United Kingdom (Part 2) - Salisbury, the medieval city

From Stonehenge we went to our next destination was Salisbury. In the mean time all of us became hungry. We debated about the place where to have lunch. Everything was unknown to us, so relied on our friend. First he suggested trying luck in the adjacent restaurant of Stonehenge. We checked, but no food item was promising to us. So, last decision was to have lunch after reaching Salisbury.

 Nando’s in Salisbury is a famous restaurant. Reaching Salisbury was another eventful journey. As a medieval city, the roads were extremely narrow, and to avoid traffic congestion, many of the streets were made one way. It was difficult to understand which street was one way, and which one was both way. As a residence of UK even our friend faced difficulty to find out that.Getting parking space was the next problem. On the top of that, parking was prohibited on the narrow roads. At last we found out one  parking garage, and that too was charging more after a certain amount of time. So, we were on tight schedule. The whole time rain god was showing his face on and off. While walking toward the restaurant, which was eventually only five minutes of walking from the garage, we got sunshine, cloud, and rain. Anyway, we sat for few minutes to get our lunch in the restaurant, when our stomachs were burning. We sat at a table on the first floor just beside a big window. It was really nice to sit there, as we could see all the old buildings with vibrants flowers on the window seals. 

Poultry Cross.. one of the original medieval structure

The view was so nice, I just could resist me from taking minimum ten pictures just of the street down. In the mean time again it started raining. Luckily, when we came out from the restaurant, the sun showed his bright face. We started walking to visit the famous St. Paul’s Cathedral. The busy old roads which were made from bricks instead of regular modern roads, was very different to us. Each and every time we were getting an old world charm. I couldn't find any modern building. Even we came across a very old dome type of structure with cross on the top. That looked very old , yet  well preserved. I didn’t the name of the structure. I stopped on middle of the road, and started taking picture of the cross forgetting about the traffic.Later I found out that was the Poultry cross. My husband literally pulled me from the road, and asked me walk with the others. Salisbury was establish way back in1220 AD after the towns people of Old Sarum decided to have a new town.

We walked on the sidewalks with restaurants and other boutique shops on both sides. The restaurants set all bright color chairs and tables outside the restaurants, added some more vibrancy to the beautiful medieval city.

 
We crossed on old arch way, known as a gate. We also saw another very old gate, later which one I found ,that was St. Annes’ gate. We reached at the magnificent Salisbury Cathedral. I heard that the Cathedral was the only cathedral in the entire Salisbury. The cathedral was very famous, where the famous Magna Carta was kept. In 1215, King John of England was forced to singed that famous Magna Carta. It was stated that King was not above the law. And it proctedt the rights of the common people. This famous Magna Carta is considered one of the most important documents in the history of democracy. Magna Carta  Libertatum, Medieval Latin words for “the grate Charter of Liberties”. That original treaty, which was most probably written on fabric, and that too was written in ancient Latin, so it was just impossible which was written on that treaty.Unfortunately photography was prohibited, so I couldn't take any photo. 
 

One of the Medieval gate

The 13th century cathedral, standing tall amid vast green landscape teeming with brightly green grass force to think about the precession and accuracy of the building. The extraordinary Cathedral was built on an unobstructed site. The architects and the religious leaders took a great effort to build such a magnificent structure only in 38 years.

The cathedral premises 

 In current days 38 year should be too much time to build, but in that era without any technology, or any fine instrument making such a masterpiece certainly more creditable than today. It was an example early Gothic structure. The bright gray colored stone structure with slate colored roof was build painstakingly with extremely fine ornamental design.

After spending some time there we plan to head to Bath. In the mean time it started down pouring , so we waited few minutes inside the cathedral , and start again.

The arch way inside the cathedral