Chester

alright so I left off at Chester...seems so long ago already...lol

Chester was awesome, it's probably one of the most unique cities in the world. It's built on the ruins of a Roman city that was built 2000 years ago. They had built a wall around their city that remains to this day and is the most complete Roman wall of anywhere in the world. Some of you might have seen the Roodee on TV, it's the horse race track that's faily famous there. If I could upload my pics you could see it...lol...but anyways the waters used to cover that racetrack and the Roman could sail their ships right up to the walls of the city. The people of the Medieval times ended up building ontop of the roman ruins and also added here and there to the walls, also adding various watch towers to guard the city. Our awesome tour guide had keys to take us up in the towers and it was pretty cool. Chester is famous for it's 'rows' and you can see a pic of them here. They built 'storage' for their goods on the bottom, then eventually added shop front on top, then eventually added their homes on top of that...THEN eventually extending them out, creating a kind of a covered second floor to walk through. Over the years people changed the looks of the fronts to reflect the styles of the times, so you have an eclectic mix of Medieval, Georgian, Victorian and even modern styles. In lots of them you can see glassed parts where you can glimpse old Roman columns and old medieval building structures, crypts and all kinds of stuff from the past that they are kind enough to display. To add to the ambiance, the streets are cobblestoned, and very uneven, watch where you're walking...lol

Chester gets nutso at nighttime, with the younger people flooding in to party. It wasn't all that balmy yet there were hordes of young women dressed very skimpily. I actually have never seen so many tartly dressed women in one place ever. We're talking 8 inch heels, mini mini skirts, skanky tops...you name it. Very trashy...us classy broads felt right out of place ya know.

Anyways later that night we did a very disappointing ghost tour....sadly the guide wasn't very enaging and told the stories with an attitude of 'this is the story but it's probably not true'...not very fricken scary...lol. And he was the one that created the tours!

Anwyays the next day we roamed around the city. One stop was Chester Cathedral and I dunno how to explain just how breathtaking it was! We were blown away. It was huge and there was even a choir singing to add to the ambiance there. Wish I could show you pictures...lol..We also saw the ruins of the original cathedral and also went back to the Roman Amphitheatre that we had gone to the night before on the ghost tour. I felt rather lightheaded and nauseous there, but lots of gory things went on there and it must have a lot of bad energy. Apparently they only discovered it several years ago...there used to be houses built on top of it. They have been slowly excavating it and have found lots of things including hacked off fingers and other body parts...lol...how entertained the Romans must have been...like their own real live version of horror movies.

Our hostel was in an old house and it was really nice until you starting going up to the top floor where our room was. It was kind of creepy up there. The toilets were in the hall and we hating getting up in the middle of the night to go pee. I think we set new records for speed peeing.

Oh I should say that one morning we were very English and had tea and crumpets for breakfast. It was the most incredible tea we've ever had and the crumpets were warm and literally dripping with butter...yummmm! We were full for the next 6 hours I think...lol

Next day we caught the bus to Birmingham to get our rental car. We found out why people cringed when they asked us where we were going after Chester, then proceded to ask why the hell we were going there. I dunno why every bus depot in every city is always in the crappiest part of the city. It was dirty, run down and just gross. The roads was bumper to bumper traffic and the streets were teaming with people. And I don't mean to come across as racist but I kid you not, there was not one white person to be seen. Looking around I felt like I was in some middle eastern country. So we got our car and got the hell out of there. We got a little lost getting out of town because "just get out on that road and stay on it and it goes straight into Stratford" isn't as straight forward as it sounds. Trust me on that one! But a kind lady in a park somewhere helped us and we managed to get to our next hostel with very little trouble. Trish was nervous driving, but after a few days she got the attitude of "taking back the road" and got much braver....lol

Now I am beyond tired and going to bed. We are in Bath now and heading back to Stratford first thing in the morning...don't ask....lol