Ely

How good are you at accepting Plan B, when what you really wanted was Plan A? I'm not very good at it myself. This past weekend I had made plans I was so pleased with that it made my heart all a-flutter in anticipation. Then at the very last minute, due to problems I won't go into now, we had to cancel. I must admit I didn't take it well. This picture shows my feelings on the matter, if I had been a little more composed about it all.

I was ready to spend the weekend in mourning, but luckily Mike forced me into accepting Plan B - a little Saturday afternoon trip to Ely. Ely is a small, cute town about a 15 minute train ride from Cambridge. The main attraction of Ely is its cathedral. In a small way, it reminds me of St. George, Utah. The town is small, with short buildings and leafy trees, with the exception of this magnificent church, made more magnificent by the contrast of its grandness next to the smallness around it. It must have been an even more amazing site in the 1200s when this cathedral was built.

We didn't spend much time inside, because it was a nice fall day we wanted to enjoy. We spent time walking around the town and edge of town looking for nice views. Here's the cathedral from a couple of other places:

Ely is next to a river, and has very pretty river walks along it.

Also, like all of England, the town and country is full of public footpaths that cross through farmland and other private property. It looks like Mike is just walking across someone's field in the picture, but I assure you he's on an approved footpath.

In addition to our walking, we had a nice lunch in town. Two things about our lunch struck me as uniquely English. One, we were asked if we wanted chips (fries) with our pizza. I'm pretty sure only the English think chips go with just about anything. Second, we were asked if we'd like some ketchup with our pizza. And we didn't get the fries, so it really was offered for the pizza. I have never actually seen an English person eat ketchup with anything, so I think they were just being nice and trying to accommodate our odd, American ways. This person knew Americans like ketchup and wanted to be helpful. We had a good laugh about that.

Ely is really a nice place to go for a visit, and not just as a consolation prize.