Cambridgeshire Part Two - A visit to Ely

After a restful night's sleep, Mike and I woke up in our beautiful bedroom at Paddocks House and made our way downstairs to breakfast. 

Somehow, the fact that we'd had such a huge dinner the night before didn't seem to interfere with our appetites one bit. No light cereals and fruit for us. Instead, eggs - fried for me, with bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes, and scrambled for Mike with smoked salmon - toast, and a couple of pastries on the side. Plus plenty of hot tea and fresh orange juice to wash it all down.

What is it about hotel breakfasts that makes them so amazingly good? 

Once we were suitably set up for the day, it was time to check out of Paddocks House and be on our way. We had our next night booked in their sister hotel, Poets House, just half an hour's drive away in Ely, and first, we wanted to explore the city, as neither of us had visited before.

Ely is one of the smallest cities in the UK and a very pretty place.

 

Probably its biggest attraction is its cathedral, which is stunning both inside and out. I'm a bit of a sucker for history, so I loved hearing about this magnificent building from the informative guides. As you might imagine with such an ancient structure, the original 11th century cathedral has been altered, expanded and improved many times over the years, with parts being added in the 1300s, a new floor in the 1700s, etc. I'll spare you the history lesson, but I will show you some pretty pictures.

We decided to take the guided tour up to the top of the octagon tower in the centre of the cathedral. I was absolutely fine about this... until our guide asked if we were afraid of heights, enclosed spaces, spiral staircases and spiders! After that I was dreading it, but I really did want to see the views from the top, so I pulled myself together and pretended to be brave, in the hope that I could fool myself into believing I actually was.

Either the strategy worked, or the journey to the top wasn't as bad as our guide made out, because as we got going I was fine. In fact, I even started to enjoy it.

There were lots of different stages, with interesting things to look at along the way, like these views from the roof of the main body of the cathedral.

The higher we climbed, the smaller and tighter the stairways and entrances became. I'm quite little, but I honestly don't know how I fitted through this door!

Up in the top of the tower, it was fascinating to see and touch the huge timbers holding the whole thing together. According to our guide, they're over a thousand years old.

From here, we were able to open up the painted panels at the top of the tower and gaze down at the cathedral far below us.

Finally, we embarked on the last part of our climb, onto the roof of the tower itself. The views were spectacular. The countryside in this part of the world is quite flat, so it almost felt like we could see forever from up there.

 

After admiring the view from all angles, it was time to make our careful way back down to earth again.

We thanked our guide and left the cathedral to take another stroll around the city, finishing up at the riverside. With the winter sunlight sparkling on the water, it was the perfect day to enjoy it.

 

The afternoon was running away from us, and before we knew it, it was time for us to head back to our hotel. There was a feast waiting for us, and it wasn't going to eat itself! (The devouring of this feast will be dealt with in the third and final part of this little travel series.)

Has anyone been to Ely? And who is scared of heights, enclosed spaces, spiral staircases and spiders?!

Kate x