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Cathedral Square has always been the heart of Christchurch.
According to English tradition, the presence of a cathedral meant that
Christchurch was officially a city well before the size of its population
justified this status. Strangely enough, my paternal grandmother,
who was German, had passed on this esoteric piece of information to me
at an early age and armed with this knowledge I won a prize during a three-week
long school geography tour of New Zealand which passed through Christchurch.
This is probably the first and last time that I have ever benefited from
the masses of largely worthless information which I willingly crammed into
my innocent mind.
Cathedral Square is a pleasant open area where tourists and locals can
mingle, with plenty of good shopping and restaurants within close walking
distance. People might do their supermarket shopping out in
the suburbs, but the center of Christchurch is still vibrant and a place
that people like to go, unlike the empty core of New Zealand's largest
city, Auckland. In Cathedral Square itself you can climb the
cathedral tower or sit outside to listen to local personality The Wizard,
who dresses the part, rants at great length and volume about feminism,
and might now have retired to not-so-quiet obscurity, leaving the city
a poorer place.
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