Winchester Wandering

We spent most of last Saturday in the quaint English city of Winchester. It’s one of the oldest cities in England, and has a rich history. While touring around Winchester’s many landmarks, I took some photos which can be seen here.

  

We only decided to head to Winchester a few days before, and we chose a great day as it was nice and sunny all day. We caught a train from Waterloo station in London, which only took an hour to get to Winchester.
We arrived around midday and after a short walk from the station, we were on the main street of the city which is the oldest street still in use in England: it goes back 2500 years; the tar-seal, however is modern. Being in the middle of winter, there weren’t too many tourists, but quite a lot of locals. We eventually found a cafe to have lunch, and have conceded that while the English know their pubs, they don’t do cafes well at all.

After lunch we headed off to the information centre, housed in the town hall, and bought ourselves a walking map with all the sights we wanted to see and headed off down the street. We walked past an awesome statue of Alfred the Great, one of the early English kings, then off down beside the river Itchen that runs through the city. We tried and failed to get into the Wolvesey Castle because it was closed, but saw the house that Jane Austen lived her final days in.
We then took a bit of a detour to go down to the Hospital of St. Cross, a still running medieval almshouse which has been going since the 12th century. We had a good look around the grounds, and inside the old hall and kitchen, but couldn’t go into the cathedral as an orchestra was doing a recording inside.

We headed back to the centre and went straight to the Cathedral. Winchester Cathedral was built back in the 11th century and like other old cathedrals, has been modified and extended over the years. It sports the longest nave of any cathedral in Europe and looks pretty spectacular inside. We went on a guided tour once inside and saw Jane Austen’s burial spot and memorial, as well as down inside the crypt which was flooded (a normal occurrence) where we saw an interesting sculpture; Antony Gormley’s “Sound II”.
After we had finished up at the cathedral, there wasn’t much light left, so we decided to go to the last place we wanted to see before we left, the Great Hall. We ended up going through the Peninsula Barracks on our way there, but didn’t really stop to take a look.
The Great Hall, is just that… a large hall. It was originally built as an add-on to the main castle in the 13th century, but is now all that’s left as the original castle is now in ruins. It houses a large old table that is housed on the wall of hall, which reportedly dates back to 1275.

With the sun set, and the streets getting dark, we headed back to the train station to catch a train back to London.

Stonehenge and Salisbury

On the first weekend of December, we made a day trip out to Stonehenge and had enough time after that to make a quick visit to the town of Salisbury afterwards. We took our camera with us; the photos we took can be seen here.

We had decided to travel out to Stonehenge by rental car for a change since there was only 1 coach service to Stonehenge each way a day at inconvenient times, and the closest train station was at Salisbury, where we would have to catch a bus to get to Stonehenge itself.
The drive out promised to be an interesting one, as I hadn’t driven in England (let alone London) before, hadn’t driven a car for about half a year, and to top it off the car we had booked was a manual, which I hadn’t driven since I started driving automatics about 8 years ago.

We headed out to the rental office via train early Saturday morning. The train there was unusually busy, and we had to squeeze ourselves onto the carriage. The train emptied out at the stop we got off at, where we found out that the BBC was doing a clear-out sale of their old clothes, and their warehouses were sited next to the car rental office. There were crowds of bargain hunters, and the roads were backed up.
Once we picked up our car, a Ford Focus, which I was driving, we attempted to get on to the backed up road. After a few minutes, and stalling the car once, we got onto the road. Since we didn’t have a proper map of the area of London that we were in, we quickly got lost. We knew we had to get to the M25, so we followed the signs, and after getting stuck on a 3 lane roundabout which I went around about 3 times, we found our way onto the motorway.
My nerves were pretty well frayed by that time, but the 6 to 12 lane (both ways) motorway was a bit less stressful and a lot faster than the tight London roads. We made a pit stop half way to Stonehenge where we bought a proper London A-Z map so we wouldn’t get lost on the way back.

