This morning I resumed the difficult task of dividing my belongings between my two big pieces of luggage, one of which will be consigned to the boot of the rental car I'll pick up in Salisbury for the next week or so. It will be too difficult to be moving to a new hotel every day dragging in those two big bags. Anyway, since I'm wearing pretty much nothing but white t-shirts, as you've probably noticed, all my nice clothes (I do have some, you know :) can be stashed in the bag that's going into the boot, along with gifts, some of the more esoteric communications equipment, my hiking boots etc.

My train out of Manchester was relatively early, and I was traveling all morning and a large part of the afternoon - I never knew England was big enough to call for spending such a long period in the train! I was passing through towns and countryside about which I was quite uninformed - towns such as Crewe, Stockport, and Shrewsbury (which had an intriguing looking abbey). I was sitting opposite, for much of the first train ride, the kind of old complaining bugger you only meet in England - ancient, stooped, white-haired, dishevilled, his fly open, yet wearing an old school blazer and tie with a pocket handkerchief in the breast pocket. Since my other seat-neighbor was a miserable old evangelical Christian woman with her nose stuck in her bible tracts, it was either listen to the old bloke complaining about the nationalization of the railways or bury my head in my own book, which was the choice I made in the end, only sneeking my eyes up occasionally to look at the passing countryside.

And the countryside, once we were approaching Wales, was beautiful - kind of like the Lake District in miniature - minus the lakes. :) By that, I mean lots of small, hills with little stone farm-houses tucked in the valleys. The hills were frequently odd-looking - like tiny, grass-covered volcanoes.

The train company that was so arousing the ire of my old-schoolboy seat-neighbor is, apparently, a welsh company, since all the signs are in both english and the ancient, native tongue used in Wales, which contains unpronouncable words such as "hwn" and "mwg"!

I was surprised how long it took to get to Newport, Gwent, where I was to change trains - three hours. And the final leg to Salisbury was to take a further 1 hour and 45 minutes. Still, the change over did mean that I was on welsh soil for the first time in my life, even if it was only for twenty minutes.

Later, we pulled through Bath, which is singularly striking for its great clusters of Georgian houses, massed on crescents and hills rising up from the valley through which the train passes. Then we progressed along the idyllic Avon Valley, which is almost the archetype of God's own english countryside, with its grass-banked river, hedgerows, horse pastures, and small stone villages each with a little medieval church, and a Tudor pub.

For the last stages of the journey, I was sitting opposite an old couple. The husband was very nicely dressed in a tweed jacket and a tie; his face had a rarified, aristocratic appearance, though with large, sad eyes - he looked a little like Dirk Bogarde playing King Edward VIII might have looked. His wife was given to occasional statements and observations of the most excrutiatingly banal nature, to which the husband would respond with an infinitely long-suffering acknowledgment. I wondered how many years he'd been giving that nod to her.

Before long, I was standing in sudden silence outside Salisbury train station, waiting alone for a taxi. The scene would have been nondescript had it not been for the most graceful cathedral spire I'd ever seen towering over the surrounding buildings about a mile away. A very short taxi-ride took me to Hertz where I was happily informed that I'd have to be upgraded, at no cost, to a Mercedes. Naturally, I didn't complain!

My Mercedes - it's mine, all mine - well at least for a week.

It was only a short, purring drive downtown, where I parked and walked through the cute, busy streets to the Cathedral. Salisbury is an ancient, ancient town, but, I believe, mainly known for its cathedral (if I'm overlooking any other significant contributions, I'm sure one of my legions of nit-pickers will let me know :). But it really is just about the most graceful cathedrals I've ever seen - in fact, I'd say its one of the most graceful buildings of any type I've ever seen. And the beauty is not wall-deep; its lines inside are perfect, and the walls hold some gorgeous stained-windows. Looking at some of the structures, in particular the central support of the Chapter House (housing one of the four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta), which erupts from a slender column to spread across the octagonal ceiling like the inner spines of an open umbrella, it's almost inconceivable that it was built almost 800 years ago.

Salisbury

The famous cathedral

Me in front of the famous cathedral :)

Inner beauty

Since I'd belatedly realized that my hotel was actually almost twenty miles south of Salisbury (what was I thinking?), I decided to visit Stonehenge now rather than tomorrow morning: it's only ten miles or so outside the city. When you suddenly catch sight of it, you're almost upon it, and it looks kind of like an enormous set of stones some great kid has lumped together; much cleaner and more compact than I expected. You park in a parking lot on the other side of the road, and pay to pass through a tunnel under the road that leads you to a roped off viewing area. Staring at the ancient stones, I was thinking of the great extent of english history, all of which is next to nothing in the lifetime of this monument. When the Magna Carta that I'd seen in Salisbury was signed, the stones had already been standing some 3,000 years. I imagined knights in armor galloping past with the signed document, the wind of their passage whistling past the grey stones. Okay, somewhat fanciful, I know, but it's a one of a kind type of experience here.

Stonehenge

Finally, it was more than time to head to my hotel, which required a pleasant evening drive along quite country roads. The hotel is in a small village of the main road to Blandford (which is itself a relatively small town), and what a find it is! Now I remember why I decided to book here. The village has a Queen Anne manor house and both the manor house and in fact the whole village is owned by one family. The hotel, itself, is an old house, though presumably not as old as the manor house, but it's been modernized very carefully, and decorated in perfect, simple taste. Very, very comfortable. And, with the windows of my bedroom open, I can hear nothing except the call of a dove.

My hotel for the night, an old, modernized house in a beautiful little village.

Next door, the first thatched-roof I've ever seen.

No this isn't my room :) - one of the lovely, restrained, elegant public-rooms.