Libby & Tommy return to Britain [England ed.]: Two close calls

We spent a lively morning at Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill. This market goes on for blocks and blocks down Portobello Road and has antiques, clothing, food, music and lots of other stuff. It is literally wall to wall people in the street between all the vendors, SO busy but so fun.

After we were done shopping we went back to the hotel to drop off our purchases then headed to the tube station to go to Waterloo train station to go to Winchester. We got to Waterloo and found a train to Winchester that left us about 1 minute to run from platform 1 (where the list of departures was) to platform 12. So we ran to the platform and jumped on the train just as the doors were closing, close call #1. Once we got on the train and found seats we looked at the ticker that listed the stops and we didn't see Winchester on the list but the train had already left the station so we were stuck. A small moment of panic. But then the ticker started over again and Winchester was at the beginning of the list, close call #2. We almost had a misadventure. We did indeed make it to Winchester to see Winchester Cathedral.

Winchester Cathedral is the longest medieval cathedral in Europe owing to extensive remodeling over the centuries. Construction on the cathedral began in 1079 and changes and additions continued until the 16th century.

My favorite part of this cathedral is that we were allowed into the Triforium Gallery. This is the area behind the second set of arches:

Some architectural trivia for you: the bottom level is called the arcade (this is the ground floor), the second level of arches is the triforium gallery and the third and highest level of arches is called the clerestory. We were told this in one of the churches we visited but I had to look it up to double check...

We got to see the original wooden beams and ceiling while we were in the triforium gallery.

Looking down

The other really cool part of our visit was that the local choir and full orchestra were rehearsing for a concert this evening so we got to listen to beautiful music and we wandered around the cathedral.