Day 11: Wandering

The weather was a lot nicer today (still a bit chilly, but dry at least) and my leg was feeling much better after the day of rest yesterday, so I decided to go on one of my aimless walks that I enjoyed so much when I was in Japan. I just start walking in a random direction without any goal, and just follow whatever seems most interesting as I go. The entire point of this is somewhat of a Robert Frost "Road Not Taken" thing. Sure, seeing all the buildings and monuments and doing all the touristy things is interesting, but that's the stuff everybody sees and you can just look up online. The true fun is when you take the side streets, turn down the unmarked paths, and discover things you didn't even know to look for. These usually lead to me getting horribly lost, but I was pretty confident as long as I kept track of which side of the river I was on I'd be able to find the city center again easily. Of course, that all was with the assumption that I'd stay inside Chester...

I began doing a walk around the city center walls, which are a mix of different periods, some dating back 2000 years to the Romans. Quite a few people were out for walks in the same area, and there were a few artists selling their pictures along the walls. This artist particularily amused me (Jessica and Paul will get this):

After walking the perimeter I crossed over the bridge to check out some of the rest of Chester, which I hadn't ventured into much yet. Following my "whichever way seems most interesting" rule, you'll see a pretty clear progression of the way my route took me...

After wandering in the woods for a good 2 hours I finally emerged to find myself way out in the countryside entering into some little village. Luckily I could see Chester rising up in the distance, and following the road back made the return trip much quicker. At least I got to see some of the countryside other than through a bus window.

My leg was starting to get sore again by the end, but it held up a lot better than it has since I hurt it, so that's promising. It should get more rest tomorrow since I'll be on a bus most of the day.