19th June 2005 – Glastonbury, Wells, Bath and Bradford-on-Avon + planned route for week2
We left quite late today, maybe around 11am, so already we had lost an hour or so. First stop was Glastonbury, and along the way Nav showed me numerous places around his home town, such like the school he went to, the bridge that his friend’s dad used to try to go faster each day (until he stuck his car into a tractor), and also where Nav flipped his previous car.
We reach Glastonbury in one piece, found a roadside to park in and walked up Glastonbury Tor. It was another strenuous trek but the route was short. The view from the top was pretty interesting – the majority of Somerset was flatter than a pancake and only a few hills were apparent. I wondered aloud why they had decided to place the building on the highest Tor, when any other (lower) hill would have more or less the same effect – they would still be seen for miles around if they chose a smaller mound.
Glastonbury town centre held the other delights; the Glastonbury Abbey and Thorn. Asking at the TIC, we heard that the original Glastonbury Thorn had died but a number of trimming we taken and planted around the town centre. Annoyingly, the Abbey had an entrance fee. It was becoming more and more apparent that people were making local attractions into money-making schemes. We didn’t bother to go in, although I did take a couple of photos over the fence – don’t know what they are showing though.
Soon after, we drove to Wells in search of the cathedral that holds a more interesting time display than most others. The clock not only displays the time (the inner-most ring), but also the date (2nd ring indicated by the sun) and the number of days since the last full moon (outer ring indicated by the star). We were lucky enough to arrive in time for the quarter hour chime where there is a display of (I forget the actual name – someone tell me) two horse riders going against each other and one knocking the other off. Beats the classic cuckoo clock any day.
I think that the Wells Cathedral is the most attractive one so far – the detail in- and out-side of the building was amazing; the pattern carvings on the stone walls; the intricate wood carvings of the seats; the design of the ceilings. Thinking about it, you begin to question how long it must have taken people to build such huge cathedrals, stone by stone. Even with hundreds of workers, the intricacy and layout seemed mind-boggling. Finally, I also found some high-backed chairs to the extreme:
Oh and our first American encounter made herself known by saying something in a whiney tone (but I don’t remember what). A picture of her as she walks away – the one with the large bum in blue jeans and colourfully striped jumper.
Whilst driving up to our next destination (Bath), Nav spotted a sign pointing towards a ‘Bookbarn’. As we parked up, we found it to be exactly that – a huuuuge barn with books in it. It was ridiculously big with loads of different literature; fact and fiction; hardbacks and paperback; music on tape, cd, lps, sheet music; music-related books; science, biology, etc.; the list just goes on and on and on. The prices were okay too (not charity-style cheap, but more County Bookstore style cheapness). I think we spent about an hour in there, but could easily have stayed forever.
We reached Bath but didn’t stop. It was a Sunday and it was late, so nothing was open. I believe we may have passed the Roman Baths and Pump-works, but can’t be too sure. We didn’t really look around town either, the lack of atmosphere may well have had a detrimental effect making it feel worthless to visit. As such, we moved swiftly on.
Finally, we moved on towards Bradford-on-Avon, but again being a Sunday and late in the day most of the shops, if not all, were shut. We strolled around the closed town, found that they had a small river running through it, and walked around a bit more. It seemed like a very nice town to live in, localised shopping parades, terrace houses partly surrounding pleasant greens.
After a while, we left to find a campsite west of Bath. We found we drove too far and needed to turn around, so Nav turned into a small road and into a drive-way to turn around. On backing out, he managed to swipe the front-left of the car on the brick post dislodging a few bricks. After adding another set of scratch marks (Nav managed to back the car into a hedge on some country road a few days back), we left pretty sharpish.
The planned route can be found at:
planned route of week 2
-- steven
We reach Glastonbury in one piece, found a roadside to park in and walked up Glastonbury Tor. It was another strenuous trek but the route was short. The view from the top was pretty interesting – the majority of Somerset was flatter than a pancake and only a few hills were apparent. I wondered aloud why they had decided to place the building on the highest Tor, when any other (lower) hill would have more or less the same effect – they would still be seen for miles around if they chose a smaller mound.
Glastonbury town centre held the other delights; the Glastonbury Abbey and Thorn. Asking at the TIC, we heard that the original Glastonbury Thorn had died but a number of trimming we taken and planted around the town centre. Annoyingly, the Abbey had an entrance fee. It was becoming more and more apparent that people were making local attractions into money-making schemes. We didn’t bother to go in, although I did take a couple of photos over the fence – don’t know what they are showing though.
Soon after, we drove to Wells in search of the cathedral that holds a more interesting time display than most others. The clock not only displays the time (the inner-most ring), but also the date (2nd ring indicated by the sun) and the number of days since the last full moon (outer ring indicated by the star). We were lucky enough to arrive in time for the quarter hour chime where there is a display of (I forget the actual name – someone tell me) two horse riders going against each other and one knocking the other off. Beats the classic cuckoo clock any day.
I think that the Wells Cathedral is the most attractive one so far – the detail in- and out-side of the building was amazing; the pattern carvings on the stone walls; the intricate wood carvings of the seats; the design of the ceilings. Thinking about it, you begin to question how long it must have taken people to build such huge cathedrals, stone by stone. Even with hundreds of workers, the intricacy and layout seemed mind-boggling. Finally, I also found some high-backed chairs to the extreme:
Oh and our first American encounter made herself known by saying something in a whiney tone (but I don’t remember what). A picture of her as she walks away – the one with the large bum in blue jeans and colourfully striped jumper.
Whilst driving up to our next destination (Bath), Nav spotted a sign pointing towards a ‘Bookbarn’. As we parked up, we found it to be exactly that – a huuuuge barn with books in it. It was ridiculously big with loads of different literature; fact and fiction; hardbacks and paperback; music on tape, cd, lps, sheet music; music-related books; science, biology, etc.; the list just goes on and on and on. The prices were okay too (not charity-style cheap, but more County Bookstore style cheapness). I think we spent about an hour in there, but could easily have stayed forever.
We reached Bath but didn’t stop. It was a Sunday and it was late, so nothing was open. I believe we may have passed the Roman Baths and Pump-works, but can’t be too sure. We didn’t really look around town either, the lack of atmosphere may well have had a detrimental effect making it feel worthless to visit. As such, we moved swiftly on.
Finally, we moved on towards Bradford-on-Avon, but again being a Sunday and late in the day most of the shops, if not all, were shut. We strolled around the closed town, found that they had a small river running through it, and walked around a bit more. It seemed like a very nice town to live in, localised shopping parades, terrace houses partly surrounding pleasant greens.
After a while, we left to find a campsite west of Bath. We found we drove too far and needed to turn around, so Nav turned into a small road and into a drive-way to turn around. On backing out, he managed to swipe the front-left of the car on the brick post dislodging a few bricks. After adding another set of scratch marks (Nav managed to back the car into a hedge on some country road a few days back), we left pretty sharpish.
The planned route can be found at:
planned route of week 2
-- steven
posted by Steven | 12:44 pm
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