It’s always a little harder to wake up on the second morning of tour, and today was a big one—with two services: the 10:00 a.m. Eucharist and Evensong at 3:30. Since the hotel is fully booked for Harbourfest (and there’s another visiting choir from the U.S.), we had to be up extra early to make sure we got breakfast before heading to rehearsal.

Like CCGP, Bristol Cathedral has an earlier service followed by a coffee hour—but unlike CCGP, theirs takes place in the Nave! We couldn’t help but laugh as people stood around sipping coffee and listening to us rehearse. A bit of an odd but charming setup.

The day was rainy, and we were definitely feeling the fatigue, so after Eucharist, we made a quick trip to our favorite local spot—Tesco—for sandwiches and snacks, then headed back to the hotel to rest and recharge. We were also well aware that dinner was at Za Za Bazaar, so we had to pace ourselves and not overdo it at lunch!

Za Za Bazaar is an epic buffet with just about every cuisine you can imagine—from American (yes, that means hamburgers and hot dogs) to Chinese, Indian, Italian, and more. It’s always a fun time and a bit of a tour tradition. In fact, we realized that it was exactly 11 years ago today that the boys’ choir first discovered Za Za, right here in Bristol!

Tomorrow we'll be up early and on the bus to London and St. Pauls!

We kicked off our first full day in Bristol with a proper English breakfast buffet – tea, coffee, sausage, eggs, bacon, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, fruit, cheese, croissants, and pastries – everything we love about it!

After breakfast, the choir made its way to the Cathedral to get settled into the Song School and rehearse for Evensong, which takes place daily at 3:30. The Bristol Cathedral Choir has been on break since July 13, and with their main organ currently undergoing refurbishment, they haven’t had as many visiting choirs as usual. They were genuinely delighted to welcome us.

We visited Bristol on last year’s tour, but didn’t perform any services here. Like many British cathedrals, Bristol was mid-renovation at the time and covered in more scaffolding than usual. It’s been wonderful to see how much progress has been made since then!

The organ, however, is still under restoration. Originally built in 1685 by Renatus Harris (the same year both Bach and Handel were born), the organ is in the midst of a comprehensive refurbishment by Harrison & Harrison, which began in 2024 and is expected to be completed later this year. It’s currently being dismantled, cleaned, repaired, and reassembled.

Jackson quickly settled in to become familiar with the electric organ they are temporarily using for music.

Bristol Cathedral itself has a rich history. Originally founded as an abbey dedicated to St Augustine in 1140 and consecrated in 1148, it became the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in 1542, following the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.

After Evensong, the Choristers had a fun evening riding all the rides at the carnival and eating at another favorite place, Nando's, while the supporters headed to a fabulous dinner with Fr. Drew at Harbour House Bristol. 

After a long night of flying and a quick layover in Paris, we arrived at Heathrow and headed to Bristol. It's about a three hour bus ride, so we stopped at a service centre for lunch. After a quick meal of sandwiches, chips and ice cream, we hopped back on the bus and were o our way!

We had a buffet dinner hosted by the hotel, and everyone retired pretty early - though our tradition is to stay up in the lobby and play cards, we'd been up for almost 24 hours straight and needed to sleep!

The annual Bristol Harbourfest is happening this weekend, right outside our hotel – there's a lot of people and some really loud music, rides and carnival games. It's fun to be right in the middle of everything, and convenient when you wake up at 3 am (10 pm Michigan time) and want some lamb and chicken shawarma - the restaurants were open til 5 am!

We all started the day whistling the song Winchester Cathedral, from 1966 by The New Vaudville Band, https://youtu.be/byIskf4Atqw?si=5LSxJnJYHpoAxSEl

The tour guides who show us around the places we visit are fountains of interesting information, as is Simon, our main tour guide who takes us from place to place.

Winchester Cathedral is the longest medieval cathedral in the world with an overall length of 558 feet. The cathedral as it stands today was built from 1079 to 1532 and is dedicated to numerous saints, most notably Swithun of Winchester. It has a very long and very wide nave in the Perpendicular Gothic style, an Early English retrochoir, and Norman transepts and tower.. In the early 20th century the walls began to crack and it looked like the cathedral might collapse. A diver from London, named William Walker is credited with saving the cathedral. Walker, who was arguably the most experienced diver in the country at the time, had an extremely challenging job. His task was to descend into the flooded trenches in a primitive and immensely heavy diving suit and level the trenches, by removing the peat topsoil and then laying bags of cement to plug the water coming up from below. Walker's suit weighed 200 lb (91 kg) dry, and the trenches were cramped and pitch-black; Walker had to feel around with his hands. Additional challenges were that the water was full of bodies and graves, which made the water septic. He worked 6 to 7 hour shifts almost every day for six years to achieve this, diving under the majority of the cathedral building. He'd work Monday - Saturday, then ride his bike 70 miles back to London on Saturday night to spend time with his family, returning to Winchester on Monday morning.

