June 11, 2017 – Salisbury

The two days of rest we took after Bruce’s back adjustment paid off. He says on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being no pain at all, he feels he’s an 8. Nonetheless we are babying his back until we are sure it is going to last.
We left Brighton Caravan Club around 10 am to go to IKEA in Southhampton, still searching for a summer weight duvet for our bed.
This was the real test for left handed driving. Bruce – numero uno driver – didn’t want to try the very small roads that traverse the middle of towns and villages yet so we opted for the dual carriage roads (two lane highways) and the occasional motorway (freeways). He got the swing of it fairly quickly but I am still a little jittery.
Our drive took us past Arundel Castle, a restored medieval castle begun in 1068 and owned by the Duke of Norfolk for over 400 years. It is one of several castles in the UK that is the perfect ideal of what a castle should look like.

By the time we reached Southhampton and the IKEA store – which we both expected to be on the outskirts of town – he was pretty good at maneuvering on the smaller roads, and it was a good thing because we quickly found ourselves in the middle of the town with roundabouts every three intersections and cars whizzing by.
Unlike American towns and cities which have the land to afford urban sprawl, the cities/towns/villages of the UK (and the Continent for that matter) where developed long before cars and lorries (semis) were invented. The consequence of this is roads that often began as no more than walking paths, in time became wagon width with houses and businesses built along the roads. There was no way to widen the roads without tearing down centuries old buildings, and it seems that Great Britain, unlike the U.S. has great respect for many things aged.
The IKEA store was smack in the middle of a HUGE shopping mall. We drove round and round and could not find the entrance to the IKEA parking area so we had to make due with a very tight parking lot with spacing for the typical SMALL European car. In order to fit in the space, we had to back in and overhang a third of the van into the flower beds. And then we had to pay to park.
We did find our duvet and used the rest of our paid time having lunch and mapping out our next destination: Winchester.

Ever since the song came out – in 1966(!!) I’ve had a hankering to visit Winchester Cathedral. It was still early in the day – 1:00 and I had the great idea that we could drive through the town to the cathedral, find a place to park, visit it and the Great Hall where King Arthur’s Round Table was hung. Winchester was only about 16 miles away and I believed we could accomplish the visit first then stop at a camping about 5 miles out of town for the night.

It’s amazing how often my plans go astray. The drive to Winchester was without incident. The drive within Winchester was an adventure. We couldn’t even get close to the cathedral. The downtown was barricaded to all motorized traffic and a festival or market of some sort was going on. The town was packed and there was no parking space available at all. We made two circuits with no success, so I still haven’t seen Winchester Cathedral.

We changed tactics and decided to go to Salisbury, whose cathedral is the possessor of the tallest spire in all of England. By this time Bruce had the driving thing down pretty well, but after 4 ½ hours the small roads and continuous roundabouts were beginning to wear on him.
We wanted a camping that was as close to Salisbury as possible and after two false starts (one which led us to a golf cart track in the middle of a golf course) we finally found the Salisbury Camping and Caravanning Club Site. There are two main camping clubs in the U.K. We already belong to The Caravan Club and it looks like we should also join this one. You just can’t beat the deal, and a town where one may not have a site, the other probably will.
This Site’s location is at the base of Old Sarum.

Old Sarum has a history dating back to a 400 BC Iron Age hill fort and there is evidence of a Neolithic settlement as early as 3000 BC. The Normans built a castle on the hill around 1068 and a town grew up around it: Sarum.
Old Sarum is also the original Salisbury. In the early 1200s a dispute between the local sheriff and bishop ended with the bishop moving his headquarters and his church 2 miles away on the banks of the river Avon. In 1220 the foundation of the new cathedral was laid and the new settlement of Salisbury or New Sarum was begun. Within 100 years old Sarum was abandoned.
If you are interested, there is a really good historical novel by Edward Rutherford called “Sarum” that chronicles the history of the area.