Sunday, April 10, 2011

1st July Fishbourne Roman Palace







Quite a poor English breakfast at the Inn, buffet style and I can't remember what was actually wrong, probably not up to my expectations, no black pudding I expect.


Fishbourne palace is very interesting, well organised. It was easy to find if a bit unexpected. I say that because when you drive there first you are driving through a winding road in an average English village when you turn a corner and there it is right in front of you. Feels more like driving onto a school sports field.



It's great to see the remains but it does leave you feeling that there is a lot more story to the site than they are telling you. I think kids tours should be limited to certain times and the kids should be muzzled. The noise and chaos spoilt things. I don't expect it to be like a library but never-ending screams of "miss! " get to much after a while. I bought a T-shirt and a very good book (Roman Forts in Britain by Paul Bidwell) on Roman forts in the gift shop.


Then on to Chichester. It's a small town but easy to walk around. We went into the National Trust shop which I thought was ok but Gemma did not think was that good. Then across the road to a Marks and Sparks. Stocked up on underwear, would have liked to look around to see what had changed but we were yet again under the time gun. We went to a nice looking pub near where we had parked for lunch, what a mistake to make! It was really bad, slow service and very poor food, mine was just edible bur gem's baked potato was so bad that she complained and got her money back.


Then Arundel cathedral. It is big really big, it totally dominates the town! I still don't understand how such a small town got such a big church. We went around the gardens which were really nice.


We are saving the castle for tomorrow and as it was getting late we went back to the inn. Rather than go and find someplace to eat we decided to eat at the pub attached to the inn. Given what the breakfast had tasted like I was a bit dubious about this decision but to my delight the pan roasted salmon was really good. It was followed by a couple of good beers then time to read, update the trip diary and to bed to refresh for another days traveling tomorrow.



1 comment:

Fishbourne Roman Palace said...

Thank you for visiting and for mentioning us in your blog, we really appreciate all feedback.

You will be glad to know that since your visit in July 2010 our education department has been working with schools to help them better structure their visits with large groups and we now supply a teachers resource pack to help them control students and engage them in the subject.

We are also currently undergoing a review of how we interpret the story of the palace and what remains today and will consider your comments in that. Let us know if you have any other comments- you can follow us on Twitter @romanpalace or you can email Jennie who is currently heading up the audience development project: jgadsby@bmth.ac.uk.

Many thanks and hope to see you again soon

Fishbourne Roman Palace and Gardens