The Long and Winding Road

Today was our school trip to Lincoln, and also our Meet-A-Family dinner. Needless to say, no homework got done today.

Lincoln was a cool town. The shops were nice. Steep Hill was…an experience.

The shallowest incline on Steep Hill.

The castle itself, a Norman, was cool. There was a statue of John III completed and dedicated in his lifetime. Also, Lincoln Castle was where the ‘long drop’ was developed, or the actual humane way of hanging a person to death. Lincoln Castle has been a place of judgment for centuries, and was a place of capital punishment until it was outlawed in the UK. Within the castle I also saw one of four extant copies of the original Magna Carta. No photos allowed, of course.

View from the battlements

Grounds

Tower inside the castle.

 Across the road from the castle is the cathedral. I found the cathedral much more impressive. It started out Norman and goes up to the Decorative Gothic style. There is a lot of history contained within those walls.

View of Cathedral from Castle

Initial inside: "Nave"

Side of Nave

Tomb of Queen Eleanor, Wife of Edward 1. Actually this is her first tomb, containing most of her organs. The rest of her is at Westminster. I think if I'm buried I want to be in one spot.

Tomb of St. Hugh

A Room where the Da Vinci code was filmed... I stood where Tom Hanks did!

A spire, one of many. The story goes that a swineherd devoted his life savings to rebuilding the Church after an earthquake. The Bishop was so impressed that he told the Swineherd that one day they would be equals. Now, a statue of the Swineherd and a statue of the Bishop stand on equal steeples on either side of the Church. This is the Swineherd; the Bishop's side was being cleaned.

 Funny note about British churches: there are dead people in the floors everywhere. My American sensibilities tell me I am never to walk on a grave under any circumstances, but that makes it rather difficult. Oh, cultural differences.  

Lincoln was also a Roman Colonia, or a kind of soldier’s retirement home. There aren’t many extant ruins, but the ones there give a sense of how massive the fortress must have been at one time, for the time.  

The most noteable being this one, one of few Roman arches still in use.

My Meet-A-Family group was awesome. We’re planning on having dinner a few times per month. Hopefully all of my visiting family will get to meet them.

So.... that was my Wednesday! See you next time!