Lichfield, England – An Impressive Cathedral and Samuel Johnson’s Birthplace Make It Worth a Visit

You know one of my favorite quotes " when a man tires of London, he tires of life" comes from Samuel Johnson, but where does Samuel Johnson come from?

He comes from Lichfield, the "City of Philosophers" and his childhood home is fascinating (and free to go in).

The official title of the house is " The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum & Bookshop" and it's where the amazing man who wrote The Dictionary of the English Language spent his first 27 years of life.

The house was built in 1708, and it features multiple exhibits.

The ground floor was his father's bookstore

, the kitchen was downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs.

The kitchen was set up as if Samuel was reading in it at age 9.

The dress ups were fun. Don't we look like we belong in the 1700's?

More pics:

: The front room.

: The house has been a museum since 1901.

: This was unique!

: Try your hand at the quill pen.

: Amazing how realistic busts can get.

: I love standing so close to the objects my heroes from history have touched.

: He had many great quotes.

: What would he think of the internet?

: I could look at maps like these for hours.

: Yes, yes yes! All travel transforms us.

: This really hit me. We only regret the travels we didnt take.

: Can you imagine how smart this man was to put this together?

Next, we moved on to the cathedral. It really was more impressive than the one in Cologne, which I wasn't expecting.

First though, I'll tell you about lunch. We went to the cathedral's cafe, since those are always my preference for local and authentic cuisine. Since it was a bank holiday though, and since we were there about a half hour before they closed, most everything was sold out as the sign says or we were told (of the items NOT marked as sold out) " we're not serving that today". It was funny, but since we were so hungry, we didn't laugh about it until later. It was too bad, because don't those desserts look scrumptious?