[ Nov.2018 ] One weekend in late autumn in November, we went to an old town, Lincoln, in the middle of England.
We took a crowded train from Kings Cross in London to Peterborough first, which took us about 50 minutes.
While
we were waiting for the connection, we were relaxing, eating some snacks, but at one point I noticed the one car train sitting there, which said ‘Lincoln’ as the destination.
I thought this could not be the one we should take, but just in case, we asked a station attendant and he said this was it.
I was very surprised.
Although Lincoln is away from the main line, it is a fairly famous city and known as a tourist destination, isn’t it?
So we had a slow journey with this one-car train for about one hour and 20 minutes and finally arrived at Lincoln.
At Lincoln station, because we saw a queue for the taxi, we decided to walk to our hotel.
Not far from the station, we came out to the main street of the city.
It was Saturday afternoon and the street was full of people, probably because many people came from the surrounding villages.
The shops on the street were all chain stores we see everywhere in England.
It was a town for common people.
The hotel we had booked seemed to be at the end of this street, so we kept walking there while the street became an upward slope.
Around 
the point when the street became narrower and steeper and cobbled, the atmosphere changed, too.
It changed from a crowded common town to the cosy historical small town.
The shops along were now privately run craft shops and cafes.
When I looked up the name of the street, it said “Steep Hill” and it was really steep.
Our hotel seemed to be at the top of the hill.
On the way, we came across the tourist office, so we bought a guide for £5, as we had not done any homework beforehand and I only knew that a cathedral and a castle are facing each other in this town.
We finally arrived at our hotel, called Duke William and found that it was a pub.
It is a very traditional English hotel, with the rooms on top of the pub.
It was really nicely decorated.
Our room, No.4, was not large, but lovely and quaint with a big bathroom.
Later, I saw the plan and found that there were 9 rooms in this hotel and room No.1 was the largest, though the biggest bathroom was ours.
The building itself was built in the 17th century.
According to the information panel on the outer wall of the pub, Duke William, the name of this hotel, means Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland.
This is an 18th century Duke and he was so brutal that he had a nickname ‘Butcher’.
The panel said “You would not want to meet him at a pub”.
I could not find out if he stayed at this hotel or not, though.
After
walking around the town a bit, we came back here in the pub and had a glass of Prosecco.
Maybe because it was the Saturday evening, more and more people came into the pub and it became really full.
They were mainly young people.
Not only in the pub, but generally in Lincoln we hardly saw any foreign tourists.
