Richmond Rest Day (6+ miles)

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While today was a rest day, I still ended up walking over 6 miles exploring Richmond. I am so glad we scheduled this rest day...not only because we were all ready for a break from walking, but because it would have been a shame to miss having some time in this charming, historic town.

We began the day visiting the Town Hall which has one of two pictures of Elizabeth I hanging in the council room. It was interesting that we just went to the office and said we wanted go see the picture and they opened the door for the 5 of us to look at it....no fancy security checks!

There was a Pilates class setting up in the main hall while we were looking at the picture, and three women in our group decided to join the class. Since I have never done Pilates, I decided to walk around the town.

Our next stop was the castle which was built in 1071. It was essentially abandoned by the 16th century and fell into disrepair. It had subsequent uses to house prisoners during wars including conscientious objectors. There is no fancy "restoration" so I felt like I was seeing the "real thing". The views from the top of the Keep were amazing. I hope that I'll be able to post a picture, but a picture Won't really show the amazing 360 degree views. We were lucky to have absolutely perfect weather this morning.

We then had a tour of the Georgian Royal Theatre, which was built in the 1760's. The tour lasted almost an hour and we had a chance to sit in all the different seats (including the Royal Box), as well as stand on the stage and visit the dressing rooms. We were disappointed that the theatre is dark tonight...it would have been fun to see a performance there.

The rest of the day was spent exploring on our own. I just loved wandering around the streets and seeing all the houses, gardens, historic churches etc.

We still haven't met any other people from the U.S. doing the Coast to Coast. We have walked the last 5 days with 2 Dutch sisters and some of the time with "Melbourne" Jeff. He didn't take a rest day so we won't see him again but the Dutch women will be with us again tomorrow.

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