We made it to Stonehenge at about 11am, a bit later than we had originally hoped for. The site itself is quite amazing, with the tall stones rising out from a rather flat landscape. We were lucky that we got a clear blue sky on the day, although that meant that it was bitterly cold. We took a proper tour of the site, complete with audio-guides which told us of the history of Stonehenge. The site itself is over 5000 years old, with most of the large stones originating from Wales.
After Stonehenge we took a short walk across farmland up to the nearby Barrows which are ancient burial mounds going back thousands of years. To be honest, they weren’t that interesting, but the walk was nice.

We had our lunch in the car (as it was cold outside), and made a decision to visit nearby Salisbury, as we had some spare time.
Salisbury is quaint small English city in the county of Wiltshire. It has a cathedral, marketplace and a river running through it, just like every other English city. The market which we saw, has been going since 1227.
We managed to find a park in the centre, not too far from the market where we put in enough in the meter for about 45 minutes. We had a quick look around the market, looked around the centre city a bit, then headed toward the cathedral. We had a good look around the cathedral and it’s grounds, and while there we found they had on display one of the few remaining original copies of the Magna Carta, dating back to 1215.
We left the cathedral, and headed back to the car and arrived about an hour after we parked up to see a parking warden issuing our car a ticket. I tried pleading with her as we were only about 15 minutes over time, but she said she couldn’t take it back once it was issued. The ticket was £50, reduced to £25 if paid within 2 weeks.

Feeling a bit ripped off, we left Salisbury and headed back to London. It was dark by the time we left the motorway in London, and although we had a proper map this time, we managed to get lost about 3 times on the way back to the car rental place. After leaving the car, I found I was still really high strung, although glad I’d tried my hand at English driving.
We bought a curry from our local Indian takeaway when we got back to our flat: Yum!

Search for a Flat and Work

We had decided before we even left New Zealand that would try living and working in London … unless we really didn’t like it. So after arriving back from France, we headed up to the big smoke to first find a flat to live in, and second get ourselves some work to make back all the ££’s we spent on our travels. We’ve taken a few photos of the flat we’re living in now, which can be seen here.

We started out by renting temporary accommodation by the week from Accommodation London. We were staying in a tiny, cheap studio apartment in the Queens Park area, just around the corner from where my Dad grew up. The apartment was quite claustrophobic and managed to fit a double bed, table and chairs, 2 wardrobes, TV, kitchen and bathroom in about 10m squared. The size of the apartment was a blessing in disguise, as it gave us huge motivation to find a permanent place quickly.
We concentrated our search around Acton and Shepherd’s Bush as we had heard it was cheap and there was a large New Zealand and Australian population in the area. We mainly used the Gumtree website to find places to look at, but we also pounded the pavement by going around many local estate agents.
The first reply we had from sending a message to an advertiser on Gumtree nearly put us off. It was from someone with very poor grammar claiming to be a missionary in Africa with a sick wife, saying that they would send keys and documents to us if we sent 1 months rent in advance. Definitely a scam. Fortunately we didn’t hit any more scams afterwards, and we did report the advert to Gumtree, who promptly took it down.

The first place we saw, we really liked. It was in a quiet street and very nice and spacious inside with a bit of a garden outside. On the downside, it wasn’t furnished, and was a bit beyond what we wanted to pay per month. We made a quick decision, went back to the real estate agent who showed us around and said we would like to sign up. We signed all the forms and agreed to pay 6 months rent up front as we didn’t have any UK credit history (this seems to be the norm among London estate agents). We were suffering from buyers remorse the next morning and were actually a little relieved when the estate agent rang us to let us know the owner had decided not to accept the offer, and go with a different estate agent in order to try to get more for it.

We spent the next week or two looking around about 12 other rental properties, but there was always something wrong with each one, such as too small, too expensive, too close the railway, too dodgy or too dingy. Once we started looking exclusively at privately rented flats, in order to avoid paying agents fees, we had more luck. The second privately rented flat we saw was (and still is) perfect. It’s properly “fully furnished” with cutlery, TV, pots and pans, bedding and dining table included, when most “fully furnished” flats only have a bed, couch and white-ware. It’s in North Acton, not far from the tube and buses and has a co-op below. The landlord is very friendly and reasonable too, which was a bonus. The only downside was that it wasn’t going to be available for 2 weeks. Still, we jumped at the chance to get it, and immediately offered to rent the place, which was happily accepted.

