Well, as Bokonon said, “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God”. So as a result of the usual mix of misconceptions and coincidences, we’ve got the house-sitter to stay in the house when we’re gone, and the ladies and I are going to England. The ladies, in this case, are my gorgeous ex-fiancée and our daughter, she’s 21. They’ve been to England before, but I’ve always travelled in the third world, never made it to the land of my ancestors, or at least some of them.
In any case, here’s the current travel plan, subject as always to time, as in “time yet for a hundred indecisions. And for a hundred visions and revisions. Before the taking of a toast and tea.”
We arrive in London on Monday the second of September, and we’ll be there for four days, ’til Thursday. Then a week or so to drive up the west coast of the island, and another week or so to go across and drive down the east coast.
Anyhow, that’s the scheme. If you happen to live along that route and wanted to say hi, post your town and where it’s near, maybe a few words about yourself. If we happen to go by there, all I can say is we MAY get in touch … or not. Heck, once I get to London, I may never make it out of the city much, who knows? I just attempt to follow the dancing lessons, but it’s generally not as simple as when you have the dance steps painted on the floor …
Best to all,
w.
Lots of good recommendations and I’ll need to get around to see some of them now!
I would recommend Stratford-on-Avon. Get a walking tour if you can. If you go for some culture, make sure you read the details. My dearly beloved treated me to Othello in German to a Jazz theme on our last trip! (it was surprisingly understandable).
Cumbria/Lake District is lovely and there is good beer (Jennings Cumberland Ale is my favorite). If you want someplace quiet for a restful break, The Wasdale Head Inn on the west side of the Lake District is very quiet although the decor is ‘national park functional.’ There is a microbrewery there. Nearby is Ravenglass and Muncaster Castle which has lovely gardens and the view is magnificent.
Other places: Hadrian’s wall is excellent if you like history. Edinburgh is fantastic. I loved Cornwall (if you like sculpture there is a small Barbara Hepworth(?) museum in St Ives so you can some culture. Tintagel was beautiful and it was a cold misty day when we were there. I really liked Warwick Castle. Fountains Abbey is beautiful but Bolton Abbey is almost as good (if it is more convenient).
Bon Voyage!
“the ladies and I are going to England….. Then a week or so to drive up the west coast of the island,”
Is Florida an island? No. And neither is England. Have a look at a map. Data, dear boy, data.
And Luther Wu, James Herriot was a Scotsman.
On matters nautical it’s worth adding, to those ships altready mentioned (Victory,Belfast, Mary Rose), the Cutty Sark in Greenwhich (London) and the Great Britain in Bristol ( another great place for fans of engineering). Have a great trip.
And when you are driving up the west coast of ‘England’ you will find that an awkward bump gets in your way. it’s called Wales.
For me:
In the South, Stonehenge is great and world famous, but Avebury is better becuase you can touch the stones. And one of our greatest cathedrals is at Salisbury – still the tallest spire in England at over 400 ft, foundations laid in 1220 AD. Everything here is old – the church in my village was built in 1465, at Breamore up the road it was 980 Ad. And there are others older.
West Country fantastic – Maybe Tintagel for history, Cornwall.
Don’t forget Dorest – Thomas Hardy Country, but also famous Geology of Jurassic Coast. Lyme Regis was mentioned, but also look out for Lulworth Cove with famous geology. And near Dorchester try a walk up Maiden Castle, 4,000 year old hill fort fortifed from the chalk downland.
Going North, Yorkshire Dales are beautiful, Lake District is beyond comparison – check out Wordsworth, Beatrix Potter. Our mountains are small, but perfectly formed.
An that’s just England, you have Wales, Scotland.
From Bernd Felsche on September 2, 2013 at 8:58 am:
This should be of interest to drivers in the EU:
70 mph = 113 kph
Just wait until they start doing “regional carbon emission limits”, and a model determines a roadway may soon exceed its allotment so it forces all vehicles to slow down to the calculated speed limit.
The satellite (GPS) option will likely be favored, because then they can automatically know if you are breaking any traffic laws. Are you speeding, making an illegal turn, not making a full stop, even without knowing it? The ticket is in the mail. To beat it, just prove you weren’t driving your own vehicle. Good luck with that.
As found in the Northeast US where they have the EZ-Pass vehicle transponder system for automatic tool road payments, the authorities love when they can automatically make money. (Between entering and leaving road was this amount of time, distance was that, average speed above limit, pay up sucker.)
We all make technical mistakes, above limit going down a hill, forgot to signal a turn, etc. The authorities will have to exercise some restraint or they’ll penalize practically all drivers off the road.
But if you speak out against the EU bureaucracy, don’t be surprised when several months of “deferred” tickets show up, you are rightfully penalized out of driving for life, and they justifiably seize all your assets to pay down your mountain of fines. Why were you such a careless driver?
Willis,
Enjoy! Have a few Taliskers in the bar JRR Tolkein frequented (Oxford, Cambridge, whatever – I had a few too when I visited). Also St. James Park in London has a fantastic bunch of exotic waterfowl in unconfined areas.
Looking forward to return. Maybe we can find another topic to argue about beyond “models”.
Conrad
Someone already mentioned Hampton Court ( http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace ) which is a walk across Bushy Park ( http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/bushy-park/map-of-bushy-park ) from where I live. (35 minutes by train from Waterloo Station in the heart of London.) I endorse the advice given above to get an Oyster Card while in London to pre-pay for all busses, trains and tubes (underground trains) ( https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do. ) I would also endorse the view that you not spend too long there if you want a “true and fair view” of this sceptred isle.
