Norwich: general tourism

 Welcome back, Bridges to London readers! Time to rejoin the carriageway, as it were. We leave the big city behind today and embark upon the last half of our British vacation. Various wonders await!

First stop—after retrieving our 9-passenger carriage and winding our way out of London (not a simple affair)—is Norwich, in East Anglia. Here's our chauffeur-extraordinaire Hal, who masterfully handled motorways, narrow one-laners, and excessively congested parking lots. It was so nice to just sit in the back and leave the driving to him! (and navigating to Henry)

Norwich has a charming old core that has some special significance for our family, but more about that aspect of it next time. It's also got plenty of regular old English tourist attractions, too, in particular, its impressive cathedral:

Because of the convenient location of our very nice Airbnb, we had plenty of time to walk to the church and see more of the old town before dinner. And the church rather invites visitors to spend a good bit of time there—there's lots to see.

Lovely stained glass, for instance:

run-of-the-mill [!] stained glass

Erpingham Window, with some medieval glass,
to commemorate Sir Thomas Erpingham, who was at Agincourt!

an all-too-familiar WWI memorial window

There's more to see in the main part of the cathedral, like this very handsome organ:

And some interesting tombs, like this one with the thoughtful inscription to go with its creepy appearance:

In case you can't read it in the picture, it says:

All you that do this place pass bye

Remember death for you must dye.

As you are now even so was I

And as I am you shall be.

There are also lovely cloisters outside:

But of course it's not the only impressive church in town. Any English town that's been around as long as Norwich is bound to be overflowing with them. For example, St. Michael-at-Plea:

You can see another nice one in the background here—St. Peter Mancroft. Although the main attraction for me was the beautiful knapped flint dressing on the wall in the foreground.

I fell in love with this decorative idea when I was in England in 2008. And fortunately you see it everywhere. Here's a particularly interesting spin on the technique. I wish I'd made a good mental note of which church sported this unusual arrangement:

This building (which I thought was a church but after much internet digging, I think is just part of the Guildhall, whose taller tower you can see behind it) goes crazy with the stuff:

The area around the cathedral has some nice grassy areas, perfect for kiddos to stretch their legs on, with statuary that some folks might think they identify with...

the bronze gentleman is Wellington

And bordering the old city is this handsome arch; unfortunately I neglected to note its age, but it looks like it's been there a while:

One of the coolest parts of the old town is this street, which a helpful sign notes is "probably one of the best [old streets] in the country." I think we agree!

Elm Hill

This charming byway provides a nice segue for my next post, which is about family history—a lot of which is on display on this very street!