With the flat sorted, we had to find some work. We had chosen a bad time to start looking as the Global Financial Crisis was just starting to hit its stride and many potential employers were putting a hold on recruitment. We got to a slow start, and I didn’t start to get interviews until I dropped my salary expectations slightly. Tanya was having a bit more trouble, as she tried to get into a Management Accountant position, which was different to what she had done before. From talking to recruiters, we heard that there were less jobs available, and more qualified people out looking for them.
Tanya eventually got a job offer for an auditing position doing almost the same as what she was back in New Zealand. It was for a 7 month contract, and as we had both been looking for over a month, she took it, and is now working in Victoria.
I was getting a bit downhearted once Tanya had been working for a week or two, and while I had gone to about 8 interviews, I still had nothing to show for it.
I had heard that my previous employer, Northern Arch, still had lots of work available back in Christchurch, so I contacted them to see if they had any temporary work they would like me to do remotely. Luckily they did, and I am working for them on contract for a few months, with the possibility of another few months extension. I’m working at the offices of a business partner of Northern Arch, Sungard, in Canary Wharf in London. It’s up the at the 40th floor of the 2nd tallest building in the UK with great views over London.

Bordeaux and St. Emilion

At the end of our European excursion, we spent half a day in Bordeaux, a large city situated in one of the largest wine regions of France, and a full day in St. Emilion, a small town completely surrounded by vineyards. The day in St. Emilion is rated by the both of as being the highlight of our trip, as we both enjoyed our day there immensely. While soaking up the wine, we took a few photos, which you can see here.

We arrived in Bordeaux just after midday, checked into another Ibis hotel, and found some lunch. Afterwards, we headed into the city centre via Bordeaux’s modern tram system to take a look around. We soon found an information centre where we received a map of the city. We had decided that we wanted to do a wine tour the next day, but we found that they were unfortunately already completely booked (it was a weekend). The woman at the information centre gave us some brochures of St. Emilion and recommended visiting that instead, as they had many wineries.
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Bordeaux, and went down to the river where we saw a film crew filming a TV show or movie of some kind, visited a church and basically just explored around the centre city. It has a romantic feel to it, and its buildings reminded me of Bath. When it started to get dark and our feet were feeling the strain, we headed toward our hotel in search of food. On the way we found the restaurant with the worst food we’d eaten for the entirety of our trip. It was called Cafe des Arts, and at first it seemed pretty good if a little expensive, it was popular with locals, the service was good and our entree was nice, but when we got to the mains the meal took a turn for the worse. Tanya ordered fish, but received a layer of salted garlic, under which could be found some fish. I ordered lamb chops, which came undercooked and tough, piled with garlic. The meals were pretty much inedible even though we normally like garlic.

We got to the train station early the next morning and caught a train to St. Emilion. The train station wasn’t actually in the town, but about one and a half kilometres out of it. So we had a bit of a walk down the vineyard lined roads to the town itself. Luckily the weather was great; blue sky with a scattering of clouds.
The town is situated on a limestone outcrop/hill and is dominated by the church bell tower at the top of the hill. The streets have a medieval feel to them and are still sporting cobbles.
We started by exploring the town, and found it has quite a few wine shops, gift stores and restaurants as well as well a few wineries in the town. We eventually made it to the Office de Tourisme and booked ourselves into a tour of some of the underground parts of the city. The tour took us through the cave where Saint Emilion (who the town is named after) lived in as a hermit back in the 8th century, through the catacombs which are a series of burial chambers excavated in the limestone cliff, and finally into the huge space of the monolithic church, a half a cathedral sized space inside the cliff which had been hollowed out centuries ago.
After the tour, we exited out into the main square area, which was full with tables of the nearby restaurants. As it was lunchtime, we sat down at one of the tables and enjoyed a French meal each with some local wine.

