Chichester

After an overnight flight from Denver, we arrived at Heathrow the morning of 16 September.  Monday morning its not the best time at Heathrow with all the business travelers arriving for meetings.  Just getting the shuttle to the car rental offices was an ordeal!  We finally got our car and proceeded to get out of London!  We headed for the village of East Levant near Chichester in Sussex where we have stayed before.  Our flat wasn’t ready so we went for lunch at the outstanding little pub in the village.  Once into our apartment we crashed for the next 12 hours to catch up on lost sleep.  Anne has already surveyed our day in Chichester, so I’ll just reiterate how lucky we were to catch the weekly lunch concert the Cathedral puts on on Tuesday.  It really hi-lighted the acoustics of the Cathedral!  As with most old buildings in Europe, restoration is an on going reality as you can see.  After our visit to the Cathedral, we headed over to the Fishbourne Roman Palace.  It was only discovered in 1960 when workmen digging a trench for new water lines dug up parts of a Roman mosaic floor!  Excavations revealed the largest Roman palace in England!  Built by the Romans as a reward for a loyal local chief, it has a foot print larger than Buckingham Palace and the best preserved Roman mosaic floors in situ in England.  Half of the palace lays under the main road through Fishbourne and village housing, so what you see is less than half.  Who knows what Roman finds remain undiscovered?  Next is a visit to Arundel castle in the village of the same name, but that’s for the next post!  Till then.