Salisbury – Day 16 of 2025 England Pilgrimage

Saturday 10/4/2025

Last night, Jennie, Gregg, and I picked up Steve at the train station and drove an hour and a half to Salisbury. Steve has a small rental townhouse built in 1901 near the center of town so we are staying there for the weekend.

It was rainy on the drive over. Their route passes Stonehenge which can be seen from the highway! So, we got a quick view. It is taller and more compact than I had imagined it to be.

After leaving our things in the house, we walked around the block and ate at Myhosh Turkish Restaurant. Man, oh man, was it ever delicious! We got three appetizers to share (Turkish sausage, a thin roll with feta and something else inside (my favorite), and beet/yogurt dip with Turkish bread. They gave us complimentary humus.

Then we shared three main courses which came with salad, rice, and Bulgar. The mains were a lamb casserole, lamb sish with a tomato sauce and yogurt, and a chicken shish with the tomato sauce and yogurt. The chicken was Jennie and my favorite. Sooo good! They then gave us each a small square of wonderful baklava. We all waddled home, full and happy, and went to bed.

This morning we were up and out the door just after 8am. The weather was quite strange today. It flipped back and forth all day between sunshine and rain combined with periods of lots of wind. Salisbury Cathedral’s tall steeple (so tall that it requires an airplane warning light on top) could be seen from various places as we walked into the city.

Our first stop as we walked around town was Gail’s, a chain coffee shop (we ate there last Sunday for lunch.) We had coffee and scones. Yum! It is next to the Poultry Cross – giving shelter to merchants for over 700 years. As the name indicates, at one point, this is where Poultry was sold.

Continuing our walk, we saw many medieval buildings still intact and in use throughout the city. It is amazing to see them from both the outside as well as inside the buildings. The history! We walked through the Cathedral Close (neighborhood directly around the Cathedral) and walked past the Cathedral (to visit later).

We walked around an old mill which now houses and sells items made by local artists. From there, we went to the Fig and Fox to meet Steve’s daughter, son-in-law, and grand-dog for coffee. It was a delightful visit.

From there we walked to The Church of Saint Thomas Becket Salisbury. JUST WOW! The inside of the building has exquisite Medieval decor. There was a free Baroque concert offered (Jennie had found out a few days ago.) The instruments used were two violins, recorder, bassoon, ‘cello, and chamber organ. The music was lovely and a wonderful “excuse” to just sit and look at the church for an hour.

Time for lunch so we walked back to Boston Tea Party (BTP) in an amazing Medieval building. We had “toasties” (a grilled sandwich) and fries. Gregg had a strawberry milkshake. The rest of us had green smoothies.

It was time for the drum roll… a personal tour of Salisbury Cathedral by Steve who had been a guide there for nine years. It is a beautiful and very long cathedral. Sadly for us, they had put up movie-type screens to use in an orchestra concert tonight. It blocked the view so we were unable to see from the back of the church to the front.

After an hour, the Cathedral closed. There was a choral Evensong which we had planned to attend. Unfortunately for us (but happily for a lot of children,) today had been an all day event of introducing children and their parents to the joy and opportunity of singing in the choir. The day culminated in the children singing Evensong along with regular choir members. The quire (where the choir sits) was reserved for family members of the children for this particular service.

We were invited to stay for Evensong, but we couldn’t sit in the quire. That meant that, because of the movie screens, we would have been able to hear the service but not see anything except Frosty the Snowman being projected onto the screen. We decided to pass.

Jennie had gone shopping and bought Shepherd’s Pie and Beets with Cabbage for supper. We headed home for a cup of tea and a rest before dinner.

Tomorrow we plan to return to Salisbury Cathedral for the Eucharistic service at 10:30.