Oct 14 2008
in which I whinge about street signs
You know, I like Norwich. I really do. It’s a very pretty town, big enough to have some good stores, small enough not to be overwhelming (plenty small enough to walk around in, too, which is nice for someone who’s used to having a car and suddenly doesn’t), and it’s a fascinating mix of old and new–cobblestoned streets, funny little alleys and courtyards, Norwich Castle, a couple different cathedrals (one of which is barely 100 years old, funnily enough), a store just like Wal-Mart, remnants of the old city wall running through town, flint everywhere. It has real character and it’s actually good for shopping (Primark, for instance, sells a ton of stuff for not much at all).
But as a town, it started…well, quite a long time ago. You can tell that just by looking at a map. Streets go every which way for no apparent reason, and even streets that look like one long road have two or three different names, one for each chunk. None of that would be so bad, though, if they’d just BE CONSISTENT WITH THEIR STREET SIGNS. Like, there are almost none, and never where you can properly see them, so I spend a lot of time studying my little tourist map and probably looking like a very good target while I try to figure out where the heck I am and where I need to go next to get where I’m going.
