Blogging the London trip- Day 4

Two days of our trip (Wednesday and Thursday) were set aside primarily for out-of-London field trips. The first of these was to Bath, then Stonehenge, and finally Winchester Cathedral. It would mean a long day on the bus, since Bath is about two hours from London, situated right about on the western edge of the island. It doesn't overlook the various bodies of water that surround England but it is darned close.

On the ride out, our guide described the agriculture of the British countryside, especially the vast fields of bright yellow plants that are called rapeseed or canola. They are grown for export to make biofuels (canola oil) and currently comprise about 11% of the total acreage under cultivation, if I remember correctly.

The British countryside is absolutely beautiful. Seeing the tiny farms, diverse herds of sheep and cattle, hedge rows and expansive farmlands, it made me think of Tolkien's Shire. It didn't hurt that the weather was incredible, with clear blue skies and cool temperatures; there probably isn't any better way to see the land, unless it's flying over it in a small plane (one of my favorite ways to see landscapes).

If the country is beautiful, Bath is ten times more so. The town lies atop a natural hot mineral water spring; per our guide, the water down in the depths has been there for about 80,000 years and is making its way up through some very hot subterranean spaces. We hopped off the bus and had about two hours to view the ruined Roman resort and wander the town before embarking for our next destination.

Bath was built by Roman occupiers who found the hot springs and decided to make a spa. The construction was elaborate, making great use of the Romans' legendary skill as engineers, and enjoyed considerable popularity until the Romans retreated from England. Once that happened, the natives lacked the skills necessary to maintain the buildings, and they slowly fell into ruin and collapsed atop the springs.

Hundreds of years later (12th century, I believe?), a bishop rediscovered the springs and created a resort for himself. It became popular quite awhile later, when Queen Anne was recommended to the hot springs to ease a chronic discomfort. That assured its rise as a place to be, such that the nobles built elaborate houses for themselves and the townfolk prospered.

Bath fell into decline with the ebb of its popularity, but enjoyed a third rebirth when the Roman ruins were found and excavated in the 19th century. Nowadays, the town enjoys a thriving tourist business, trading on its great natural beauty and history. Tours of the Roman baths are fascinating, and though they tell you not to touch the water fresh from the springs, you do anyway. (It's hot--not scalding but warmer than you'd think.) In the Pump Room, you can actually drink the water... which tastes like hot mineral water. No surprise, hm?

We wandered the streets for awhile. The Starbucks in town made one of the best peppermint mochas I'd ever had, and Kat loved shopping in the maze of streets, side streets and alleyways that comprise downtown Bath. We thought about going to Jane Austen's home but that would have been a trip beyond our temporal means-- we would have had maybe five minutes in the building before having to run back to the bus, which is not enough. We settled for buying postcards.

Once back on the bus, we headed for Stonehenge. Our guide gave us the story of the structure, which is the third and last of three great cycles of construction. The most ambitious, apparently, was the second one, wherein the handful of locals carted stone from Wales (about 300-350 miles away) without the use of wheels. Think about that, hauling multi-ton stones that distance. Let's say this: they were motivated.

Stonehenge may not be vast in size but, considering it was built using Bronze Age (or maybe Iron Age) technology, was torn up to scavenge stone by latter-day locals, and yet has lasted about 2500 years, that isn't bad at all. Kat and I, needless to say, were greatly impressed.

Not so much with Winchester Cathedral, our final stop of the day. We didn't pay to go inside, but instead glanced in the vestibule and then walked around the town for a bit. Kat did a little clothes shopping, then we were on the road back to London. We got off at Knightsbridge and busied ourselves with finding a place to eat (which proved to be a challenge). Ultimately we found a tapas place, then bought souvenirs and headed home by way of Pall Mall (taking a peek at 10 Downing Street), the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge and then along the Embankment.

We were ready to crash by 11pm that night, having had an exceptionally busy day.

Blogging the London Trip- Day 3

If memory serves, Tuesday was the day we walked our feet off.

We stayed in London, having no official tour activities but a day of leisure instead. So we made our way around London and saw... pretty much everything.


