Salisbury

The whole purpose of coming to Salisbury was to visit the cathedral:



And St Jude's Carlton thinks it has problems... the work here began maybe 10 years ago, and won't be finished until 2015

We got ourselves a B&B just outside the cathedral close, which was awesome. The first thing we did once we were in was head over for Evensong, which was delightful even though it wasn't the usual cathedral choir (it's holiday time). Apparently, some of these guest choirs rehearse all year for their week's appearance here. As you would, frankly. Also, some of the choristers were so little they could barely see over the rail of the seats.

The next morning we headed back to the cathedral to be tourists:



This font was consecrated on the 750th anniversary of the cathedral, last September. One of the very awesome things about this place is that it was the only medieval cathedral built all in one go. There had been a cathedral at what is now called Old Sarum - but it was apparently quite a windy spot, and when it got hit by lightning the diocese grabbed the opportunity to build a glorious new building in this new-fangled style called Gothic. Et voila - new cathedral in just 38 years. Amazing! As the font testifies, it's still a living building in many ways - see also this window at the eastern end:



It's dedicated to prisoners of conscience, and there's a huge Amnesty candle in the corner too. The window is only about 20 or so years old; not sure what happened to the glass formerly known as...

Other things we did around Salisbury:
walked along the river in the sun to have a pint and a Pimms&lemonade in a pub that used to be a mill;
visited the Salisbury and Wiltshire museum, which has a cool exhibit on Stonehenge - including the bones and artefacts of the Amesbury Archer, whose burial had the most impressive set of archery paraphernalia of any neolithic burial - and who apparently came to Britain from the Alps;
finally got my hands on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies;
wandered the town centre, much of which is pedestrianised - it's really lovely.

Back to the cathedral for Evensong again the second night... this section of our trip really deserves the name Cathedral Crawl.