Tuesday 5 July 2011

This morning is all planned out and we are going to walk the Wall. The wall that once surrounded the city is now inside the main shopping precinct. It was originally built by the Romans in about 46AD. It has been repaired and restored many times since the original building. It is the most complete City Wall in Britain and for something that dates back 2000 years is pretty inspiring. It is about 2 miles right round and has turrets and stairs all the way along it. In places the wall is very high on the outside – maybe 6 metres whilst the inside ground varies greatly from being level with the wall path to being the same height above the ground on both sides.

Inside the wall there are the unique 700 year old Rows shopping galleries that are full of the most amazing number of shops, galleries, pubs and eateries. We skirted the Chester Racecourse where they were preparing marques for upcoming races the coming weekend. We took a short excursion down off the wall at one point – more steps, to look at the stepped canal locks, 4 in all in a short space. If you come up or go down the canal you virtually have to open the lock gates and drive your canal boat forward into the next lock. Each lock was only about 30metres long. We just missed a canal boat coming up as we got there but have seen canal boats in other places negotiating the locks. No lock keepers here in England and the skipper puts ashore the “jumper” who then goes and cranks the handle that they all carry with them to let the under water openings to let the water in or out before they physically push or pull open both of the lock gates. Once the gates are closed they rush to the other end of the lock and perform the same exercise again so the boat will rise or lower depending on which way they are going.

Enough about locks. Back up on the wall we walked around to the Dee River side where we had been yesterday. It was a bit overcast and there were hardly any people about in contrast to yesterday when it was so hot. The wall here came down to street level by means of a long sloping ramp. Not so when we got to the other side of the street were there were lots more steps!! We watched an artist working on the steps of the next portion of the wall. He looked uncomfortable sitting side-saddle on the steps and when I commented that he could have found a more comfortable seat someplace he told us that he had been coming here – man and boy for the past 20 years. His drawings and paintings were really good too and something that we would love to have ourselves. No room in the luggage. Next was a look at the Roman Gardens, still with a few columns left to view and the Roman Amphitheatre across the street where 7000 spectators enjoyed circuses, festivals and gladiator fights. Around the next bend was the final stretch of the wall for us and we were back to the Eastgate Clock – second most photographed clock in the world after Big Ben. Then on to the Chester Cathedral. The cathedral is 1000 years old and was lucky not to be pulled down by King Henry VIII at the time when he made himself the head of the Church of England and renounced the Roman Catholic Church. It was an abbey at this time and he made it a Cathedral so that Chester could become a city. We have seen enough cathedrals so didn’t bother with the look inside.

Down off the wall and it was coffee time. Nice coffee and when we went back out to the street it was pouring and there was a sea of umbrellas. Although I had bought or raincoats in the backpack I had forgotten the umbrella. So nothing else for it, but to stay inside a shopping complex for a little retail therapy. We eventually ended up on another street. Lunch. We were going to walk the other side of the river but it was a walk to nowhere and the rain had stopped and with tired legs headed off to our B&B.

Ruby its lovely to hear from you and 2 messages at that! We are having fun and wish you could be here with us. We would love you to see these wonderful places we have been visiting. There are lots of children around and we can’t believe the number of little kids with dummies in their mouths! Some of them are quite old like 3 or 4 years and yet they still have dummies! There are also lots of dogs. People don’t just have one dog they have 2 or 3 or even 4 on a combined lead. Quite often the dogs are allowed in pubs and on buses too. Today when we walked the wall we saw young girls playing tennis. They were about the same age as Lucy and were from Queens High School. They were spending far too much time chatting and not doing much hitting the ball and none of them were much good anyway! Keep those messages coming we love to hear from you guys.