We had a lazy start to the morning and walked to the other side of town to have breakfast in The Street Café.
I was hoping to have the ‘tomatoes on bruschetta with herbs and balsamic vinegar’ that I had in November last year when we had breakfast there. It wasn’t on the menu this time so it took me a while to choose from the menu. Eventually I settled for a chicken schnitzel and fried egg waffle with a drizzle of maple syrup. I thought that it would be smaller than a full English breakfast. I was wrong, the portion was enormous!
After breakfast we slowly wound our way to the Cathedral, browsing around shops along the way. We picked up a bargain £1 cook book from W H Smiths; Sirocco Fabulous Flavours from the East by Sabrina Ghayour. Its pages promise some tasty food adventures.
Mr C returned to the hotel to drop off his rucksack along with the cookbook and other purchases he had made whilst I waited in the Cathedral Garden. Before visiting the Cathedral, we shared a tuna and cucumber baguette in the Cathedral café.
Due to it being Easter, the cathedral wasn’t as tranquil as it had been on our previous visit. People everywhere caused Mr C to nearly knock me over near to the altar in the Lady Chapel. Thankfully the altar rail saved me from falling over backwards.
Before leaving the cathedral, I browsed the gift shop thinking to buy a gift for mum but I wasn’t sure I could choose a gift that she wouldn’t reject due to her current state of mind so I left empty handed.
We were unsure of the difference between the two Easter morning services so we asked one of the guides who referred to the Easter service leaflet as I had done. She was as puzzled as I was and went to seek the advice of a Verger who clarified that the earlier service was the one to attend if you were seeking a more spiritual experience.
We wandered back through town to have afternoon tea and cake in Café Roma where I chose blueberry bakewell and elderflower presse. The sunshine was so lovely we decided to visit Wetherspoons for a drink which we enjoyed in a sunny window, chilling out before returning to the hotel to chill out some more.
We dined in L’Italiana where I chose chicken in tomato sauce with olives. The food was just as good as our previous visit; we were even served by the same waiter.
We decided to have a post dinner drink in Wetherspoons. When we arrived, we were informed by one of several bouncers that there was a queue to get in. The queue was not obvious as is it snaked around the venue and away from outside gate which is the main entrance to the venue. The queue was ‘very’ long and we were not prepared to wait to get into a pub.
We walked the short distance to The Cock which we had visited on our previous stay in St Albans. The same few seats as last time were vacant so it felt like home from home.
I have never seen a breakfast like that, Cherie!!
There were some interesting options on the menu.
That portion of breakfast would keep me going for the whole day!
I didn’t eat it all, it was far too big for me.