Wednesday 13 June

No breakfast in hotel so we had our juice, fruit, coffee and pastries. Sent birthday message to Rob.

Set off for the city and it was all very easy. Got our tickets and chatted to a group of young ladies/girls who were going to the Convention. The ride into the city takes about 25 minutes. We got off right by the entrance to Temple Square and went first to the South Visitor Centre. Coming out of there we had a quick look at the side of the Temple building and the decided it was time for coffee. We walked to the Joseph Smith building (originally a hotel) and went into the cafe only to be told that the Mormons don’t drink coffee (or tea for that matter). Fairly sure it doesn’t mention this in the Bible, perhaps it’s in the book of Mormon.

Walked across to City Creek Square shopping centre and had a coffee in a bakery. We walked across to the Church Office Building (the modern skyscraper) intending to go to the viewing deck on the 26th floor. However we discovered that they don’t do visits between 11am and 1pm, but we had a long chat with a lady who explained the significance of some of the artwork and gave us some background about the whole site. She’d suggested that we go to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building but in fact we went first to the Beehive House (Brigham Young’s house and office) and then to the Lion House next door which was also part of his home, but is now a restaurant. After our tour of the Beehive House we had a very nice simple lunch in the Lion House.

We then went back to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building where we had a tour. This is a fantastic building. Originally most of the materials were destined to be used to build a hotel in San Francisco - they had got as far as SLC when the San Francisco earthquake took place. The materials were used to build a wonderfully ornate hotel here. It had five separate ballrooms! Eventually it was taken over by the Church, the ballrooms etc are open to the public to view and are used for events, including weddings as one ballroom is now a small chapel. And the hotel rooms were converted to offices. In its heyday as hotel both Bing Crosby and Will Rogers stayed. There were good views from the 10th floor viewing platforms. At this point our guide told us we should go to the Church Office Building as visits to the 26th floor stopped at 3.30pm. Whilst at the viewing platform we asked about the Salt Lake where we had intended to go tomorrow and he told us quite emphatically that it wasn’t worth it.

Back at the Church Office Building we went up to the 26th floor which obviously has terrific views over not only over the whole of Temple Square but far into the distance across the city. You have to be accompanied by a guide which is very useful as you learn a lot about the other buildings before visiting them.

Coming out again we walked down to the Tabernacle and then to the Assembly Hall (a smaller more conventional version of the Tabernacle. We’d had enough by then so we walked across to City Creek Shopping Centre and had a look round the shops - mainly in Nordstrom and Maceys. As we’d been on our feet all day we caught the train back to the hotel for a rest.

After some thought we decided to go back into the city to have a meal for Les’s birthday. Les had found a Lebanese restaurant not too far from the railway which looked as though it might be good. By the time we got back downtown it was nearing 7pm. It seemed strange to us that it was still hot - slightly too hot for comfort. After a couple of false starts we found the restaurant and it turned out to be very nice. A leisurely meal as it turned out that everything was prepared freshly. We ordered a selection of 6 starters - we assumed they’d all come up together but obviously the chef had decided what order we should eat them in. It was all delicious but rather too much - the servings were a lot bigger than we’d get at home. Les ordered one meat dish - some sausages - and these turned out to be fearsomely spicy. A nice chat with our waiter who was from Montenegro (we apologised for Brexit). One of the cheapest meals we’ve had, and one of the best.

A short wait for the train (these seem to run at 15 minute intervals all the time) and we were back in the hotel by 9.15. Les then opened his birthday cards as it was already the 14th back in the UK.

Thursday 14th June

Another breakfast in our room and on the train by around 9.15am. We got off at Courthouse and got straight onto a 500 bus to the State Capitol Building. When we first went in we weren’t hugely impressed and couldn’t really see why people had been saying we should visit. This was because we’d come in by a side entrance onto what was effectively the lower ground floor. This is fairly bare with little decoration and is devoted to a series of small exhibitions including portraits of all the State Governors to date. One thing of interest is a huge copy of the State Seal set into the floor and done in beautifully coloured stone.

