Singleton's Across the Pond: Day #40: The one with the bus ride of doom

Let us lay it out for you.
* Friday = pub for 12 hours (you fill in the blanks about our state)
* Friday night = well, technically Saturday morning = bed at 3AM
* The real Saturday morning = alarm at 5:30AM (shower, get dressed, finish packing, and go online to finish setting up our insurance through Jake's work - so glad we waiting till now for this one!) and bus departure at 7:00 am. Classic Singleton.

We generally don't do well on buses to begin with. After a mere 10 minutes we are pretty rumbly in our tumbly and if either of us even tries to read, you can forget about it! Therefore, this morning was bordering sheer hell. We took full responsibility for our state and admitted it could have been avoided, but man was it fun. Wedding day - worth it! Let's hear it for Will and Kate everybody!

So, we boarded the bus at 7:00AM on the dot (not a minute to spare and sweaty from the run...late again) and, of course, did not have much in the way of seat choices. We went to the back of the bus where there were two seats relatively near one another and sat down. Within minutes, Shayne realized they were sitting in the jizdenky section and decided to move toward the front. Jake, on the other hand, decided he shouldn't get too far from the bathroom. On his priority list, easy bathroom access beat out the jizdenkies by a landslide. With eyes closed and fingers crossed, we made it the 1.5 hours to no-where-land England for our bus transfer. Shayne downed two bags of crisps to help settle her stomach and Jake almost laid down on the bus station floor. We were really a vision and you would have all been proud to know us. On the next leg of our journey, we at least had seats next to each other and made it to Salisbury, England by 10:30AM.

We found our hotel, Le Mercure White Hart, checked in and left our stuff there. As we exited the hotel Jake asked, "So, what's on our plan for today?" Up to this point, Shayne had decided to leave out the small detail that she had signed us up for a tour to climb to the top of the tallest church spire in all of England. Literally, it's in Guiness. Jake responded as he pounded down four tums, "Oh...well, isn't that lovely!"

Along with the spire tour, Shayne had created a Top 10 Salisbury To-Do list which included:

* Attending the choral evensong at Salisbury Cathedral: A must do!

* Walk along the paths to Old Sarum - the original city center dating back to over 5,000 years ago: A must do!

* Go bird watching on the outer banks of the River Avon: Probably not a Singleton family front runner!

As our stomachs settled we explored what might be the cutest town in all the world. Tucked away in rural England, we knew we had found a diamond in the rough. We watched an amazing string quartet as they played Irish music in the middle of the cobble stone street and walked through a huge outdoor market. Remnants of the town's Middle Ages foundation were everywhere and it was not uncommon to see a building from 1217. No need for an art museum here. Every tiny street was filled with fabulous architecture and surprises around every corner.

We decided to find somewhere to grab lunch and acknowledged greasy pub food might be in order. The New Inn was our pub of choice (probably because the building was from the 1300's for sure) and figured it would be a dark and dingy little place for some grub. Quite the contrary! When we walked through the wooden creaking interior, and out the back door, we found ourselves in a majestic secret garden. It was gorgeous, sunny, quaint, and most definitely had magical little gnomes hiding in the foliage. We leisurely ate lunch and gathered steam for what we knew would be an Everest-like climb.

We arrived at Salisbury Cathedral in absolute awe. The outside alone was stunning and massive and the inside had vaulted ceilings that practically reached the heavens. It was gorgeous. Totally, gorgeous. For our art/architecture/history buffs, here is a little more information on one of the most incredible cathedrals we have ever seen! We met our tour guide, Wendy, who gave us a little background on this sacred site. She informed us that we would in fact be climbing to the top of the tallest cathedral in all of Great Britain. We were actually given safety information cards! This felt like skydiving and we wondered if we would be receiving parachutes just in case. After much ado, we put our things in a locker (this step confirmed that our climb would be no joke!) and began the ascent.

We basically climbed up five tiers of the cathedral, the first tier putting us at eye level with the vaulted ceilings (the tallest point that anyone inside the cathedral could see). We climbed another tier and ended up inside the roof looking down on the top of the vaulted domes. Wendy stopped along the way, allowed us to catch our breath, and told us more about the cathedral. The higher we got, the smaller the areas became. The walls began as solid brick blocks and we watched as they slowly turned to webs of wooden beams, exposed planks, and little passageways we had to snake through. We were in the bell tower when the hour hit 3:00 and got to watch the bells swing as the the ear-pounding gongs filled the air. After that...we continued up. We were shown the oldest working clock (1386 AD) which was housed on the 4th level of the cathedral. And up we climbed. The final staircase was a wooden, exposed, spiral that went up the remainder of the tower. It took every ounce of courage for Shayne to put one foot in front of the other. In the spire rooftop, Wendy informed us that the tower leaned 29 inches off-center because of the massive gusts of wind that have beat against it for hundreds of years. She also said that when the wind blows, the spire will sway 8 inches in any direction. We were both thinking, "Watch, today will be the day (after 900 years), that this thing throws in the towel and collapses!" But, instead of worrying, we walked through the final, outside door and into the heavens. This experience left us both speechless. We found ourselves looking out over England with clouds practically at eye-level. It was inspiring and beautiful and worth every wooden stair. We marveled at it all.

After descending the 350+ stairs we toured the rest of the cathedral and went to see the Magna Carta that was also housed in the cathedral. We went back to the hotel, freshened up, and returned back to the cathedral to witness the evensong choral performance at 5:30. We wanted to see a little bit of the country side before the sun went down (it stays dark till about 9 here) and found a little path that followed the River Avon.

We wrapped through trees, over bridges, and found ourselves amongst quiet beauty in the middle of nowhere. We followed a family of ducks down part of the river and watched as the mother wrangled in her babies. We sat on a bench for awhile and looked out at the water. To the right we heard a deafening smack on the water and looked up to see a massive swan RUNNING on the surface of the river with wings out-stretched for 5 or 6 feet. This was like something out of a National Geographic magazine. We continued down the river and saw a pair of white ducks leisurely paddling through the water. We found an entire group of swans a little further on and tried to get as close as we could. When the largest one started clicking it's tongue and bustling it's feathers we got out of there fast. Don't know the last time you have seen a wild swan up close, but those things are HUGE! We ended up in the bushes trying to capture the gorgeous birds on film - we considered sending our footage to the Planet Earth TV series for them to use in their next video montage. It was at this point that Jake looked at Shayne and said, "Oh my God, do you realize we are bird watching - Top 10 Salisbury list...check!" Laughing we talked about the one thing we said we had no interest in. Here we were, practically camouflaged in branches, becoming one with the Aves (that is the scientific name for birds - we feel we have graduated to this level). In fact, we might look up all of the top bird watching sites in England and do a pilgrimage. We just ordered a new poster to get prepared. Notice that Mute Swan is on the list. We are so ahead of the game! James Audubon totally spent time here.

We continued down the path and found a meadow full of sheep and lambs. Wheat fields swayed in the evening breeze and, out of nowhere, the path dead-ended into an old mill. The place had been transformed into a little restaurant and bar so we sat outside, drank a few glasses of champagne (yes, we jumped back on the wagon), and watched the sunset over the river.

Lessons Learned: 1) Buses and booze don't mix, 2) Salisbury rocks, 3) Swans are big.

The New Inn pub where we had lunch.

Out in the secret garden - check out that tall spire in the distance!

In front of the Salisbury Cathedral.

The massive vaulted ceilings.

Climbing one of the staircases to get up to the spire.

Deep inside the roof, the stone blocks became wooden scaffolding. The coolest part of this tour was seeing the infrastructure of these astounding works of art.