored to producing flour again in 2005, so quite a new attraction.

Finally, before we left the city, we visited the Great Hall, which is the only surviving section of the Winchester Castle.  The main attraction here is King' Arthur’s round table which hangs on the wall and is 700 years old.

The plan was to then go and visit Sammy Miller’s Motorcycle Museum in the afternoon, but we know about plans……

This is what we did instead!!!

The reason was this…..Fortunately, it was nothing mechanical.  Just one of those damned things that could have happened on any bike.  The problem is that being a tubed tyre we had to get it somewhere to get the tyre off to fix or replace the tube.  We had the AA man stumped.  After about an hour mucking around on the side of the road making phone calls he found a place in Southampton that could fix the tyre.  The blokes there were extremely helpful and had us on our way in about an hour, even going to the trouble of sourcing a new tube from another shop.  We can’t thank them enough.  By the way, we have sorted out the revving on the bike and the static in the intercom.

Therefore, we were too late to visit the museum, so will do it today.

Last time we were here in 2007 we stayed in a town called Lyndhurst with Liz and Frank in Forest Cottage.  It was a highlight of that trip so we are staying with them again.  They are a delightful elderly couple who make you feel like you are guests in their home, not just paying customers. We will stay for two nights.

Liz advised us that there is an autojumble (like our swap meets) at Bulieau today.  That will be a really big one, so we will make the detour to there.  We had hoped to stumble upon an autojumble, so that will be great.  After that we will visit Sammy Miller’s museum, which has some fabulous old bikes, well worth a return visit.

Meanwhile, we had a wonderful dinner in the local pub “The Fox and Hound” to finish a nice day.