Winchester is not just the location of Scott Hanoian's first residency with CCGP, it's also the final resting place of Jane Austen, a favorite author of many of the adults on the trip, who encouraged the choristers to read Pride and Prejudice, after explaining to them that the movie Clueless is based on Emma! It was a personal highlight for me.

Our next two days will be spent in Salisbury, getting ready for Sunday services (these will be livestreamed on the Salisbury YouTube Channel! and home on Monday.

Everyone knows Stonehenge is the BEST henge. We hopped on the bus and headed out on what was only about a 20 minute bus ride to the Stonehenge visitor center, which apparently has been moved since COVID, and definitely has been moved since the last time we were there! We recommended that the groups walk to the site rather than ride the bus. It was cloudy and sprinkling a bit, but it was a nice but rather long walk - it's fun because it appears as you come over a hill and see it. We made our way around the prehistoric megalithic structure, which is the third most popular tourist attraction in England - right behind Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.
As we made our way on the path, there were fun photo ideas that we had a lot of fun recreating. You can view our photos (and all the photos from the tour so far) here!
When we were done having fun with photos, we headed back to the visitor center for souvenirs - a favorite was anything that said Stonehenge, Est. 3000 BC. Many of us rode the bus back, but some decided to walk - about halfway back the skies opened up and they got soaked. We don't always remember our rain coats or umbrellas (brellies as our tour guide Simon calls them when he reminds us to bring them every day!)
After Stonehenge we had a wet tour of Old Sarum, the original site of Salisbury Cathedral. It was at the top of a hill, which is great for defense but not so much for the water supply. Legend has it that an archer based at Old Sarum decided where to build the city by shooting an arrow down into the valley. The modern-day Cathedral is situated around 2 miles south of Old Sarum. On a clear day it's apparently a beautiful view, but it was still raining quite hard so we cut our visit short and headed back to the hotel to dry off and get ready for the service, which was another Eucharist for St. James of Jerusalem. 

No singing today! When the choir has the day off, another choir comes in and handles Evensong - I believe our subs today were from Virginia!

We started off at Fishbourne Roman Palace, an archaeological site about an hour from Salisbury. It was discovered in 1805 when a new home was being built on the site. The extent of the ruins wasn't understood until 1960 when the water company began digging and found a much larger structure - the largest (known) Roman residence north of the Alps, it's also one of the oldest, dating back to 75 AD. Our guide told us that while it might seem odd for Romans to move from the far nicer climate of Italy to cold, rainy England, they discovered that wheat, an extremely valuable and important crop, grew much better here. As in Bath, we got the full description of how ancient Romans cleaned themselves - it involves a lot of sweating and olive oil.
They've found quite a few artifacts - including some dug up by neighboring children planting a garden, jewelry, coins, pottery - all on display in the museum.
From there we headed to Arundel Castle, home of the Duke of Norfolk, Edward Fitzalan-Howard, who was in charge of planning Queen Elizabeth's state funeral as well as King Charles' coronation. There was a fascinating display of thank you notes and plans for both ceremonies. The Fitzalan family is one of the few aristocratic families that has been able to remain Romany Catholic, and to emphasize this, there were many pictures of the Duke with the Pope. The two castles we've visited have had modern photographs of the families that live there scattered throughout the rooms - a reminder that we are touring someone's actual house -we agreed we could do just fine living in Arundel Castle.
The castle was built beginning in 1067, but was badly damaged in the first British Civil War in 1643. They've worked through the centuries to restore it, and there were parts that seemed modern an livable. We got to see both parts, but NOT the bedrooms because our tickets didn't allow that.  The medieval part of the castle had lots of narrow spiral staircases, all of which we climbed to get to the close to see the view.
The more modern part had a huge library we were all extremely envious of - we learned that they use it in the winter when the castle is closed to the public. That's where all the Queen Elizabeth Funeral and King Charles coronation papers were on display.
The choristers have developed an interest in antiquing, so we visited quite a few shops and had lunch in the village, then headed to Bognor Regis, a seaside resort with a beach that is all pebbles. The choristers collected rocks, looked for sea glass and went wading in the water, then headed to town for dinner.
After some ice cream, we climbed onto the bus and headed back to Salisbury - everyone is super excited to go to Stonehenge tomorrow - it truly is the best Henge!

