The Ship of the Fens (Ely Cathedral (Ely))

Member Name: zerub

Product:	Ely Cathedral (Ely)
Date:	08/10/09 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful, amazing

Disadvantages: Quite expensive

My husband and I ended up in Ely on a child-free weekend during the summer. Ely cathedral looks fantastic because the surrounding area is so flat, and the town (sorry, city) so small and low-rise, that the cathedral can be seen for miles around. It rises up out of the fens looking positively, errm, medieval. It would, since it was started in the 11th Century.

It's not difficult to find - the town is small, the cathedral is big ... It is open to visitors from 7 till 7, and has a deeply complicated pricing structure. There are two towers that you can go up, and a museum of stained glass to see as well as the basic tour. They had a new computer system in the day we visited, and some very confused (but friendly and apologetic) staff. We chose to do the "Octagon Tower" tour and had a "buy one get one free" ticket from the East of England tourism website, so it cost £9 for two of us.

There were about 10 of us on the tour, which took about an hour. I was revelling in the delight of being able to look, and listen, instead of having to restrain small children. You aren't allowed to take children under 10 up the towers and I don't blame them - the staircases got smaller and steeper as we got higher. The guide had lots of fascinating information to give us though, and the cathedral is just beautiful. The view from the top is great too.

Once the tour was over we went and sat in the Lady Chapel for a while. This is stunning - it is large, bright and airy - which you don't often get in an old church. I guess it was helped by being there on a lovely summer's day.

There is the inevitable gift shop, and, hooray, a cafe too. Outside there are gardens to walk through - and a rather nice teashop called The Almonry. Cream teas in the sun - bliss!

We went back to the cathedral in the evening for a concert given by the cathedral choir and two choirs from Cambridge colleges. The music was amazing, the surroundings awesome - and the seats rather hard and cold! Well, you can't have everything.

Summary: Just lovely