Today we visited several historical sites in the UK. It started with a stop at the Bodelwyddan church. This is a beautiful church in norther Wales that was built in 1856. It has elaborate woodworking on the inside and marble from all over the world. There are several different types of marble inside the church and it comes from all over the world including Italy and some even comes from Anglesey! Very beautiful! The stained glass on the inside is also quite amazing. Outside the church, in the graveyard, there are Canadian soldiers that died during WWI from the Spanish Flu... pretty crazy thing to die from while fighting in a war.
A little further down the road we came to a place called Holywell and it contains a Holy Well! Haha! There was this crazy story associated with the well about a girl named Winefrede and a Prince. It was said that the prince fancied Winefrede but she refused him so he cut off her head and it rolled down a hill and when it landed a spring formed. Her head was then placed back on her head and she was fine. So, moral of the story is that the well has healing powers. So now everyone comes to be healed by the water. There is a pool there now where people come and actually bathe in the water to be healed, it was a little chilly so we decided to skip this part, but cool story!
So after a few stops we finally made it to Chester! Chester is a very cool city with a lot of history and A LOT of shopping! We had some free time so we walked around a bit checking out the shops and found a cute little cafe to eat at. FYI, there are different prices on food from cafes around here. It actually costs more to "eat in" than it does to "carry out", kind of stupid if you ask me! So after some free time we all met back up for a tour of the Chester Cathedral. All I can say is WOW! What a church. There are so pretty awesome pictures I posted on facebook but again the pictures really don't do it justice. The coolest part, in my opinion of the cathedral, was the pipe organ. According to the audio tour there are like 8000 pipes (or at least I thought that is what it said) throughout the whole cathedral. There was someone in there playing it and it was the most beautiful, amazing thing I have ever heard. It just went right through you no matter where you were in the church. Great experience! After the cathedral, we had a guided tour of the city by a cool guy named Jarrod. I would describe him as a professional bullshitter! But he was fun none-the-less. Told us lots of cool stories about the city and we even got to walk on the walls of the city! After the tour we had more time to ourselves and I ended up buying some awesome boots!
Interesting fact about the churches here. They are on a major decline! One we saw the other day on our way to Cearnarfon was actually turned into a day care. Most churches are more so tourist attractions than actual places of worship. I can understand why they are historical tourist attractions, but it is hard to believe the huge decline in church going.
Until tomorrow...
~Amy
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