Salisbury questions

I'll have to read bout those bustling roads. Salisbury is very walkable, but it is a popular and busy place. If you want somewhere low key, you may want to consider Winchester.

I have no idea what he means by bustling roads. Salisbury is a nice town. It gets a lot of tourists due to the Cathedral and its proximity to Stonehenge.

He is talking about the accommodations in Salisbury being on bustling roads but since we are staying at an airbnb on a quiet road I was not concerned about that aspect.
I was more wondering if the town has a lot of fast moving traffic that makes it not as pleasant to walk around as a more low key place.
If anyone else has thoughts on this I would be interested to know.
Also, has anyone stayed in Salisbury before a flight from Heathrow the next day and how was that?

Salisbury is a city of 40000 people with a popular cathedral, other sites and is also the gateway to Stonehenge - it's busy with locals and visitors.

It's not low key but it's not amped up either.

You need to allow two hours to travel to the airport - unless your flight is very late in the day I would suggest staying at the airport the last night and get the travelling out of the way the evening before.

Easiest route to get to and from the airport is probably a bus to Woking then train from there - but other options might be better depending on exact time of travel

Salisbury has a busy ringroad - traffic heading through towards Devon and Cornwall. But that bypasses the city centre. It’s not a quiet village / it’s a small city with a busy market in the centre and lots going on, but it’s not like a racetrack or anything.

I was more wondering if the town has a lot of fast moving traffic that
makes it not as pleasant to walk around as a more low key place.

The tourist area of Salisbury is busy, but not fast moving traffic. It's a very walkable and pleasant city.

Sounds like a nice place for what we are looking for.

Busyness is fine, it is just frequent thick traffic we are trying to avoid.

If you take a look at a map of Salisbury, you’ll see a big road that runs up the eastern side and around the northern part. That is the A36, a really busy road - and I mean super busy with “frequent, thick traffic”, especially during summer holiday traffic. But you will barely notice it wandering around the bustling (with people) city centre.

See for yourself on Google Maps - Zoom down and look at the streets on streetview. The ring road is busy but the heart of the city is reasonably OK.

Salisbury was quite walkable and relaxed--or at least it was in 2000, and it was in February (!) so that's a while ago and very off-season. Distinctly remember enjoying the public market in the main square (boxes and boxes of really nice tea cups) and walking around the outside of the cathedral lit up at night.

I thought the city centre was pedestrianised. The Close around the Cathedral is a lovely place to drop out.