Flavours of Herefordshire Festival‏

This Autumn we probably deserve an "F" for globe-trotting effort, but when we're given the chance of two Fs - Food and a Festival - both local, that's definitely going to get us out of the door.


We'd planned to go to the Flavours of Herefordshire Festival on Saturday, but torrential rain and high winds persuaded us that it probably wouldn't be much fun. Fortunately the weather was fantastic on Sunday and the drive through the spectacular Wye Valley and up to Hereford was superb, with the trees putting on a beautiful display wearing their Autumn colours in the bright sunlight. 

It took us a while to find a parking space but we got a good spot in the end, only a short walk from the Cathedral which was surrounded by festival marquees. Inside were the usual assortment of local merchants displaying their wares and offering free samples. Herefordshire apple juice and cider was, unsurprisingly, available in abundance, and made us feel guilty that we hadn't made more use of our bountiful crop of apples and pears. 

  There were also lots of cheese and chutney stalls and butchers with meaty sausages and scrumptious sounding pies to buy; after the obligatory tasting. After pigging out, we took a look inside the cathedral. Dating back to the 11th century, it is a splendid building with some beautiful stained glass windows. 

But its most famous treasure is the Mappa Mundi, a mediaeval map of the world from the 13th century, drawn on a single animal skin and the largest but one of all old maps. See the link for further information Mappa Mundi. The (known) world is represented as round, surrounded by the ocean. At that time, globe-trotting would have meant you went to Jerusalem, Babylon, Rome and Troy. It reminded us that, after our extensive travels in the new world, we've still got quite a few places to see in the old. So perhaps that should be a C+ rather than an F for effort.