Day 3- Peace at the cathedral, Horror at the dungeon and Comedy at the Shakespeare's globe

I am quite glad I am staying at Guildford and not in London. Although it means that I need to travel about 50 mins everyday before I reach London, it gives me chance to write this and also see the beautiful town of Guildford. It is a lovely place with houses that take me back to the Enid Blyton days of mine when I was a kid. You suddenly start relating to P G Wodehouse and that brand of humour even more.
So I get out alone today and have to walk up to the Guildford station. It’s a tough route to explain and as expected I took the wrong route. But in that process I discovered the Guildford Cathedral. Historical stuff again. But it is a beautiful place. You have to be here to believe it. Calmness, serenity and peace. They give you a guide booklet at the start and there’s a lot to know if you follow it. For me, the highlight was the St.Urusula’s porch. From the porch you can see the entire town of Guildford and it’s a lovely sight. I also left prayers for a few friends. Hope they read them out on Monday.

From Guildford Cathedral

A cute british kid sitting with her dad on the other platform at Guildford station

For pictures at the Guildford Cathedral right click below and open in new tab :

Guildford Cathedral

Anyway so today I was on my own the whole day again as Alpesh had a big day at work. I had been recommended the London Dungeon by a lot of people: locals and desis. And now I know why. I think the 20 odd pound ticket is totally worth it. For me it’s one of the best fine arts displays/exhibits (Umangites will relate to this). And it’s the acting that makes it so engaging throughout. I did not get to take pictures as they don’t allow it in there. I will not talk about specifics. Visit it and enjoy. The cashier at the counter said ‘Have a horrible time’ after issuing a ticket to everyone. And by the way, the queue outside was huge but ala Siddhi Vinayak queue you could get into a fast track line by paying 4 more pounds. I had to do that to reduce my waiting time from 75 mins to about 10 mins.

London Day 3 album - right click below and open in new tab :

London Day 3

Next I venture aimlessly in the streets around London Bridge and decide to go to the Shakespeare’s globe. I reached there just about 5 mins before the performance started. I could not do the tour as it was late – 7.30pm so straight picked up the tickets for the show. Now, you had 2 options – get a seat for 25 pounds or stand in the rain for 5 pounds. Standing made more sense and anyway I did not know then how good the play was. Also standing takes you closer to the actors and some of us were right in the middle of the performing area. That was the structure of the stage setup. Actors constantly kept on entering and exiting from within the crowd. As it turns out the play – ‘The wives of Windsor’ was a superb comedy and I was constantly going back to my English text books of school times. Again you have to see it to feel it. All I can say is that it is quite an experience when you see a packed house of people break into a rapturous applause at the end. I think it is the moment that every performer craves for. If there is a little performer in you, you’ll realise what I’m talking about. I believe there’s a performer in all of us.

Globe album - right click below and open in new tab

Day 3 - Shakespeare's globe ,pizza express and waterloo station

The day finished amazingly at Pizza Express on the banks of River Thames just beside the globe theatre. Amazing garlic bread, again!