Our first foray out was a walk to Westminster Abbey. It's about a fifteen minute walk from our hotel. We headed out and paid the ten pounds price of admission (the museums are mostly free but the cathedrals charge admittance during non-worship hours to cover their expenses). The place is staggering in size and roomy, despite being the final resting place of a colossal number of people. I think you could fill a small stadium, honestly. The Abbey also boasts enormous cenotaphs and memoria to great individuals of British history-- Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill and many more have large plaques celebrating their lives and contributions.


Our next stop was the British Museum. A selection of major "ooh" moments:

• a crystal skull (referenced in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, no less);
• an amazing Egyptian exhibit;
• the Elgin Marbles (a collection of Greek marble statuary, most of it in fragments, retrieved from the Parthenon and various sites);
• a collection of books and curiosities compiled by the museum's chief patron, Edward III (IIRC); and
• some remarkable items from around the globe including a massive totem pole and Assyrian sphinxes.

We had a late lunch at the museum, then pushed on to the British Library (which is a moderate walk distant). This was a treasure trove, really. The new complex is only about ten years old or so, completely modern, and packed with stuff to see. Our chief goal was the Treasures of the British Museum room (aka the Sir Ritblat Collection), which includes:

• one of four surviving copies of the Magna Carta (and the only one with a vestige of the royal seal), including a copy of the baronial grievances letter that led to Magna Carta;
• one of two surviving copies of the first time Beowulf was written down;
• pages from Leonardo daVinci's notebook;
• a letter from Lewis Carroll discussing his literary Alice;
• the journal of Captain Cook;
• letters from Charles Darwin on his theory of evolution;
• a display of Beatles memorabilia, including handwritten lyrics to "Help!," "Hey Jude" and more;
• and LOTS of other stuff.

If you go to London (or already live in/near there), you absolutely must see this display. You owe it to yourself to see these foundations of our (Anglo-American) civilization.

We then went to Kings Cross/St Pancras Station. Since it was late afternoon by this point, we figured we'd grab an early dinner. We thought we were in the place where they'd filmed part of Harry Potter (the train scenes), but that was obviously the other station. Ah well. Maybe next time.

Next was a walking tour (courtesy of London Walks) of pubs in central London. Being cash-poor by then, we tried to find a Barclays ATM but there were none around (which was aggravating); we hiked along with our tour group and our grim spirits soon lifted as we drank as much as we could afford. We hit a series of pubs, including the Old Bank of England (which was converted from a bank to a pub after WWII-- the Crown Jewels were kept in that building during the War). We saw a bit of the City of London, via Fleet Street, and heard many stories about the legendary journalism wars that are now history. Our tour ended near the home of Dr. Samuel Johnson and one of the pubs he was said to have visited.

After that, it was about 10pm and time to head home. We had to hurry, since the Victoria (Tube) Line was scheduled to close at 10pm for ongoing maintenance... and that was the only Tube near our hotel. Took some jogging and some prayer, but we made it onto the last train, got to Vauxhall Station, and headed home, footsore but exhilarated from a wealth of new experiences and sights.

Blogging the London Trip- photos!

Kat added our photos to her Facebook page, so let me share some links.
There are seven sets of photos:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Take a look, enjoy and comment away! (BTW, a couple of them are misidentified; see if you can find them before I fix the mistakes! It's a game the whole world can play!)

Blogging the London Trip- Day 2

A quick count reveals that Kat and I took about 900 pictures while in London. Clearly, this blog is NOT the place to view all of them. I will try to add in pictures this weekend (sorry, got home way too late last night to do much blog-enhancing), so apologies if you're keen to see what we saw.

Anyway, day 2...

We got up early (being still on East Coast time) and got downstairs for the continental breakfast. Didn't take us long to tear through cereal, fruit and cold cuts, believe me. The coffee was singularly bad.

Our tour activity of the day was a half-day trip through Westminster. This is what most folks think of when the words "West End" are thrown around, but it was originally a separate city from London and the home of the royal family. Greater London (as the sprawling metropolis is called, if you want to be technically accurate) swallowed up Westminster and various tributary villages and towns a long time ago. Nowadays Westminster is where you'll find:

• Buckingham Palace
• The Houses of Parliament
• Westminster Abbey (name sort of says it all, doesn't it?)
• Big Ben
• 10 Downing Street
• Hyde Park
• and lots and lots more

The great benefit of taking tours is learning a bit of a place's history. Our guide for the day, Rosemary, offered something on nearly every street corner we passed. Kat kept busy snapping pictures and noting key locations (among them, Barclays, which charged us no ATM fees).

