Saturday, December 23, 2006

Chichester


I went to Chichester today.

I can honestly say that Chichester is not a place I would have ever gone if had not been specifically suggested to me, and a ride and tour provided. To be honest, it's a very cute little town, no wait, city. It has a cathedral (Southampton is a town, no cathedral). The two main shopping streets are on a cross around this cute structure sort of bit, with the cathedral on one of the corners. It's a smaller cathedral than the others I've been to, but it dates back to like, 1087 or something ridiculous, so those things are always interesting in some way or another. Plus the cathedral is free, always a bonus.

Aside from the cute cathedral and cute surrounding cloisters (today's random head shot is from a little alley in what I suppose is the cathedral close), the shopping streets are also very cute and 'authentic' in a way we can't pull off stateside. While mainly chain shops you find everywhere, they were located in obviously old structures built for entirely different purposes. It gives the place something we like to call 'character', but in an almost stereotypically English way. Maybe it's just a bit hard to describe. It was quite crowded today, with the news promising it to be the busiest shopping day of all time or something silly, but it still wasn't as bad as the main shopping bits in Southampton as of late.

Overall, I would say Chichester is a pleasant place. But I don't know if I would recommend it as a destination on a short trip. Unless you were driving along the south coast and wanted to hit all the sights. Oh, and they had some really cute looking pubs. Like, really, really cute.

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