We visited one of the town’s wineries next, Clos des Menuts, but the owner was running a private tasting, so we didn’t get to try any wine. They did allow us (and other visitors) to look around their underground cellars for free, which were rather vast, and was hewn out of the limestone like the church. After that winery, we tried visiting another winery a little walk out of the town, but we found it deserted.
We got back to the town and visited the local church and cloisters, then decided to head up the tall bell tower of the monolithic church. We had to get a key from the Office de Tourisme, but because it was locked by default, it meant we had the tower to ourselves. The view from the top was magnificent; you see for miles around, and all there was were vineyards.
Back down at the bottom, we were determined to get a bottle of wine to take back with us. We found a shop near the Office de Tourisme which must have had all the wines from St. Emilion where we bought a bottle of the local red.
There was one last landmark in in the town we hadn’t visited, Castel Daou Rey – an old military castle/tower, and as it was getting late in the afternoon we only just got in before they closed. The castle was quite interesting, and at the top there was a great view of the town.
We made our way back to the station, but had to wait about an hour for a train back to Bordeaux.

The next day we began our train journey back to Britain. We got a fast train to Paris, changed trains for Rouen where we had to wait a while before getting another train for Dieppe. Since we had a while to wait in Rouen, and it was pretty horrible weather, we checked out the local art museum. The look on the cloakroom attendant’s face was priceless when we dropped our heavy rucksacks off before wandering around the museum.

We eventually made it to Dieppe, where we stayed the night, and caught a ferry back to Newhaven. The ferry was almost empty which was quite different it on the way over.
My aunt Eileen in Brighton was nice enough to allow us to stay a couple of days before we headed back to London.

Carcassonne Castles

Carcassonne is a town in the South of France that is split in two; there is the modern part which is a classic French town, and then there is the more impressive “medieval city” of Carcassonne which is a fully restored fortified town on a hill, complete with turrets, drawbridge and a castle. We spent nearly 2 days there, and had wonderful time. We took a number of photos of the medieval city which can be seen here.

We arrived late in the afternoon at the Carcassonne rail station from Nice after going through Marseille and changing trains in Montpellier. We headed straight into the centre of the modern town and managed to get to the tourism office minutes before they closed up shop for the day. We were given a map of both sections of Carcassonne and directions to our hotel.
We were staying in an Ibis hotel this time, which was a little bit different to the other privately owned hotels we’d stayed in previously, simply because we could get BBC news. This may not sound like a big deal, but by this point in our journey, we were craving any kind of English we could listen to, and the BBC was a source of great relief for us.

After checking in (and watching some BBC news) we decided to go and find somewhere to eat for dinner. The woman on the desk at our hotel gave us a couple of restaurant recommendations that were in the medieval city. Because our hotel was close to the medieval city, it was a short walk over a bridge, up the hill, past the walls until we were onto the cobbled alleyways of the medieval city. We found a restaurant that was recommended to us and got a seat inside. The restaurant was quite cramped and we ended up being seated next to a Canadian couple who we struck up a bit of a conversation with. It turned out they were feeling starved of conversation in English too! We had a marvellous traditional French meal and some entertaining waiters. We had two waiters during our meal who were the complete opposite of each other; one was a very friendly, polite and professional waiter who went out of his way to assist us with the menu, but the other waitress was extremely unfriendly, ignoring us when we tried to get her attention, and if she threw our plates on the table any harder the food would have been on our laps.

We headed back to the medieval city the next day; It looks just like a fairytale castle from the outside and has been used as a set in a few movies such as “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves“. It’s completely surrounded by a double ring of ramparts (2 surrounding walls) and has 53 towers in total.
When inside, we visited the Cathedral, had lunch in the main square area, took an interesting tour of the castle and city walls and browsed some of the local shops. Most of the shops were decorated in an old style, the most interesting we found was a large confectionery/sweet store which had wall to wall tooth rotting goodness (and some free samples!).
By the time we finished up in the medieval city, we had just enough time to head to the modern part of Carcassonne to get our train and hotel reservations sorted for our trip to Bordeaux the next day. While in the modern town, we had an Italian inspired meal which was good, but we were a little surprised part way through our meals when a couple of men entered the restaurant. One looked and was dressed normally, but the other was a 6 foot tall man in his 60s who wore a white lace little-bo-peep outfit. I had to suppress my laughter when he began talking to the waiter in high-pitched French.

The next day, after packing and watching some more BBC news, we caught our train to Bordeaux.