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| Glastonbury Abbey | Wells Cathedral |
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| Glastonbury Abbey | Wells Cathedral |
Today we made a partial rest day, sightseeing in Glastonbury and Wells. It was a little more tiring than planned, since the ride to Glastonbury, although over easy and pleasant roads following the NCN route, was against a quite strong head wind. Also, it turned out that part of the NCN route near the start was blocked by a locked gate, due to a dispute with the land owner, so that we had to detour onto the busy A39 for a couple of miles.
We had coffee and cake in the market place in Glastonbury. The famous pop festival was due to start in a couple of days, and the town was beginning to fill up with aging hippies and other concert goers. The weather was quite good - partial clouds and sun. A few days later we were to see pictures of the crowds at the pop concert wallowing in mud after torrential rain.
We wandered around the ruined Abbey, and then had to fix the rear tire that had gone flat. It is easy enough to fix a puncture in the front tire, but the rear wheel of our tandem has the derailleurs, an internal hub gear, and a drum brake, and it always takes us some time to get everything aligned so that the wheel slips back on. (By the end of the trip we became much more efficient due to lots of practice - more on this later.) After fixing the tire we visited the Tor, riding/walking up a steep side road half way up. I walked the rest of the way while Lynn waited. It was very windy at the top, with ominous views of heavy black clouds approaching, so I didn't stay very long!
Our final destination for the day, the city of Wells, was only 8 miles further on. There was a brief shower on the way, but we didn't get very wet. We had phoned ahead to reserve a room at the Brian and Esme's Guest House on Priory Road, which turned out to be a spacious ground floor room in a large Victorian house overlooking a pretty back yard. We spent the rest of the day walking around Wells, looking at the Cathedral with the wonderful carved figures on the front (most such figures on other churches were destroyed in the reformation), Vicar's Close (a street of old terraced houses said to be the oldest planned street in Europe) and the moat, followed by a tasty dinner at the Fountain Inn (I had pork and Lynn had devilled Mackerel).
Mileage: 26.7 miles
Route and more pictures
Elevation
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