So, I will have to break these posts into "days" and "days" into "parts" because we did soooooo much.

On the first day, our first stop with the Chawton House where Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, etc.) wrote most of her novels. It was a cute little area. I could easily picture her sitting out in the beautiful countryside, or even in the lovely garden in her backyard, and just being inspired by the sites and sounds.

I must admit, I was not as enthralled by this experience as many of the other girls in the group. I enjoy Jane Austen, I suppose, I am just not a fanatic. A Jane Austen novel...I could take it or leave it. However, I do appreciate the fact that she is (or...was...) indeed a great novelist and she greatly influenced society but...yeah, I am just apparently not super romantic.

From there we traveled to Winchester and visited the Cathedral there. It has become a habit/tradition of mine to light a prayer candle in every church, abbey, cathedral we visit. I just really think it is a neat idea with a good message. Plus...I like fire. Maybe that isn't the best reason but still.

The art work in the cathedrals here is just amazing. Again, I found myself overwhelmed with how much there is to see and think about. In this cathedral I decided to not focus to much on individual art pieces; I walked around and took it in as a whole. It made the experience a lot less hectic and stressful for me.

In fact, we visited 4 churches (at least one every day) on this trip. At each one I had to make the choice of how to approach it: as a whole, or individual pieces. It was interesting because it really does effect your experience based on what you select. More on that later I suppose.