Salisbury Cathedral
The train to Stonehenge doesn’t drop you right next to the famous upright stones, of course. Instead, you need to get off in the nearby village of Salisbury and get some sort of transportation to the site itself. I arrived in Salisbury on one of those dreary English mornings that promises rain to come and encourages locals and visitors alike to stay safely within their homes or offices or hostels. My time schedule was tight, I was planning on staying in London that evening, so I had no time to waist with warming myself beside the hearth. My feet hit the deserted train platform about five minutes before the tour bus for the hop-on hop-off tour of Stonehenge was due to leave. My pack bounced against my back as I ran, clomping on the wooden slats, down to where the trip was supposed to pick up. Unfortunately, all I found were construction zone signs.
By the time I figured out where the bus stop had been re-located to, I arrived as it pulled down the street and around the corner. I kicked myself and said a few choice words, now my plan for the entire day was thrown off. There was another tour, but it didn’t start for another four hours and I didn’t have any warm place to wait. I would have happily hunkered down in a pub or restaurant, but I didn’t want to ‘waist’ my valuable sight seeing time. Besides, the train stop and bus pick up was on the far end of town, and as it started to rain, the prospect of walking all that way just to find some place to crash was daunting. In the distance, however, I could see the white spire of a church peaking over the roofs of the village.
Pulling out my Lonely Planet Great Britain Guidebook, I found the map of Salisbury and the location of the cathedral. It looked like a good way to stay dry for the morning and get some sightseeing done. I knew the name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember much from my undergraduate courses in English History what it was familiar for. So I set off towards the spire. It turned out to be much closer than I had originally thought and the rain broke once I was down the street, the clouds opening and letting some rays of sun to drift down over the cobblestone streets.
As I turned the corner, I got the distinct impression of the Thomas Kincade paintings I had seen in a gallery at the Santa Monica Pier. Before me rose the cathedral, standing alone in a grassy park, shiningly white as the rays of sun shone down on it from the breaks in the clouds. It was divinely beautiful. As I came closer to the structure, I remembered why I knew the name. Salisbury Cathedral is one of THE most striking examples of medieval architecture, complete with an intricately carved exterior that features the bishops of Salisbury. Truly amazing, as if my textbooks had come to life. I stared at the outside until the clouds closed again and I felt the first of what would become huge drops of rain. The best however, was yet to come.
I spent a food two hours touring the chapel and it’s entombments on their self-guided tour, which was excellent even if there was no audio tour available. I did not, however, have enough time to climb the hundreds of steps up the tower. This only served to seal the fact that I will simply have to go back. After I had as much as I could take in, I followed the signs into the associated Charter House where I stumbled upon the highlight of my trip. There, under glass and diffused lighting, was an ORIGINAL copy of the Magna Carta. This document is the foundation of constitutional law as we understand it today, and is one of the most important documents in the history of democracy. Standing there was quite literally standing in the presence of history in a way that all my other historical wanderings has yet to top.
