Christchurch City Walking Tour
By Gabi. Filed in New Zealand |
Christchurch is actually the name of one of the larger cities on South Island, New Zealand. From our hostel, we headed down to the Avon River and the first monument we encountered was the 2001 Memorial to firefighters all around the globe. A large steel piece of the Twin Towers was erected next to the River, with a sign, asking you to think of the men and women, that give their lives daily, so that others may be safe. It showed such a positive effect of globalization. Then we meandered down a beautiful boulevard of trees, right next to the river. The whole scene seemed very British and some of the 2 story houses could have been straight out of the Stockade in Schenectady. For such a small country, the British had a massive empire all around the world. In many countries , as here, their influence stuck.
We continued on to Victoria Sq. with its Maori Monument, celebrating the 150 year anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi, the place we had been to on the North Island. The monument showed the famous legend of the separation of the sky and the land. In the square there also was a statue of Queen Victoria, showing the close relationship NZ still has to England. Actually , the queen of England today is also still the Queen of NZ, even though NZ is an independent country. Next we went to the main city square, which did have a very nice church, that resembled a Gothic style with a Norman twist. It wasn’t build during that period though, but rather only a little over 100 years ago. I guess the immigrants of that time missed their architecture from home. It did have a very pretty Rosetta window over the entrance. The newest trick for earning cash from the tourists, is to charge them extra if the are planning to take pictures or video of a particular site, as this church. (This had happened to us in India, but we never thought a 1st world country would also stoop so low. Personally I think NZ has taken the tourism business too far.Let’s face it, not every tree or sign post has to be declared a tourist site.)
We had a nice lunch at a NZ Shooters, which had Heinz(!)Ketchup, so I was able to eat the “chips”.:grin: Can’t get that American out of me.:grin:
We caught an afternoon flight back to Auckland, where our journey would continue to Australia. We were really lucky, when we had flown to Wellington, because the next few days the airport was always closed, due to fog.