Day Nine - Ely - 19 May

We have now moved onto the beautiful small city of Ely which is about an hour’s drive west of Diss and have moved from the county of Norfolk to Cambridgeshire. We hadn’t booked any accommodation as we decided we would do that through the Tourist Information Centre at Ely.

This was not a good idea as they had nothing available in town in our price range and we should have booked much earlier. However, the lady in the TIC suggested we try the hotel called “The Lamb” and we managed to get the last room. We were very lucky as the busyness seems to be because it’s a weekend and there is a wedding in town. The hotel is in a good position only fifty metres from the large and beautiful Ely Cathedral which we will visit tomorrow. Parking at the hotel could have been difficult as the places are limited but once again we were lucky as the Lamborghini car which was attracting a lot of attention moved on and we got the last car park.

We returned to the TIC which is housed in Oliver Cromwell’s house and toured the house with its interesting history of Cromwell’s life. There was also a very good video of the history on the development of the Fens. At the completion of the tour we headed down the pedestrian way to the city centre for lunch.

A busy market was taking place and it had a wide range of food which was very tempting. We headed to a very tiny two storey tea room called “Tea for Two”.

It was very cosy on the second storey. Following lunch Henk and I headed to the Ely Museum and the highlight was a very old film on the lost art of eel catching. Ely’s name is said to come from a word meaning “Eel Island” and taxes at one time were paid in eels. Late in the afternoon I had a nap and Henk spent an hour walking around the paths around the city. After dinner at our hotel Henk and I walked for about an hour around the pretty city with Henk showing me the sights he had seen earlier. We walked down to the River Great Ouse which has little canal boats lining the shore. Everything seems to pertain to eels! The temperatures are low and it is very overcast but we must be getting used to the weather as we would never go walking in Australia in such conditions!