Today, we decided to walk into Exeter. We're still a bit tired, and thought we would wander around the city to see what is nearby. Paul promised a nice walk from the hotel to Exeter. Little did I know that it was going to be a forced march in the rain! It's probably 2.2 miles from the hotel to the edge of the city center, and then we walked all around the city and back.

Our first stop in Exeter was the cathedral. I love wandering around old buildings and taking pictures. The cathedral features the longest Gothic arch that is still standing. At all of the intersection points in the arch, they had these stones they call "bosses". A replica was in the church to look at, and it was probably 3 feet in diameter. The largest one weighs 2 tons. Amazing work. The cathedral was really unique with many side chapels around the main nave area. The stained glass windows were fabulous, and it was just filled with lots of great art and craftsmanship.

The cathedral had a gift shop (of course) and a little cafe in the refectory. We had a lovely tea, with onion soup and a ploughman's lunch (salads, bread, and cheese - stilton!).

After visiting the cathedral, we walked down to the Quay (pronounced "key"). It's their harbor area on the river. They usually have river boat tours, but the river level was too high to run them. We walked all around there, peeking in the shops and at an old mill a bit down the road. The mill originally ground grains into flour, but later ground malt for beer, too.

Back on High Street, we wandered around some of the shops. I was on a mini-quest to find crafting magazines. They are all different over here, and each magazine has a sample of a crafty item - paper, die cuts, embellishments, a stamp, etc. They are reasonably priced in the UK, but easily cost three times as much in the US (if you can find them). We only managed to find one magazine, but had lots of fun shopping - including tea at Mark's and Spencer's.

On our walk back, we went to an Indian restaurant - the Light of India. Paul scoped it out ahead of time, and discovered it was on the road that led back to the hotel. We ordered the dinner for two which was like our own indian buffet on our table. We had kebabs, onion bhajis, nan, rice, and four different curries. We then finished our walk back, where I promptly collapsed on the bed and Paul took to downloading GPS data. He hopes to figure out how to post it online to share, but I'm leaving that up to him. In the meantime, it does a great job at tagging where we took our photos which will make scrapbooking very easy when I get to it.

And, yes, it rained on and off all day which is why I am sporting such a fabulous and frizzy do. Paul's hair, of course, looks the same regardless of the weather.