A Year in Winchester

Obviously, the town of Winchester is famous for it's Cathedral, which has been a place of worship for over 900 years. It contains the longest nave in Europe, the tombs of some early English kings, Jane Austen's grave and other treasures including the world-famous Winchester Bible.

Of course, there are many things to visit in Winchester besides the Cathedral. The Palace Great Hall houses King Arthur's Round Table, there are many buildings from the Tudor period around town, the River Itchen flows through the heart of the city, the High Street is always bustling, a climb up St. Giles Hill gives a spectacular view, and there are many great places to stay and eat while you are here!

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

Walking - The High Street is very pedestrian friendly, especially during peak hours. Most of the town is completely accessible by foot, although there are some steep climbs occasionally.

Driving - Winchester is a difficult town to drive around. It's filled with confusing one way streets and lots of traffic. Car Parks are available in the city center and you can park for the price of 60p for one hour.

Public Transportation - Buses run frequently to Southampton, Basingstoke, Portsmouth, Salisbury, and to many small rural towns. The buses depart from the city center bus depot and prove to be pretty reliable. A bus ticket with same day return to Southampton is about £8.00 per person.

Train - The train is probably the easiest way to get to London from Winchester, however it's not inexpensive. A round trip ticket for the same day to London Waterloo on a non-peak day is £18.70 per person. This ticket can be purchased in conjunction with an Underground or Bus ticket for main London zones as well. The weekend daytime trains are old and run down, but reliable.

Having stayed there for almost two weeks, I can say that I am very familiar with the hotel.

The rooms come in three classifications: Standard, Superior, and Suite. We stayed in a Standard Queen room, which had a view of the Cathedral. All of the rooms come with a digital tv, trouser press, coffee and tea making area, mini bar, hairdryer, and an iron/ironing board. Everything you could possibly need is in your room. There is internet access through the phone lines and plenty of electrical outlets.

The lounge has a great bar and snack-style meals. I have yet to have better Fish and Chips than the Wessex can make. They serve them with fantastic Mushy Peas! The restaurant is very high class with a Carvery which is £18 per person.

The hotel and restaurant staff is very warm and friendly, which to be honest, is quite unusual in England. One thing to watch out for though - The Cathedral is RIGHT next-door. On Sunday mornings the church bells ring LOUDLY, very frequently - don't expect to be sleeping in!

A popular hotel for British pensioners. The rooms are average in size, all with en suite showers. Some rooms face the inner garden, which is just off the restaurant and bar. These rooms can get noisy at night and on weekends, there are private functions held in the garden. There is unreliable internet access through the phone. All rooms have a television which gets both digital tv and radio stations. Limited 24-hour room service. Breakfast is available which some rooms in the restaurant. The are two car parks, which are often full with restaurant guests. We had to double park and give our car key to reception almost every evening of our stay. The hotel is very old and noisy. If you are looking for atmosphere, stay here. But if you want a good nights sleep, look elsewhere!

Pub atmosphere, but great food by day. Gets very busy with teenagers after 8pm. Pub food and snacks available. Popular for very large hamburgers. Full pub bar for alcohol. Non-smoking seating. Food served until 10pm. Average price £10.00 for lunch for two.

A chain-Italian restaurant. Always busy. You will need a pre-booking to get in on any weekend nights. Pizza and pasta are served. Very large wine list, only one beer served. The food is good, but the service is almost always horrible at this location. Average price - £20.00 for dinner for two.

Definitely the best Indian restaurant in Winchester. The food and the service are unbeatable!! It is very small, however, and you will need a pre-booking. Expect to wait with or without a reservation on a weekend night. Traditional and specialty Indian dishes available, there is a large wine list and various liquors are on hand. Average price - £40.00 for dinner for two.

Very ecclectic pub atmosphere. A mid-twenties to later thirties crowd. Highly recommended. A large beer and cider menu. Ladies, check out the toilet!...very interesting! Outdoor seating with heaters.

This massive and beautiful structure has been a place of worship for over 900 years. Built by the Normans and consecrated in 1093, the Cathedral serves as a religious and community center. Thousands of tourists flock there every year.

