I went with Mario (the Bulgar with the Italian name) to Winchester 4 weeks ago. Bizarrely, though it's only about 2 hour away, the train ticket is over 20 pounds! It's the medieval capital of England though (analogous to Toledo in Spain) and so I had to go (though I will spare you the full history).

These are the barracks where US soldiers stayed during WWII. Believe it or not, the water in the fountain was frozen over!


This is the famous great hall





This is the 12th century Norman cathedral... I never get tired of these.



It's the longest gothic cathedral in Europe.

Jane Austen is buried here...

Didn't she write a book or somthing?
Who cares about that
When there are ACTUAL medieval tiles to see:

But the real highlight is this High Medieval quire. Very few of these survive, and considering that Cromwells troops rode their horses IN this church and smashed all the windows it's amazing this one did.... it has exquisite knights,

Dragons,

I don't know who this guy is... one of the workmen? a scribe?

There are also monkeys and lions and maidens... but the REALLY cool thing............. is the Green Man. No one knows who he is, but he appears in German pagan (and obviously Christian) art, Byzantine mosaics, and even Persian manuscripts! Perhaps he is some sort of proto-Indo-European deity, or perhaps some specific meaning. But he's in the cathedral... you can identify him here because his moustache forms huge tree branches:
Here he is in his more primal incarnation:

And like all other major cathedrals, the relics of the main saint were destroyed by Henry VIII... and the shrine is gone:
In this case it was St. Swithun (ok, I'd never heard of him either):
Also in Winchester is the Great Hall, all that remains of the old royal palace. In it is "the round table". It is actually a forgery commissioned by Henry VIII to try and impress Emperor Charles V (who stopped by for a visit)... but Chuck wasn't fooled because he noticed the painting of Arthur looked a lot like Hank himself!
Later, it was used as the local courthouse. Walter Raleigh was tried there... and it was used until the 70s when a hideous modern addition was added to it:
Of couse, these doors that the Windsors added are pretty hideous in their own right:I wanted to go to the bishop's palace
But it was:
So I walked out to the monastery hospital where they still give free beer and bread to travellers. I was told that the walk inspired Keats and Tennyson. Well, you can judge for yourself, but you'll forgive me if I don't produce "Ode on a Grecian Urn" after seeing this:



Ok, the pictures don't really capture how ugly it was... but it was pretty desolate as far as I was concerned... Like Indiana in the winter. We DO have James Whitcomb Riley though...
So I get to the hospital...
and my beer??? But noooooooooooo.

Misssissippi Chinese food is almost as funny as Tennessee Halal Chicken





I'll leave you with Alfred... he WAS one of Englands greatest kings and he did unify (more or less) the country... even if the name Alfred doesn't particularly exude machismo these days: