Because my memories are now tied up with pictures, as Ed pointed out today, I totally forgot one of the most important reasons we chose to visit Salisbury Cathedral instead of a nearby castle, which was to see the Magna Carta. In the cathedral's Chapter House lies today's best preserved copy of the document, one of only four remaining in the world. You can't take pictures in the Chapter House, though, because the Magna Carta would EXPLODE.
So anyway, we wandered around and read some history about the 800 year-old document (yes, have some: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta), and saw some other stuff like silver teapots or whatever. Why those were there is a mystery. But we also got to look at the Magna Carta, which was written on vellum, as I recall, and was really hard to read, because the writing was so small and olde-style curly and slanty. It was protected with a glass shield, complex-configuration lasers, surly-looking armed guards, a tank, and an ogre. All that extra stuff also contributed to the difficulty in reading it.
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