4 October 2007

September

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Thursday 4 October 2007--Spent last evening in the Old Harkers Arms, a pub I'd picked out of CAMRA's Good Beer Guide. It's in a refurbished space in the ground floor of an old warehouse along the canal, and I found it to be a very comfortable place, with a cushy lounge end and a functional bar end. There is a wide range of real ales and a vast selection of malts. What more could I ask for?

Chester is a very handsome town, and, in Victorian times, its medieval walls were rehabilitated and fitted with a promenade along the top. In some places, medieval towers were dismantled and replaced with memorials or other constructions. It would be unthinkable today to retrofit an antiquity in such a way, but I don't think anyone's unhappy that it was done. I suppose the promenade itself now qualifies as an antiquity, anyway. I commence the circuit and do about a quarter of it, stopping to see a "Roman Garden" built to show off some ancient artifacts. Nearby is the shallow grassy bowl that is all that is showing of the Roman amphitheater. There is a major dig going on there just now, but there isn't much to see. A little farther on I descend to visit Chester Cathedral. More typically than Salisbury's, it took about 250 years to build, commencing in the mid-13th century, and there are bits incorporated from earlier churches, dating back to the 10th century.

I cut back through the pedestrianized commercial center to my guest house...haven't slept too well the past few nights, and I feel wiped out. After a good long nap, I finish the circle of the walls.

Dinner is in the Albion, another CAMRA selection, a pub that bills itself as "family hostile". It's a nice enough place, but very quiet. The Harkers Arms, on the other hand, is jammed. I'd like something in between. I settle for a last pint at the Albion before turning in.

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