The building and its grounds are very accessible from the city centre and all public transportation. Entrance is by a suggested donation of £3.00 per adult. There is a fee for the library and museum of £1.00 per person, but all of the tours are free. The guided tours are led by local Winchester senior citizen volunteers. All are very knowledgeable, however not all are good at leading tours. It is hit or miss with the guides. If you are lucky enough to get a well-versed guide, they will tell you all about the amazing history of the structure.

Upon entering, you will find yourself in the nave. The nave is where the community gathers to worship. It is the longest nave in all of Europe. The nave is flanked by two long hallways on each side which are filled with graves and memorials to various town residents, bishops, priests, and military persons. The most visited of these memorials is Jane Austen's, which is highly recognizable because it is always adorned with flowers. The nave and hallways are architecturally styled in the second Gothic movement. This, however is not the original architecture. Luckily for us today, both the crypt and the transcepts have been left in the Norman style with its large, simple arches.

One of my favorite sections of the cathedral can be found just inside of the left transcept. Inside of the Holy Seplicure Chapel you can now see original Medieval paintings depicting the removal of Christ from the cross. In the mid-1960's while cleaning the paintings, a crack in the plaster was discovered. The preservationists peeled off the plaster to reveal an even older painting beneath the one that they were working on. The plaster had preserved the paint for hundreds of years, it is in remarkable condition.

Winchester's patron saint is Saint Swithun, who was at one time a Bishop of Winchester. Much of the art today contains references to this local hero. The museum contains the world-famous Winchester Bible, which was hand-created by a monk who devoted 30 years to its making. Also, you can view pieces of the original statues from the quire screen, which were demolished during the work done by Cromwell.

A visit to Winchester is certainly not complete without having a picnic on the Cathedral lawn/graveyard. If you hail from the US, this is quite a treat! You can dine on some delicious English pasties while resting under a grave from a time before your country was even a country!!

If travelling to Winchester, the Great Hall should be your first stop after visiting the Cathedral. It is in this location that you will find King Arthur's Round Table. The Great Hall and its accompanying architecture is free of charge to visit. There is a shop on the grounds, which sells books and trinkets relating to the castle and the town. The Great Hall is the only standing part of the castle which once stood on the grounds.

Building of the castle was begun in 1067 by William the Conqueror and was developed by successive kings. Oliver Cromwell had the castle destroyed, but left behind the Great Hall. You can also see the remains of some of the castle towers.

Today the Great Hall houses the famous Round Table, the Garden of Queen Eleanor, and two gates which commemorate the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana. The table, which hangs on the wall now, was once a functioning table. It has been taken down on occasion and wood samples from it have been carbon-dated to the time that King Arthur should have been king.

Of course, Arthur held the throne during the bleak times of the Dark Ages, when there was no written history recorded. All that we know from that time comes from word of mouth passed down for hundreds and hundreds of years. While we do know that there was a King Arthur, the facts about his knights and their table are not that clear. We do not know for sure if this table was Arthur's and we do not know what it is used for. The painting on the table includes the names of all of the knights and a portrait of Arthur, which if you look closely, also resembles another English King. King Henry VIII commissioned the painting on the table during his reign and he requested that Arthur's face be made to look exactly like his. So that when he brought in visitors to view the table, he would stand beneath it, allowing the visitors to see how much he "resembled" the great and famous King Arthur.

Queen Eleanor's garden is a little treat tucked away behind the Great Hall. It has been made to be exactly like a 13th century garden. All of the plants and flowers would have been planted in the Queen's time. Take a short break and have a seat in the Garden, where you can watch a family of white doves play in a fountain.

