The Blackberry Walk

Lincoln will most likely be the first of a series I would like to do on day trips around the country. Ever since the end of lockdown, I've wanted to do some exploring - the net can only be explored for so long, after all - and I intend to visit other towns and cities which can be cheaply traveled to around Nottingham. Planning the trip only the day before, I found a cheap ticket to Lincoln, hopping on the train the next morning. I sat reading my book on the train until the towers of the great Lincoln cathedral could be seen on the horizon. Quite an awe-striking sight. We arrived at the platform and alighted the train; hungry, I went to get some food. I stopped off at a bakery named Cooplands, which at first I thought was a kind of quaint independent bakery; later, I found out when discussing the bakery with a northern friend that the bakery is a chain, a kind of Greggs++, which northerners defend from the south. A shame, since four sausage rolls for a quid is an almighty deal, and the small pasties I had were also very good - wouldn't mind one here in Nottingham. Walking back down the high street then, eating my lunch, I saw the first of the numerous charity hawkers - people quite aggressively trying to get you to donate? or buy something for charity. I did my best to fob them off, but they were quite a nuisance, attempting to engage every passer-by in conversation. Three independent hawking organisations operated on the high street... How do they do work such a job? Being continually rejected, called names, etc, whilst they smile and attempt to capture customers with charisma is no job for the weak of heart. Walking further down the high street, I came upon an archway. "This must be the inner city now", I thought. Plenty of high street brands and a shopping mall - the usual array of what were once the essential shops, forming the usual saccharine cacophony of colour. The street by this point was quite busy for a midday on a Thursday and, judging by what others around me were saying, it appeared I wasn't the only tourist about. I walked further up the street to be pleasantly surprised that beyond this prettily built yet boringly populated town centre, there was a true centre, a core, up the aptly named street "Steep Hill". Steep Hill earns it's name, and isn't for the infirm (a dwarf was descending the hill, and seemed to be quite out of breath). It felt like a different city on Steep Hill: the city street had morphed from brick to cobble; the buildings were stone and modest, as if they were four hundred years older; the shops which were once these intimidating high street brands had become quaint independent shops. But not solely the touristy kind - now, granted, there were the artisanal cheese shops and fancy whisky shops to bring back souvenirs - but there were butchers, bakers, and a strange little shop which appeared to sell nothing but speedometers. Lincoln managed to ride the line between touristy and authentic very well. The city never fully felt like a tourist trap whose economy runs solely on cathedral and castle visitors; the city felt like a real city also with real people, even in the most touristy areas. At the top of the hill stood the cathedral in all it's glory. Upon reaching the top, however, a service was starting and, since I'm not a Christian (yet), I felt I shouldn't enter yet. I went for a walk around the grand building, seeing the flying buttresses and ornate Gothic fractal patterns extruding from the edges. Gothic architecture is truly beautiful - it may well be the best style of architecture - the fractals reducing to the infinitesimally small off of the impossibly huge is a brilliant representation of the divine to witness. The cathedral may well be the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen - it's at least one of them. Entering the cathedral felt like I wasn't meant to be there somehow. Since I was young, I was always somewhat afraid of entering churches. Might've been some kind of fear of being struck down by God (grew up in a family of atheists) or something along those lines. Once I was inside and had paid the £7.80 student rate (which is quite modest for a cathedral of this size), I was struck by the belly of the cathedral's beauty, and how vast the interior was. It's hard to imagine how a medieval man who hadn't been numbed by modern advances would've seen the building. The stained glass had the alluring glow of the computer screen but felt real. It's the same radiance but in a purer and more honest form; what true coloured light looks like instead of the Ersatz good we look at today. The size of the building was impressive, and I was truly impressed, but imagine if I hadn't seen the sky-scrapers and the large buildings of London, or even the wretched sky-rise flats which fester on the horizon today: how much bigger the cathedral would've been! And for medieval man the cathedral would've been bigger in a material sense also. In the mid-sixteenth century, the spire collapsed in a storm. Whilst the spire was upright, the cathedral in Lincoln was the tallest in the world, taller even than the pyramids of Giza, only to be beaten by the Eiffel Tower come the nineteenth century. Anyways, back to the trip. We were toured around the cathedral by a man named Ken; a witty and knowledgeable volunteer tour guide. You could tell he had given the tour many times, and had sharpened his stand-up routine to a fine edge. Wandering around after the tour, it appeared other tour groups didn't have as engaging a leader, so if you plan on heading off, I'd keep an eye out for him. There was another lady, a cynical older lady, who volunteered in the library who I talked to about the old velum books from the on display, and how we're currently living in the next Dark Age since nothing is built to last. She seemed like quite an interesting character but however much I wanted to stay, once the bell chimed 3PM I had to leave, since the cathedral closes for evening services. Outside, the weather, which was previously dry and sunny, had turned cloudy with occasional rain. I kitted up in my raincoat and went for a walk around suburbia, to get a feel for the rest of the city. Heading north, the area seemed wealthy with many larger houses down the main road. Down each main road were several smaller roads, branching off into moderate, peaceful terraced streets. The area was peaceable, affluent and pleasant looking on the whole, although the quietness was in part due to the rain. Whilst on my walk I had a repeating vision that the roads I walked were roots, with the streets branching off of them smaller rootlets, feeding and grounding the cathedral at the centre of the city on the hill. Lincoln, seen from a map, has a kind of mandala-like radial beauty: a true isekai town. Returning to the city centre was easy - the cathedral can supposedly be seen from twenty-five miles away, let alone the other side of town. Down Steep Hill, turning right, I went to see Brayford pool, a historic lake sat at the base of the hill. The lake connects to the Trent via Foss Dyke - the first canal in Britain, built by the Romans - and back in the Middle Ages made Lincoln the fourth busiest port city in England, despite being inland. The port saw renewed use in the Industrial Revolution, but is now littered with private yachts. The waterfront appeared to have been recently redeveloped with pricey-looking bars and restaurants, but at four in the afternoon when I was walking past they were understandably rather empty. By 4:30PM, my legs were starting to ache (due to my mostly sedentary life) so I went in search of a pub. The pub I stumbled upon was called the Dandy Lion - a more expensive pub, costing roughly £4.30 for a pint (and had no local ales on the app [they're still using bloody apps] despite their advertising outside) - but the interior was smartly done with a kind of rustic effect. The food on the menu sounded nice, but I wasn't laying down any more money on the trip (and I wasn't hungry after all the baked goods at lunch). After my pint, I headed down to the train station to head home. The station was quite packed since it only had two or three platforms, even though trains were entering and exiting the station frequently. The traffic at rush-hour was horrendous, the entire city was at gridlock, albeit only in a certain direction, and according to Ken the cathedral tour guide, parking in Lincoln is also a nightmare - the city has some serious infrastructure issues. However, being such an old city with many beautiful old buildings and winding streets, this is a hard problem to fix. Overall, Lincoln was a good city: pretty architecture, giving the city a warm feeling; myriads of beautiful churches - whichever street you went down, it seemed another old church stood waiting; pleasant people with a northern kindness, despite the annoying hawkers; and an awe-inspiring cathedral which dominates the heavens wherever you stand in the city. Despite calm yet inevitable waves of tourists, Lincoln is a warm and very livable city where, if given the choice, I would happily live. 8/10