We saw part of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, rode past the cavalry barracks and stables (which have their own changing ceremony), got out at the Abbey and wandered a little, then rode back through Knightsbridge and got off near Harrods. We had a disagreement over what to do with the afternoon-- our choice consisted mostly of going on the afternoon tour of the City of London (which includes the Tower of London) or going our own way. Kat didn't care about seeing the Tower, so we ended up wandering in the West End.

We grabbed lunch at Sainsbury's, a local grocery chain, buying sandwiches and chocolate "pastilles" (buttons) and eating at Harrods. After that, we wandered through Harrods for awhile and Kat got to see where I bought her the first present I gave her (a black scarf).

We then headed for Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Kat figured we might be able to have tea in the Orangery of Kensington Palace. Walking through Hyde Park, we had some of our sandwiches left over, so we thought we would toss crumbs to the pigeons, ducks and geese nearby.

Foolish mistake.

Once they knew food was being distributed freely, the geese came up... closer and closer... until we were virtually mugged. Kat and I discarded what we had left and made--not quite a run for it but a brisk walk, leaving the geese honking and waddling along behind us.

We joked that we could have been the first American tourists murdered by geese in "yet another tragic bird-feeding related incident." The BBC headline really writes itself.

Moving along, we crossed into Kensington Gardens, the vast lawns encircling the palace where Princess Diana made her home. It was a royal dwelling until Buckingham Palace was complete (and Queen Victoria became the first monarch to live there); since then, it's housed members of the royal family and currently features an exhibit of Diana's signature fashions, as well as a circular fountain-and-watercourse dedicated to "the people's princess" and a commemorative walking path.

Our goal was the Peter Pan statue that I didn't find back in 2001. Sure enough, we found it on the easternmost edge of the gardens, overlooking the Serpentine (a twisting lake that forms the border between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens). It's quite impressive. We watched visitors feed the squirrels (who were uncommonly bold, even for us who are used to Washington squirrels); a fellow there fed birds and squirrels from his hand.

I'll have to ask Kat where we had dinner that night. Still, Monday was quite a busy day for our visit to London. Expect this post to be revised (significantly) once I lock down or remember some key details...

And We're Back!

Kat and I got home from London around 1:45am Sunday morning, exhausted but very happy to see our kittens (who seemed disoriented at being woken up so early in the morning). They've hardly left us alone since then.

In brief: London was incredible. I'll be posting a day-by-day of our trip, now that Kat is working on uploading the many, many pictures we took, so stay tuned for that. However, in the meantime, here's a short run down of the coolest things we did or saw while there:

1) Stratford-upon-Avon. My #1, definitely, was seeing Shakespeare's birthplace. It has a kind of mythic resonance to it and was a must-see for Kat even more than me... but it was my favorite stop on the trip. (BTW, "avon" means river so "upon Avon" translates as "upon the river"... which happens to be named Avon.)
2) British Library. Their "treasures" room is absolutely not to be missed, for its manuscripts and its music. A Gutenberg Bible, one of two first-ever print copies of Beowulf, pages from Leonardo daVinci's notebooks, hand-written lyrics to classic Beatles tunes by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and--oh yeah--one of four surviving copies of the Magna Carta. Mindblowing.
3) Hanging out with Mike Carey. One of the nicest guys we know, Mike was exceptionally gracious about our 45-minute lateness and made our first day in London unforgettable, just by sitting to chat in a favorite pub.
4) Notting Hill and Portobello Market. We did a walking tour on our last day (Saturday) and absolutely loved it. We saw a bunch of sights featured in "the movie" (as our guide Richard called it), including the travel book shop owned by Hugh Grant's character. We also learned where a lot of the scenes were shot, most of which were not in Notting Hill at all. And you really can find just about anything in Portobello Road...

More later, plus pictures!

Offline this week

Hey folks,
Just to let you know, Kat and I leave for London tonight. It'll be our long-delayed honeymoon (we'll spend our third anniversary in Bath/Stonehenge), so that's very exciting.
Take care and we'll be back a week from tomorrow!
Drew