The New Forest was created in 1079 by William I (known as William the Conqueror) as a hunting area, principally of deer. It is a unique area of historical, ecological and agricultural significance, and retains many of the rural practices conceded by the Crown in medieval times to local people. Principal of these is the pasturing of ponies, cattle, pigs and donkeys in the open Forest by local inhabitants known as Commoners. The New Forest has also been an important source of timber for the Crown. It is an outstanding recreational area for walking and riding. There are a few towns in the New Forest where you can begin your visit, but I have to recommend Lyndhurst. The town can be easily reached from Southampton. Their Tourist Information Center is located in the center of town and has an abundance of great resources. You can pick up a map for about £2.00, which shows all of the marked walking paths, towns, and attractions. Two great ways to see the area are cycling and horseback riding. You can obtain information on renting bikes and horses at the TIC. We, however, chose to see the area by foot. My recommendation for this is to follow the map out of Lyndhurst to the M27 and head southwest. Just pull over in any parking wayside, get out of your car, and follow the path up over the fence. (Yes, this is legal!) From there you can wander around all of the walking paths at your leisure. The maps do not include the unmarked paths, but they are easily navigable. We followed a path to a tunnel under the motorway. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the New Forest would be the wild horses. They wander the whole of the New Forest area, but are kept in by cattle guards. There must be hundreds of them, in all sizes and colours. They are very used to having tourists walking near them, although you are warned to keep your distance and it is illegal to feed them. The scenery throughout the area is gorgeous and walking paths vary from uphill to lowlands. We spent most of our time along the lowlands, which are mainly open fields of heather and grass and are dotted with small sections of forest. These sections resemble what you might see in a Robin Hood movie, with large trunked trees with even larger roots growing in all directions. My favorite part of our day was eating off of the wild blackberry bushes. We came across one specific area which was covered with these bushes and was located near a car park. We encountered a few people collecting the berries in bags, but we chose to eat them right off of their branches. They were delicious and certainly filled our bellies.

Windsor Castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world, and the oldest in continuous occupation (over 900 years). It's one of the Queen's three official residences, and is often said to be her favorite. The Royal Standard flies over the Round Tower of Windsor Castle when the Queen is in residence - at other times, the Union Jack flag flies in its place. During our visit we were able to see the State Apartments, the Dolls' House, and St. George's Chapel.

St. George's Chapel is a small church which holds some amazing things. First of all, it houses the tombs of ten monarchs, including Henry VIII and his wife, Jane Seymour. Most recently, the "Queen Mum" was buried there along side of her husband, King George VI. The chapel has some amazing architecture, which can be hard to see with the crowds of people trying to get a good view. Photographs are not allowed in the chapel.

The State Apartments situated within Windsor Castle are the formal rooms used for Ceremonial, State, and Official occasions. They range from the smaller, intimate rooms of Charles II's apartments to the vast scale of the Waterloo Chamber, built to commemorate the famous victory over Napoleon in 1815. The rooms are furnished with some of the finest works of art in the country including masterpieces by Holbein, Rembrandt, and Van Dyck as well as magnificent French and English furniture and porcelain. Photographs are not allowed in the State Apartments.

Queen Mary's Dolls' House was created by Sir Edwin Lutyens for Queen Mary, consort of King George V. Built on a scale of 1:12, the house took three years to complete (1921-24) and involved the skills of more than a thousand artists and craftsmen. Every item is perfectly manufactured to scale and each room is exquisitely furnished. The hundreds of books in the library include many specially written by authors of the day. Working lifts stop at every floor and all five bathrooms have running water. Photographs are not allowed of the Dolls' House.

Windsor Castle opens at 9:45am daily throughout the year. From March to October admission continues until 4:00pm and the Castle closes at 5:15pm. From November to February admissions cease at 3:00pm and the Castle closes at 4:15pm. Semi-State Rooms open from September 28th, 2002, until March 23rd, 2003. East End of North Terrace open from August 5th, 2002, until September 29th, 2002.

Price: Adults £11.50, Children £6.00, Seniors £9.50, Family tickets (two adults and two children) £29.00.

Audio tours are available at £2.95 in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. Contact: Telephone 020 7321 2233 Fax 020 7930 9625 Email information@royalcollection.org.uk The website can be found here.

As visitors to a new country, one is bound to find some differences in the language. Although both countries speak English, their variations of the language are quite different. Here are some of the differences that we have encountered thus far:

BRITISH - AMERICAN

pavement - sidewalk
boot - trunk (car)
mobile phone - cell phone
snog - kiss
car park - parking lot
motorway - highway
holiday - vacation
football - soccer
american football - football
quid - buck ($)
quay (pronouced "key")- dock (ship)
shopping center - mall
city center - downtown
cookery - pots and pans
flat - apartment
"loo" or toilet - bathroom
prawn - shrimp
ham - bacon
pork - ham
garden - yard
football boots - spikes
shop - store
washing - laundry
crisps - chips
chips - fries
flatware - silverware
flatmates - roommates
take away (food) - to go (food)
jab - shot (medical, as in "flu shot")
film - movie
cinema - movie theatre
trousers - pants (don't mix this one up!)