A morning stroll

The hotel I am staying at looks out onto Winchester cathedral, which is a beautiful view to have in the morning. This week I am fortunate enough to have a room on this side, rather than one overlooking the backstreet as I did last week. However, the view is probably not best augmented by fire engines, as in the picture. Fortunately, there doesn't look to be anything serious happening, although the fire engines stayed around for a few hours, which is not a good sign. As I write this, they have all just driven off.

So, where is Winchester? Apparently, it is 63 miles from London, 12 miles from Southampton, 27 miles from Portsmouth and 25 miles from Salisbury, so says the side of this building (left). I found this on a walk this morning, which took me past the last remaining part of the original Roman walls that remain.

A plaque on the wall, shown right but not visible on the picture of the whole wall section because of the tree, that shows the full extent of the original walls. Westgate still exists, and it is by the law courts and military museum. There is also a section of the castle from when Winchester was the capital of England. Here is the best view I could find from Google Streetview, based on the Geotag on the photograph of the plaque.

It gets everywhere

One for my colleagues here. On my walk I found a house that looks like it hasn't been lived in for years, but look closely at the bottom right window and you will see someone has written 'AIX' in the dust. Is there no escape?