Lincoln

Well, as it turned out, we went to a castle AND a cathedral today. My particular group went to visit the city a bit, then we went to the castle, then we went to the cathedral, and THEN we went on a tour of all the Roman stuff still lying around the city.

It was long and tiring and I actually took about 500 pictures...really. I did. There were about 100 that didn't turn out and that I had to get rid of.

First, we went to the town. There was some history stuff to be found but the SHOPS were really something to see. There weren't many cars in the city center (in a city built long before cars, the cobblestones aren't really built for that kind of traffic) so we could easily walk down to the water and get a look at the bridges and canals built by the Romans across the river.









Then it was time to turn back. We went to the castle next. It was raining and windy today, so standing up on that old wall was really, really cold. We got to see where they held and then where they hung the prisoners, and where they buried them. We got to see the keep of the castle and got to see the Magna Carta (one of the FOUR original originals left in the world. No pictures of it allowed-the light from cameras would damage it. They actually kept it in a darkened room, separate from the rest of the museum. But I got a pic of a copy in the cathedral later)

We got to see a unique chapel inside the castle walls where some guy in the 1700's tried to "cure" criminals by essentially putting them in solitary confinement 22 hours a day,with an hour for exercise and an hour for chapel, hoping that they would reflect on their wrongdoings and change. Instead they were driven mad.

This guy also thought that putting the prisoners in chapel an hour a day would help them 'reflect,' but he had to restrain them. SO they made these godawful little boxes where pews would be, with seating that made you have to push up with your feet or end up on the floor. We got to sit in these boxes-it would be rough on a claustrophobic. They also put a sheet across so that you couldn't see anything but the preacher up front. It was basically a tiny wooden closet and you kept sliding to the floor if you tried to relax. We were told that this is the only prison chapel of its kind left in the country.







Having finished with the castle, we broke for lunch and then headed off to the cathedral.

HOLY.

COW.

Pictures really can't convey the size of the place, or how old it is, or how really, really, really, really, really exponent of 234 just wow this was. I spent the first three minutes with my mouth open.

We saw several tombs, most in the floor, some of the more important ones up above in big stone things. The windows were AH! The stonework was WHA! And there was just this...







Then we went to see Roman stuff about town. We saw the remains of what was a forum (just round circles) in the middle of the cobbles, right down the middle of the road.
We saw an old well, a wall, the defensive wall and the arch into the old city, and part of an aqueduct.

It was overwhelming. I think it may take weeks for me to recover.

Enjoy the pictures; I tried to vary them a little bit so that you could see everything I saw.