it was a rather quiet, nicely quiet night. the chapel view room of the wykeham arms is on the back of the saint george house, facing — as the name implies — towards the chapel of winchester college. thus, you don’t get all the street noise (last customers leaving the wykeham arms, garbage collectors in the early hours of the morning, well, between 7:00 and 8:00 — as i said, in the early hours of the morning). the room is very nicely done, the two most important criteria for british b&b met: a proper duvet on the bed (usually you only get a worn down woollen blanket-cum-bed-sheet sandwich that during the course of the night takes on a life itself, discovers its two personalities, both deciding they don’t really get on with one another, both filing for divorce and — not waiting for a proper court decision — separate at the earliest possible opportunity, leaving you and your entangled legs to cope with the dreadful consequence…) and good steady supply of hot water (the norm is a trickle of water from the showerhead [usually the fixed-to-the-wall variant] that changes from rather cold to scalding hot and back within a few nano-seconds)…after a good breakfast we embark on our sightseeing tour of winchester.
the weather — in contrast to the weather forecast (light rain) — is mostly sunny with occasional clouds pushing across the sky and it turns out to be a really nice bank holiday. leaving the wykeham arms we turn left and then right, pass along winchester college and then turn into wolvesey castle, the former bishop’s palace…now all that’s left are ruins…10:45 finds us at the porter’s lodge of winchester college where we wait for the guide to take us (and two other tourists) on a guided tour of the old parts of winchester college (“without the dormitories and the class rooms”). it turns out to be an interesting guided tour and we learn quite a bit about winchester college (not least the fact that one year costs the modest amount of £21’600…gulp)…after a light but excellent lunch (at the wykeham arms, where else?) we join a guided tour through winchester.
our tour guide turns out to be a german lady who together with her british husband has been living in winchester for the past eight years (at first she mistakes us for native winchestrians, and only later does she mistake us for native winchestrians working in germany and switzerland — at which point i give up trying to explain). mostly we cover the same ground as in the morning but learn a few additional titbits.
even song at winchester cathedral is a very liturgic affair: very traditional (except for the prayer for the royal family which they skip) but at the same time also rather impressive on a spiritual level. it manages to set a quiet contra point_ to an otherwise rather busy day.
the evening concludes with a dinner with friends in the wykeham arms: still very excellent food! — oh, and we certainly enjoyed the evening! 
