Charming Chichester

Yesterday, Sunday, we took the train from Portsmouth to Chichester.  But before we leave Portsmouth behind, I should mention our hotel there, Becketts.  The staff was great and helpful, particularly when it came to lugging our 2 heavy suitcases up and down 2 narrow flights of stairs and the hotel was quirky.  Most quirky was our tiny room with its interesting bathroom.  Yep, that's the shower next to the toilet! 

It must be a sign of the times, but they even had a vegetarian full English breakfast on the menu.

Now, on to Chichester.

We found Chichester to be fascinating.  Its history goes back to the Romans and then goes through Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and Medieval periods.  It is dominated by a huge 12th-century Cathedral.  We started our wander with a walk to the Cathedral where we saw the flowers laid by the people for the Queen.

There was a Sunday service going on, so we did not go in and continued our walk through the city.  The center of the city is filled with many historic buildings and pedestrian streets.

After lunch at a pub where, as another sign of the times, Linda had fried haloumi and chips, we continued our walk.  We walked through the Bishop's Palace Garden and along some of the old walls of the city.

 We then wandered back to the Cathedral and found that it was now closed for a service for the Queen.  I suppose that we could have gone in, but seeing all of the women dressed in black dresses and men in black suits, we passed on it.  We finally got back there after the service.

The stone relief dates from the year 1125 and even older was the Roman mosaic under the floor.

Our final walk took us to the Priory Park with its mound dating from the Norman period.

It was an interesting visit to Chichester.  We are very glad that we took the day to do it.

This morning, we were transferred to The White Horse Inn in Chilgrove for the start of our walking tour.  We arrived at the inn at about 10:30 and the man who greeted us was surprised to see us.  He told us that check-in time was 3:00 (no surprise there) and that the inn would be shutting down at 11:00 for the Queen's funeral and would not be open until 3:00.  We couldn't even just hang around.  Fortunately, he checked to see if our room might be ready and it was.  Phew!!!  So we settled into our charming room, watched some of the funeral (Linda more than me), and I am sitting on the Residents Lawn blogging.

Tomorrow, we have our first walk - a circular walk from the inn 7.6 miles in length with an option to extend it to 8.9 miles.  The weather forecast is good and we're looking forward to walking off the beaten path.

Peace and blessings,

Linda and Larry