united kingdom: england: chester and the canals

Chester is a walled city in England, a city with a long history. Wikipedia tells me it first existed as early as 79 AD, when it was founded as a Roman fort called Deva Victrix. This fort was bigger than others in the area, and some people think the Romans originally intended this area to become the capital of the Britannia Superior province. In some ways the original city design still stands, as the main roads of the modern city follow the same routes in which they were first laid out. None of the roads were completely straight, but that wasn't a thing back then.

After a while the fort turned into a settlement with civilians, not just soldiers. At some point the town became the 'possession' of what is now England. (I would assume this was when The Romans walked away, in 410.) Even though it was no longer officially Roman, it took a while for it to become properly English, but that's not a surprise.

As the city is really close to the border with Wales, a lot of the history has Welsh influence, though I don't understand all of it. And I can't pronounce the names to save my life.

Most of the city walls still exist, and are Grade 1 listed. (Meaning they are protected by legislation, and not up for sale or redevelopment or anything making changes.) You can walk along the top of parts of the wall, which is pretty neat.

Chester was granted official town status in 1541, and now has an official population of almost 80,000 people. Because of the walls, much of the city center has remained as it was back in the day. There is an area called Chester Rows, which is a series of streets with buildings that look just as they did centuries ago. 

I believe these buildings are also protected, so any renovations keep the look just as it was several centuries ago. We didn't go in any of the shops, as shopping is not something I typically enjoy, nor something I typically do while traveling.

The cathedral in the city (having a cathedral is what makes Chester officially a city, as opposed to a town; it isn't size/population that makes the designation,) was founded all the way back in 689. It is huge, with soaring vaulted ceilings, stained glass, gorgeous carved wood, etc...

I had never heard of Chester until September of this year. That was when my friend Claire boat a longboat, which is something she has wanted to do for a long time. As she says, people find you much more interesting when they find out you own a boat. I have to admit, I was much more keen to visit when I found out about her boat. 

I booked my flights to and from the nearby airport in Manchester, then took trains to and from Chester. Side note for anyone who cares: the Manchester airport is neither aesthetically appealing nor particularly easy for visitors to navigate. 

Going both ways one of my trains was delayed, but Claire told me that delays and cancellations are really common in England's privately owned train system. (Such a huge change from the system in Russia, which is amazing.)

I was in the area for 3.5 days. The day I arrived Claire and her partner Karl picked me up at the train station. We walked back to where they'd moored the boat, so I could drop my stuff. I had just a snackbag and backpack, but I'd been carrying them for a while and was ready to let go. 

We also ate lunch, which was nice. Buying the cheap ticket often means ridiculous layovers, and budget airlines, which also means no real food for long periods of time.

After eating we walked around Chester for a while. We walked along the city walls for a bit, which was fun. There are hills in the area, but nothing crazy, so the view from the tops of the walls isn't anything memorable. Claire laughed when I said everything was very cute, and very stereotypical, but to me it looked as English towns always do in movies and TV shows. 

We also visited the cathedral, because such things always catch my eye. It was well worth a visit, as it is beautiful. The ceilings in each area were well done, and still in good shape. There were giant stained glass windows all over, and I imagine the interior feels amazing on a sunny day.

The front areas had wooden pews/seats for the chorus, (at least I think that is who sits there? I could be totally wrong,) with some intricate wood carving. The end of each pew has a different wood carving. 

The carving of note was done back in the 15^th or 16^th century. It is an elephant, and was carved by someone who had never seen an elephant in real life. When you first see it you giggle to yourself, because it isn't quite accurate, but then you think about how hard it is to describe an elephant so that someone else could picture it properly.

Since this is England, the sun goes down around 1600. By the time we exited the church it was getting dark outside. We started to head home, with a stop at the grocery store. 

Even though I'd picked up snacks in the grocery store, I still wanted more 'real' food for dinner.

Or, as Claire called it, tea. I'm still confused as to what the names of English meals are. I think dinner comes at what I would call lunchtime, then there is tea, and late night food is supper? Anywho, we opted to have a chippy tea, which means we went to a takeaways place to get fish and chips and sausage for what I would call dinner. We only got two portions of chips (what Americans call French fries,) but that still more than enough for the three of us adults.

The next morning we started moving not long after it was officially daylight. Part of the reason Claire wanted a boat was to be able to cruise on canals. England has a great system of canals, and cruising was something I really wanted to do during my visit.

The weather started out gray, but with no wind, so I thought everything was beautiful. The clouds slowly gave way to a mostly blue skies, I was in heaven the entire time. There were lovely reflections of the skies and boats in the water as we cruised along. 

We ended up cruising for a bit over four hours before turning around and coming part of the way back toward Chester. I got to drive for a while, which was fun too. 

We moored in the middle of nowhere, then Claire cooked tea. I think it was quite traditional, as we had bacon, eggs, beans, and blood pudding. It was a first time to have blood pudding for me; I don't dislike it but I don't love it. Claire is a good cook, I've always enjoyed what she makes. 

As we'd moored in the middle of nowhere we had an unobstructed view of the lovely sunset. If I had a boat I'd hope for that kind of experience every day.

The next day we had a bit of an unintended adventure, as a band in the engine broke not too long after we started cruising back toward Chester. It took some time, but Karl was able to sort everything out, and used the spare belt to get us going again. I'm glad he figured out what to do, as I would've called the rescue service to have them take care of us.

Not long after tying off in Chester Claire and I got off the boat and walked back to the train station. Another reason I'd wanted to come visit Claire was the chance to meet her mom. Since Claire and I had traveled together over the past couple years, I knew Jenny had seen a bunch of my photos. I'd heard stories about her and wanted to put a face to the name.

The three of us met up at the train station, then walked through the city center, back to the cathedral. 

I hadn't seen it during our visit on my first day, but there is a cafe in the refectory area of the cathedral. The refectory ceiling is just as high as the rest of the cathedral, and it has stained glass windows as well. We had tea (the drink, not the meal,) and chatted for a while. It was a nice way to get to know Jenny.

On the way to getting Jenny back to the train station we stopped at the grocery store again. I picked up more snacks, including ingredients for tea (the meal, not the drink,) that night. I'd go to a grocery store every day if I could.

That was my last night in Chester. While we were relaxing in the evening I sorted out checking in online for my flights, which wasn't the easiest, as I'd made the bookings through a travel company.

The next morning I packed everything up, and the three of us went to breakfast. Going out to breakfast is a modern thing, and probably comes from American influence. The cafe we visited was called Hanky Panky Pancakes, so it definitely comes from American influences. What Americans would call a pancake is what the English would call a Scotch pancake.

After eating we went by a bakery so I could pick up snacks for my flights back to Moscow. I had tickets for budget airlines for both flights, and I didn't want to go hungry. Plus it was a chance to have food from an English bakery, which is completely different from what you'd get from an American bakery. I ended up loving my curry rolls, and pasties.

I opted to take an earlier train than I'd originally planned to get back to the airport, and that ended up being a good thing. It was 20 minutes late, but starting out ealier meant I still had plenty of time for transferring to my second train, which was on time.

Getting through security at the airport took quite a while, as they were opening up a lot of bags. The lady in front of me had to wait for a special check because the holiday gnome she'd bought had been flagged by the machine. I was glad I'd gotten there three hours before departure.

I'm definitely going back to see Claire and her boat again :)