Last month we traveled 2000 years back in time simply by driving 80 miles north.
Sound too good to be true?
Well, let me tell you about a little civilization I like to call the Romans.
The Romans were around a long time ago: 2000 years they say, and what’s more, they didn’t just stick to Rome. They made it over here to Britannia and in AD 74 founded a legionary fortress called Deva at the site of the modern city of Chester. Being cultured, historical types we decided to take a day trip up to Chester to see “the finest walled city in England” (pictures).
Chester has come a long way since the Romans left and most of the present walls are medieval or Victorian ones built on top of the original fortress. The walls and gates surrounding the old city were a popular place for Victorian gentry to go “promenading,” and in the spirit of the promenade we made sure to look as refined as possible as we walked the scenic 2 mile circuit ourselves. It was a great way to see the city and neat to think of how long the walls had protected the city.
Besides the walls, Chester is just generally known as a very quaint and charming English town, with lots of old Tudor framed houses and a special section of 2-story shops called “the Roes”. They are quite unique and looked like a typical row of 700-year-old shops at street level but had steps up between every other shop, leading to a covered walkway along the tops of the shops running along more shops on the second level. I could see its charm and surly they were ground-breaking in the 1700s, but they reminded me a lot of a 2-story American mall. I’m sure the villagers of Chester would have me tarred and feathered for saying that.
It was a great day out, and happily our car/time machine performed well on this, its longest journey to date!
…stay tuned for a major travelogue post this weekend, including American visitors (yeah!!), tiny principalities, tapas, and dangerous mountain pass drives!
2 comments:
If you are within the walls of Chester it is still legal to shoot a Welshman with a longbow as long as it is after midnight.
Another crazy law will follow with the York post!
That was certainly the finest walled city in England that I have ever seen. No doubt about it. And the finest looking Yanks who ever visited it as well.
Did you have any idea that you were getting a time machine out of that vehicle? What a bonus! And it sounds like it has powers to attract visitors from America, too (according to the tail end of the post), so that is really something.
Looking forward to more stories, more cultural recommendations and more pictures!!
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