The tallest cathedral in Great Britain happens to be the Salisbury Cathedral. It was built during the 1200s and is of the English Gothic style. The cathedral's spire, however, wasn't added until the 1300s. It blows my mind that such an enormous and beautiful thing could be built 800 years ago. Some of the stone sculpture has been severely worn away by the wind and weather, so some of the original statues have actually been taken inside and replaced on the exterior. And we got to climb all the way up to the spire! We climbed a series of narrow stairways to get there- many of the steps had serious dips worn away from people walking there for 800 years. Some of the stairs were these wooden column-shaped things. See the picture below. When we got to the spire, there was this certificate on the wall from Genus Book of World Records for the tallest spire in Great Britain. Then we got to go OUTSIDE. The view was sweet! I have to admit, the bells in the tower were a bit startling when they were so close.
We never stopped to breathe. Once we were done with the tour we went to Wilton House via taxi. Wilton House has a couple rooms which were used for the filming of Pride and Prejudice as well as Young Queen Victoria. My favorite part was the Palladian Bridge. Wilton House is presently owned by the Pembrokes. It shows several different styles from different eras because it has been renovated over the years. I was excited to hear that some of the wall colors had been restored by John Fowler to be historically correct. I wrote a research paper on John Fowler this year for my history class. We also saw the famous bookshelf made by Chippendale. After the tour at Wilton we were treated to a lovely... treat. I don't know exactly what it was, some sort of cookie bar and Sprite to drink. Yummy :)
The taxis picked up us again to take us to Stonehenge. We listened to these audio tours but they were kind of hard to follow. But I did learn that Stonehenge was built about the same time as the Egyptian pyramids. That surprised me. If the Egyptian pyramids are so huge and impressive, what's so great about a few strategically stacked rocks? I might have to do a little more research on this place. Anyhow we had fun taking pictures. :)
OH- final event for the day. I got my acceptance letter into the Interior Design program!!! :D :D :D Leslie, Benae and Jesse got in too!! I haven't heard of anyone else that's opened it yet. HOORAY!
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