Coventry

Welcome to our picture travelogue of our recent three week trip to England.

We were there from July 12 until August 1. The first two weeks consisted of a Drive-Around visiting Coventry, Nottingham, Yorkshire, The Lake District, Worcester, Cheltenham, and East Sussex. Then we turned in our car and spent six wonderful, but hot, days in London. See the sites at London 1,
the London Eye, and London last.

The little Vauxhall above was our home for two weeks. We picked it up at Heathrow, selected it for it's distinctive colour, and sleepily drove up M25, then M1 headed north. It was about 2 A.M. and I became very tired, and with lorries all around me, decided Elaine should drive. She eventually got us to Coventry and we quickly found a tourist information center and by midday, booked a lovely B&B just outside the city ring road.

But we didn't want to sleep. The beautiful Tudor house on the left, with the bus coming toward us on the LEFT side, proper for the UK, was my first Coventry picture, but the steeple above was our real goal. It is the tower of the old Coventry Cathedral that was bombed to smithereens by the Nazi's. All these pics were taken on foot while our body adjusted.

Just in front of that barely damaged tower, is the bombed out hull of the cathedral's main sanctuary which is pictured to the right.

That modern roof to its left is the new modern cathedral which was build to replace it. We wanted to see this because our Washington Chorus just finished three performances of Benjamen Britten's War Requiem which was composed to dedicate this modern cathedral.

Note the sculpture on the side of the new building -- barely seen in the picture .
It is pictured properly below.

Below the two cathedrals are seen side by side. They still hold services now and then in the bombed out part of the old cathedral. When the building took place, many local people didn't like the linking of the old and the new.

One more view of the glass etchings looking out into the ruin.

This is the Gethsemane Chapel. The mosaic of the Angel of Agony seen through the crown of thorns.

This statue by Josefina de Vasconcellos depicts the reconciliation of two human figures and was created by the artist when she was 90. The statue was given to the cathedral in 1995. An identical cast was presented by the people of Coventry to the Peace Garden in Hiroshima, Japan.

Next morning, we leave our B&B after a great night's sleep.


The organ we never heard. We planned to attend a Monday concert while in Cheltenham, but didn't have the time.	The colorful Font and Baptistry window.	I'm not sure whether this is a patriarch, saint or an angel.