29 Years Ago

Recovering in our room at the Priory Hotel, Bury St Edmunds after conquering the Octagon Tower of Ely (pronounced eel ee) Cathedral. Will upload photos later. We spent the morning walking around Cambridge which is like walking though a living postcard - so many quaint laneways and shoppes and beautiful sandstone colleges. Pedestrian friendly too compared with Oxford. Perhaps it was exam time but we saw less of the youthful exuberance evident in Oxford, particularly around the Head of the River!

29 years ago we might have been doing much the same thing after a tiring day sightseeing, albeit in a cheaper room. Cambridge might be celebrating its 800th anniversary in 2009 but for us it is almost 30 years since we backpacked or drove our mini around Britain. Much has changed and much has stayed the same. The folk seem friendlier but perhaps that's our age and experience at dealing with people showing - everyone has been kind and helpful, fom the bosun who rescued my drenched phone to the gate keeper at Clare College today who enjoyed chatting to someone about her patch and other sights in Cambridge worth seeing. Maybe I was in "tick it off" mode back in 1980. Interesting expressions when we tell people we were here 30 years ago - I look too young:)

Today was one of those days to treasure really. Wake in an 800 year old university town and wander its streets, easy drive to Ely with vague ideas about seeing its cathedral, find the perfect (and free!) parking spot, arrive just in time for the 1 pm tour of the Octagon Tower and suddenly discover so much of interest about this part of the world so soaked in history.

The 130 winding steps were cramped but offered plenty of vantage points in the ascent. Only 8 in the party guaranteed an informative tour and the climb provided some spectacular views both inside and out of the cathedral. Ely Cathedral is known locally as the "Ship of the Fens", towering above the marsh country surrounding it as it does. The Dutch apparently drained much of the fenns but it remains fertile if flat land. Early efforts to build a church at Ely were raised by the Danes and later the Reformation did much to alter what the Normans had begun, at least internally. Thankfully, the Nazis found it useful as a visual sighting for their inbound bombers and so it was spared (they also wanted to spare the landing fields around for when they had invaded).

After Tess had filled her camera card and exhausted her battery, it was time to head on to our next port of call, Bury St Edmunds. Again, we had little knowledge of it apart from the guidebook but the Priory Hotel rated highly according to Tess's research so here we are ready for yet another dinner out (starvation rations when we finally get home) and a town to explore tomorrow.

I'd be envious if it weren't me enjoying it!