Day 2 in Salisbury!
The choir started the day with a traditional English breakfast buffet, but we still have not found any porridge. Hope springs eternal, though!
The choir headed to Old Sarum College, where we used to stay before COVID. They rehearsed in the chapel at the college, which had amazing acoustics.
Following rehearsal, we enjoyed a walking tour of the city, including seeing William Golding's house (our tour guide's daughters used his horse for lessons before he became so famous he had to move!), the site of Handel's first concert, and a filming location for the film Sense & Sensibility.
Today was market day in Salisbuy, and we've found we really enjoy it - we've been able to find something for everyone to eat, whether it's Indian, Korean, Italian or yes, even American!
Some of the kids located the Tesco and did some snack shopping while others went for mani/pedis at a salon near our hotel (The White Hart Inn).
There was a funeral taking place at the Cathedral when we arrived for our Evensong rehearsal, so we waited quietly for that to end. Evensong was at 5:30, followed by a group dinner for the choristers and chaperones at Wagamama.
Tomorrow is our day off, so we're off for a full day of tours and exploring!

Salisbury! The boy's choir visited here for a day in 2014 but did not perform any services, and the Schola did a residency in 2017, so those who had been here were really excited to return! Several people on the tour have been reading Pillars of the Earth in preparation of our arrival here, Ken Follett, the author, has said that when he first imagined the fictional town of Kingsbridge in Pillars, he had Wells in mind, but the finished cathedral, with its spire, it actually resembled Salisbury.
Construction on Salisbury took 300 people only 38 years to complete, a short time considering the size, and that the stone had to be brought in from about 30 miles away. It was built between 1220 and 1258. The spire, added later, is England's tallest, at 404" high, and was finished in 1330.
The Choir of Salisbury Cathedral is believed to have started in 1258, but they did not have girl choristers until 1991. They were the first Cathedral in England to have a girl's choir!
We hit the ground running with a choral Eucharist honoring the Feast of Mary Magdalene. Moving is exhausting, so everyone was in bed pretty early!.


 
 

Our last day in Wells! We sang the morning Eucharist at 10:30, then went back to the hotel to pack and prepare for our departure tomorrow morning. We sang Evensong at 3, visited the Cathedral shop for some souvenirs, then went back to the White Swan Inn for a farewell dinner! Everyone retired pretty early for our departure to Salisbury in the morning. Wells was an amazing place, and we'd come to know the town quite well, finding our favorite stores and restaurants, but we're ready to move on to our next adventure!

Ahhh, rainy day in England. Things finally cooled down, a full ten degrees! We had an early rehearsal then went on a tour of the gardens at the Bishop's Palace, followed by a rainy afternoon where we took in the market at the Bishop's Eye and relaxed, getting ready for Saturday Evensong and two services tomorrow - Choral Eucharist and Evensong once again, our last in Wells.
Unfortunately, Wells does not livestream, and they do not allow us to record. We have recorded some rehearsals, though and will be posting them once we've had a chance to edit them. 

This morning we enjoyed the shortest bus trip of our tour so far, just fifteen minutes
 from our hotel in Wales! We headed to Glastonbury Abbey, founded in the 8th century, reportedly by Joseph of Arimathea. . Little is left of what once stood, but judging by what is there, it was quite impressive. There's also a marker claiming that King Arthur and Guinevere are buried on the grounds!

Our tour guide, Luke, suggested that the choir head down to the kitchen area and sing, as the acoustics are amazing. We did, and if you were on Facebook at around 6 am EDT, you would have caught the live show! If not, you can watch the recording here!

We had lunch on our own in Glastonbury, and enjoyed all the unusual shops selling jewelry, crystals, tarot cards, and tie dye clothing.

We headed back to Wells for a short break then rehearsal for evensong, where Jackson played the little organ and seemed to really enjoy it.

After Evensong we had dinner and free time, and we gathered in the lobby bar/restaurant for Euchre and other assorted card games.

Today was a day off, which meant no singing for us at the Cathedral.
We headed off to Bristol, where we were treated to a tour of Berkeley Castle. We had the entire grounds all to ourselves, as it's normally closed on Thursday but they opened it just for us.
Berkeley Castle is best known as the site of the murder of King Edward II. He was either killed in a very violent manner or simply smothered to death, depending on who you talk to. His heart was then cut out and given to his wife Isabella to be buried with her. He was entombed in Bristol Cathedral.
We got to see a bedspread that Queen Elizabeth I left when she had to leave in a hurry after killing 27 of the Earl's deer because she was angry he wasn't there to greet her. This was displayed in the Francis Drake room, so named because he stayed in that room.
Members of the Berkeley family still live in the castle in a modernized section.
After a light lunch at the castle cafe of sandwiches, tea, scones and cakes, we headed off to the SS Great Britain - the largest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1853.
We then headed to Bristol Cathedral for a quick visit to check out where we'll be singing in 2025. Everything in the cathedral is under scaffolding and the organ is undergoing a complete overhaul that will take two years!
Dinner was at our favorite buffet spot Za Za Bazaar. They offer stations of every kind of food imagineable, from curry to barbecue, sushi to fish and chips. They even have an American station offering hot dogs, hamburgers and french fries.
We're back to singing at the Cathedral tomorrow, and everyone was off to bed early after a long day of sightseeing. 

