Gloucester Quay
July 23, 2023
We stayed at the City Centre Guest House bout 0.9 miles from the cathedral. Breakfast was self-service: cereal, juice, coffee, tea, and sometimes a few other choices. Housekeeping folks would come in now and then to replenish the food and clean the rooms of those who had left. Otherwise the place was unmanned. I never did bother to try to get someone to fill my empty soap and shampoo dispensers, and just stopped at a store and spent £1.25 for a bottle of a 3-in-1 shampoo-conditioner-bodywash that was probably better than what they furnished. I used it again in London, and have about half of it left, so a bargain. There was no elevator, so I had to lug my suitcase up a long flight and a half to the room. Lee's room was half a flight down from mine. The place did have good wifi service once you found the slip with the codes, and there were repeaters around the building.
The major town park was across a small street, and we would walk through at least some of it to get to the Cathedral or to the dock area called the Quay (pronounced "key"). There was a shopping mall and numerous restaurants there, and it was not too long a detour to go there going to or from the cathedral. We hadn't booked any tickets for Sunday afternoon the 23rd, so we headed to the dockside for sightseeing. Torrey and Christopher had left for Scotland that day.
Gloucester was built beside the River Severn. In the age before containerized shipping, it was a major port. The warehouses have been restored and re-purposed. We toured the National Waterways Museum and took a cruise on the river aboard the Queen Boadicea II, whose varied history includes having rescued troops from Dunkirk.
We passed the headquarters for the rowing club and saw folks rowing down the river.
Bridges would swing out of the way of boat traffic or work like a drawbridge.
The day before I had seen at the mall a map of restaurants. I saw a listing for "Thai Fridays," which I assumed was a misprint, since there was a TGI Fridays there. But, no. It turned out to be a food tent.
