LONDON, ENGLAND
October 23-26, 2003
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Oct 25, 2003 - After Stonehenge we went to the Salisbury Cathedral (passing Sting's tudor house in Salisbury on the way). It, the Cathedral not Sting's place, was built in 1220 (finished in 1258) and the Spire, the tallest in England at 404 feet was added around 1315.
The Chapter House at the Cathedral also holds the best copy (of 4 surviving copies) of the Magna Carta (no pics allowed in there though so these are pics of the cloisters on the way to the Chapter House). That's the Great Charter signed by King John (the one from Robin Hood) that spells out the rule of law in England. The US Constitution is drawn from these main principals (to read the text click here). The Magna Carta was originally done in Latin, probably by the Archbishop, Stephen Langton. It was in force for only a few months, when it was violated by the king. Just over a year later, with no resolution to the war, the king died, being succeeded by his 9-year old son, Henry III. The Charter (Carta) was reissued again, with some revisions, in 1216, 1217 and 1225.
After getting back to London we trekked over to St. Paul's Cathedral to climb the 250 steps to the whispering gallery which is the dome and if you sit against the wall and talk you can be heard anywhere along the dome wall. Mackenzie and I did it and it actually works! We then climbed the 119 stairs to the Stone Gallery which is the cement area on the outside of the dome and then we went the 152 more steps (530 total steps) to the top to the Golden Gallery where the view is incredible. Guess I should have taken my camera up there huh? The Cathedral is incredibly beautiful, is huge (157 meters long, 76 meters wide and the dome and it's superstructure alone weighs 65,000 tons) and it has the largest cyrpt in Europe.
It has a nice bathroom too!
The End (of this trip). Well Andrea and Mackenzie flew back to Budapest on Sunday, 26th to find that San Diego was burning and Gramma and Grampa stayed in London for a couple more days, they saw another play and a few other things and returned to the fire charred city. They said they could smell the smoke in the airplane when they started getting close!