We returned to the entrance for the 11am tour. There was only one other couple with us. The tour was supposed to last 40mins but in fact lasted an hour. As soon as we got onto the upper floor (which is where the main front entrance brings you) we were blown away by the fanastic marble columns and wonderful decoration. We worked our way up the building going into the Supreme Court and Senate and House of Representative Chambers. The whole building is fantastically light and airy but the detailing everywhere on the stonework and other decoration is fantastic and our guide extremely knowledgeable.

We could’ve spent more time taking photographs after the tour but decided to get the bus back down to the Temple. We went straight away and had lunch in the Lion House. This was a good move as it was quite empty when we went in but when we came out there was a huge queue for the food counter.

We then walked across to the Conference Centre. Like most of the other buildings you can only go round with a guide. There are masses of these ranging from very young people to quite elderly and they come from all parts of the world. Our guide at the Conference Centre was a quite elderly but dapper gentleman called Ron. He took the two of us on a tour of the whole building and seemed in no particular hurry anywhere. He was very well informed and obviously extremely devout and very careful in explaining the Mormons’ beliefs. Like many of them he repeatedly stressed that they were Christians who believed in the Bible and Jesus Christ.

The building itself is amazing. It can seat 21,000 people, all with unobstructed views and it was built (1990s) in just three years. It hosts two annual conferences for Mormons worldwide and in between has various other events. Pavarotti has sung here. The interesting thing is that all events are free. Ron took us up on to the roof - large areas of which are planted with trees and wild grass. The whole building is huge and amazing. Once again it was difficult to take photos because of needing to keep moving on without holding the guide up too much.

After the tour we walked back through City Creek Shopping Mall to Harmons, a grocery store that we’d seen from the bus. It turned out to be much more up-market than anywhere else we’ve found. It seems to cater for city workers. We bought some more stuff for this evening and tomorrow before getting the train back to the hotel.

We were back by 3.15, and put our washing on in the guest  laundry. We downloaded photos and typed up the diary while the washing was under way. This should leave us free to go back Downtown to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearse this evening. Fortunately Ron told us that this takes place in the Conference Centre - yesterday we were told that it would be in the Tabernacle. They’re not too far apart, but as it will still be round 30C the less walking we do the better.

Having had a quite substantial lunch we decided simply to share Anne’s tuna roll (large) for dinner which left us plenty of time to go back into the City.  We’d looked up the train times - which are every 15 mins throughout the whole day - we were able to see that the 6.09 was exactly on time so we were able to time our walk across to the station so that we didn’t have too long to wait in the heat (still 30c+).

When we got off the train there were noticeably large numbers of people going into Temple Square. Our entrance took us towards the Tabernacle and we saw long queues and a guide was pointing us to the end of the queue. We asked what the queue was for and he explained that it was to see the Choir. It turned out that our information was completely wrong and the rehearsals only move to the Conference Centre in July. We were a bit worried as by this time the queues were very long. However they soon started moving quite quickly as they were breaking the queue into sections and taking this sections into different entrances. As we got to the entrance we were asked if we would like to go up to the Balcony which we did, although we were warned it would get quite warm. In fact we went to the very back row at the very rear of the Tabernacle and were in the centre.

We had a very good view and later we were told by an ex-choir member that we were in the best possible place acoustically. People who’d rushed into the front at floor level might’ve had a closer view but the sound would’ve been nowhere near as good.

The fact that this was a ‘rehearsal’ showed up in three ways. Firstly, nobody minded if people entered and left during the performance. This happened quite a lot and it was noticeable that people with children left fairly early on and others simply didn’t want to stay for the whole thing. Secondly, neither the choir nor the orchestra were in ‘uniform’. The director explained that they were about to start on a tour and their uniforms were in fact already packed. Finally, the director asked that there be no applause in the first section of the concert and that we allow them to run straight through all the pieces.

The whole thing was wonderful. The concert last for something around two hours with just a ten minute interval. The first half was a series of some 13 pieces based on ‘The Old Hundred’. By contrast the second half was largely secular, ending up with a rousing version of 76 Trombones. It really was the highlight of the holiday.

When it ended there were two surprises. Firstly, it was still very warm. Secondly, we expected there to be enormous queues for the train, but there weren’t. It was difficult to identify anybody in our carriage who’d been at the concert. This was our final train ride and we got back to our hotel about 10pm. We shared a single banana and a beer, forgetting that we’d got more bananas in another bag!!