Christchurch

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It's official - I love Christchurch! The city is amazingly English - it's like a condensed version of just the pretty parts of the country, with the River Avon flowing through the centre near to Worcester Boulevard, Hereford Street, Oxford Terrace and Cambridge Terrace. You can even go punting in a boat driven by a man in a striped blazer! It's all faintly bizarre but very pretty and pleasant to walk around.

This morning I visited the Arts Centre which is housed in buildings that used to belong to Canterbury University before its relocation to an out of town campus. The buildings are all beautiful neo-Gothic structures and add to the feeling that this could be England. Today being Sunday all the market stalls were out, selling products that had been made in the workshops within the centre. I wandered through the quadrangles and galleries, and enjoyed a very tasty lunch from the food fair where traders were selling produce from countries around the world.

After lunch I walked all along the section of the river that runs through town. It's a beautiful tree-lined stretch with weeping willows dipping their fronds into the water as punts float by. You can also hire rowing boats and kayaks, and there were lots of families out having fun. I walked all through the Botanical Gardens which are beautiful, especially the rose garden, and ended up at Victoria Lake.

Photos of today are on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47471&l=82263&id=503895728.

Tomorrow I'm taking the gondola up the hill behind the city for a good view of the Canterbury Plains. I'm sure more photos will follow!

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