Chester Vespers

Leaving from Bath and heading to Liverpool, we decided to spend a night in Chester because my brother, Leon really loved it. I can see why. The main downtown street is a charming hodgepodge of Tudor, Regency, and Victorian architecture, and unlike the fake main streets of theme parks these are the real deal.

We stayed at the Grosvenor Hotel right by the East Gate and its famous clock, which was built on the spot of the entrance to the Roman fortess, Deva Victrix. It has been replaced three different times, with the current incarnation dating back to 1768.

That evening we went down to the hotel bar where Glenn continued his long standing tradition of ordering a very specific martini, being disappointed with the results, then sending it back. In this case the bartender, Diego, a jovial Italian, came straight to our table and asked what was wrong. He realized the waiter hadn't relayed the instructions correctly and there ensued a lively discussion about whether the martini Glenn preferred was a Churchill or a Hemingway. Turns out it was a Hemingway. It's all to do with ratios and hard, not soft, ice and how it's stirred. I ordered the Chester Vesper and was very happy with it. Diego was the consummate bartender, the best we met on our trip. Not only that but he recommended an Italian restaurant to us that the locals loved, Made in Italy. It was in an eclectic neighborhood, and was small, loud, cheerful, and friendly, with people spilling out onto the street. It was tasty and fun. If you're ever in Chester, Diego is your man for good drinks and food food tips.

Our jet lag finally kicked in and we slept till 10:30 the next morning, seriously cutting into our sightseeing time, but we found a Caffe Nero across the street and enjoyed some outdoor people watching.

After that we were off to the Chester Cathedral, another of the lovely churches we visited.

Many of the cathedrals in England have created their own Lego models. People can donate to purchase Lego bricks and add to the construction.

I'm always looking for unique and quirky sculptures in churches.

Apparently you're allowed to rappel from the ceiling, too.

The grounds were also pretty. This sculpture represented the Waters of Life.

Next up, we meet with the first of my cousins. A little genealogy may be involved.

Stairway to Heaven

The heart of the charming city of Bath is Bath Abbey. It was begun in the early 12th century,  then begun again after a fire destroyed the half built structure, and completed almost a century later. It has also been added onto over the years, up to and including the present day. Every cathedral we visited in England had some sort of renovation or construction going on. It's always a fight with time and entropy to save these magnificent buildings.

Technically, the church is no longer an Abbey ( housing a monastery) as it switched from Catholic to Anglican during the Reformation, but the name remains. Numerous architects over the years have added to it's appearance, including the striking and ornate fan ceiling completed in the 19th century, which I found particularly beautiful.

There are also a number of whimsical touches that make it unique, including the angels climbing the ladder to heaven that frame the outside entrance.

Here are some of the sights of the interior.

 Construction workers putting in a new floor to prevent flooding and leaks.

 And my favorite little oddity, a memorial wall plaque (the Abbey is only second to Westminster Abbey in its number of wall plaques) that, curiously, contains a little boy holding a beaver.

Farewell, lovely city.

From Bath, our next stop was Chester. It was off to the railroad station for the first of many train rides around Britain. Fortunately, because of the size of England and Scotland, we were never on a journey that took more than three hours.
All aboard.

Aquae Sulis

The last time I saw England I was seven years old. It was 1957. We were saying goodbye to the maternal grandparents and the cousins, bound for the U.S. on a ship out of Southampton. It's been awhile. Time and life and money and fear of flying got in the way. And yet here I finally was, boarding an airplane in Dallas with Glenn, who had pretty much set the whole thing in motion.
After a fairly sleepless overnight flight we touched down at Heathrow at 1:00 in the afternoon, found some nectar of the gods, coffee, at a Costa, exchanged some dollars for pounds, and got on a bus to Bath.

We were booked at a little three story B & B called The Henry House, which was quaint and old, but still had all the updated modern conveniences, including wifi and good mattresses. After that we roamed the charming, sunny streets going off at all angles, basking in the Jane Austin era regency buildings and the rolling hills.

Blending in

The famous Royal Crescent

Since England is the home of gin and since we like a nice dry martini on occasion we discovered the first, and best, of the gin bars we frequented in our travels, The Canary Gin Bar. Far from William Hogarth's bleak 18th century cartoon of Gin Alley, this was a small, cozy, and cheery place where one could sample the local product.

The Roman name for Bath was Aquae Sulis, named after the local hot springs the Celts enjoyed, while linking the Celtic goddess, Sulis, to their goddess, Minerva, in a smooth move to adapt to the area they were invading. The Romans, lovers of great plumbing and hot baths, built a spa and temple over the hot springs and had some good soaks when the weather got cold. Signs of Roman culture and architecture were everywhere, and we also ran into numerous Italians working in the city, probably because it felt a bit like home.

The Roman spa

Sulis Minerva. See Romanbaths.uk.co

If you had to be a Roman soldier sent to the far corners of the known world, this city doesn't seem like a bad place to settle down 

Of course, nothing lasts forever, and centuries later, the Christians, as they tended to do, built a large Abbey right in nearly the same spot, to replace the old religion with the new.

Next blog, some photos of the beautiful Bath Abbey.