We headed to Lacock this morning, and were rerouted because our bus was actually too big to fit under a bridge - an unexpected detour that added a few minutes to our trip.
When we arrived we immediately visited the majestic home of William Henry Fox Talbot, inventor of the photographic negative. We saw his study where he spent his time working, including the desk he died sitting at, many, many full bookshelves as well as the window he photographed for the negative, which is on display in the museum.
That was all interesting and fun, but the real draw of Lacock for many of us was the many filming locations for some of our favorite films.
Lacock is entirely (except for five houses, they keep pointing out) owned by the National Trust and is an ideal place for filmmakers looking for a location that has maintained its historic charm and medieval buildings. That's Lacock.
It's the stand-in for Meryton, the town that Lizzie and her sisters visit in the one true Pride and Prejudice, BBC 1995, staring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. The Red Lion is the location of Assembly Room where Darcy first lays eyes on Elizabeth. (She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me).
Lacock is known as Godric's Hollow in the Harry Potter series, with a private home at the end of Church Street used as the location of Lily and James' home. There were multiple scenese filmed at the Abbey too!
We returned to Wells for another lovely Evensong, only to find they were setting up for Fleetwood Mac by candlelight - a concert series that we also have in the US. They were really loud so rehearsal was a little difficult, but our amazing choir pushed through and were ready to go at 5:15.
Dinner was on our own, and the kids split up and went to the two Indian restaurants near the hotel. We learned that they'll offer you papadam then charge you 80p for it, and if you don't specify your spice level you're getting medium. Maybe it's British mild American medium. It was spicy. Luckily we've got lots of Tums in our first aid bag!!

Mary Shelley and Jane Austen have lived here, much of the popular TV show Bridgerton is filmed here - Bath is a bustling town full of shops, restaurants and history.
We arrived mid-morning and were treated to a tour of the Roman baths that gave the city its name. Dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva, the baths date back to 60 AD.
Next door, The Pump Room is a world famous tea room, frequented by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in a house at the same location that was demolished to allow The Pump Room to expand.
The choir returned to Wells for rehearsal prior to their 5:15 Evensong, then were invited to a reception in the Vicars Hall. On the way, they sang in the Chapter House, which has amazing acoustics. (Watch the video here)
We enjoyed wine, OJ and potato chips and were given a warm welcome and much gratitude from the Canon Chancellor, Megan Daffern, Canon Precenter, Timothy Stevens and Acting Director of Music, Alexander Hamilton.
The choristers and chaperones then headed out to a pre-arranged dinner at Ask Italian, but stopped first to pet the Cathedral cat, Basil. He has his own bed on the reception desk, where he spends most of his day sleeping. 

Our first full day in Wells started off with a traditional English breakfast complete with beans, mushrooms, eggs, tomatoes and potatoes! The Choir then headed over to the Cathedral to see their home for the next week.
Our home base is in a beautiful new wing called the Friends Building, with two rehearsal rooms and a classroom. The choir rehearsed much of the music they'll be performing for the next week, stored their vestments and headed out for a day in Wells.
The choir quickly discovered several restaurants they'd like to try, as well as quite a few shops they're eager to visit.
Wells is the smallest city in England with a Cathedral, and everything closes quite early, but there is still plenty to do and see.
After lunch the choir enjoyed a tour of the Cathedral - it's always interesting to learn about the place where you'll be spending so much of your time. They learned about the Cathedral Clock, an astronomical clock in the north transept. The clock is one of the group of famous 14th– to 16th–century astronomical clocks to be found in the West of England.
They then climbed the stairs (which our very own stairs were modeled after) to the Chapter House to complete their tour.
Evensong was held at 5:15 and the choir did beautifully! They headed out for dinner on their own and gathered later to play cards in the hotel lobby. Favorite games include Euchre and Five Crowns.

After a long flight filled with movies, episodes of the Office and Seinfeld, we arrived at Heathrow at 6:15 am. While we waited for our bus to arrive, we enjoyed treats from Marks and Spencer and Nero coffee. Everyone was quite tired, but excited to arrive and get our day going.
We attended Mattins at St. George's and found ourselves standing on Henry VIII and Jane Seymour's final resting place. We did not get a chance to pay our respects to Elizabeth II, unfortunately!
We toured Windsor Castle then explored the city for a while, finding ourselves in the middle of an outdoor mall where a full orchestra played hits from the seventies.
We finally made our way to the bus and headed for Wells, where we had dinner at our hotel and headed off to bed. Most of us were up for 30 hours or more, so we were quite happy to finally rest our heads!