If you do visit Warwick Castle (North of Oxford on the M40) ( http://www.warwick-castle.com ) you are next door to Stratford ( http://www.stratford-upon-avon.co.uk ) home of all things Shakespeare. You can easily do both in a day especially as the kids are now back at school.
Off motorways you will average 30mph. On motorways the limit is 70mph and the median speed is nearer 80mph! Now I’m not suggesting…just be aware.
Welcome.
conrad says: (September 2, 2013 at 3:29 pm)
“the bar JRR Tolkein frequented (Oxford, Cambridge, whatever”
Oxford – JRR was a Professor at Merton where TS Eliot (quoted above by Wills) studied 30 years earlier. (and by coincidence JRR was married in Warwick which I mention above – I like it when that happens.)
Late adds: Bath, The Greenwich Observatory, The Cotswolds, Swindon (home of the Magic Roundabout), …..
Dear Willis,
You can’t go wrong touring in England. Everywhere you look is something worth seeing.
I would be interested in your comments on the wind farms covering the countryside.
May I suggest that on your east coast touring, you get up past York and have a look at Castle Howard, and Whitby? Whitby is where Captain James Cook did his apprenticeship, so every blue-water sailor should have a look at Whitby and the Captain Cook Museum there.
I know you will enjoy yourself; all best wishes.
And remember to keep you perspective on things–we have people here (USA) who get all up in arms about saving some old wreck of a building because it is 200 years old.
There are, I think, people there living in houses that have not been painted in 200 years.
Many recurrent themes here:
-Cornwall, The Lake District and the Peak District are rightly lauded for being beautiful. As is Yorkshire and the Cotswolds; but not Hull.
-Warwick Castle and Straford-upon Avon are near each other and essential for the history buffs.
-The museums of London are great and the British Muesum has been highlighted by me and numerous others.
-Surprising amount of love for Whitby.
-Avebury is worth the visit (As is all the other neolithic stuff in the area) – it’s bigger and more accessable than Stonehenge.
-Bath (although very expensive imho) has many praises for being worth visiting.
-Lots of recommendations saying go to a pub. Just be wary, the speed limit on motorways is not rigourously enforced but the drink and drive limits are.
Larry Sheldon says:
September 2, 2013 at 4:54 pm
Late adds: Bath, The Greenwich Observatory, The Cotswolds, Swindon (home of the Magic Roundabout), …..
No, no and thrice no!! The first three are fine but Swindon???
Trust me, I lived there for 10 years and it’s not worth visiting just for the Magic Roundabout. The best things about Swindon are the plentiful roads leading away from it, into the glorious Wiltshire (and Gloucestershire) countryside.
Well, you see the problem is, you see, roundabouts are rare and well beyond the ability of people here to cope, so places like Milton Keynes are amazing and I didn’t learn of the existence of Swindon until I returned home and now it must reside for the rest of time as a place I wish I had seen but never will.
“conrad says: (September 2, 2013 at 3:29 pm)
“the bar JRR Tolkein frequented (Oxford, Cambridge, whatever””
The Eagle and Child (Bird and Baby) and The Lamb are both in St Giles Road Oxford. Stand right at the corner of Magdalene Street (“maudlin'” if you need to ask) and Beaumont Street where the Randolph hotel is. Right down Magdalene St goes to the shops, lefy down Beaumont is the Ashmolean Museum St Giles is Across the road and along…
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My uncle used to say that the Irish gave the Scots the bagpipe……………………
And they haven’t gotten the joke yet.
(ducking)
Ice-Nine describes the perfect tipping point
Hi Willis:
Last August my wife and I joined our son in the UK for 10 days when he finished his summer internship in London. Some of our highlights:
British Museum (in London)–Rosetta stone, Egyptology, fascinating room dedicated to Money.
Boat trip from London to the Greenwich observatory
Cambridge: Explore the colleges including lots of small topical museums. Guided tour “punting on the Cam”
Ely Cathedral–For a fee you can take a guided tour climbing up one of the towers. Incredible architecture, artwork, and winding stone stairways not for the claustrophobic.
Edinburgh–we were there at festival time (August) but we also enjoyed exploring the “Royal Mile” with the Castle at one end and Holyrood Palace at the other, The history is so thick you can cut it with a knife. We were fortunate to see the Royal Military Tattoo, but I think that only runs through August.
Enjoy your trip!
Willis:
If you are a fan of the 60’s TV series “The Prisoner”, check out Portmeirion Village in Wales, where the series was filmed. If we had had a few more days in the UK, I would have dragged my wife and son there.
Willis, you’d obviously better extend your stay to 3 months at least.
If you do enough miles in the UK you will soon come across one of our modern tourist attractions, the average speed camera.
Alba says:
September 2, 2013 at 1:44 pm
If I’d said “the island of England”, Alba you’d be right. But I didn’t … I said “the island”, meaning “the island where England currently resides”.
Learn to read, “dear boy”, learn to read … and stop being so damn patronizing. It’s unpleasant enough when you are right … but as in this case when you are wrong, it’s intolerable and makes you look like a prissy nitpicking jerkwad.
w
My thanks to everyone, well, except for Alba, for their comments. Note that I have a new post up here. As several folks have said, if I had three months instead of three weeks it still wouldn’t be enough …
Regards to all,
w.
Apparently the alba troll did not survive the filters, but while I was checking to see, I saw mention as if surprised at Germanic names–I thought there was some agreement that the Angles and the Saxons where descendants of Germanic tribes and that a lot of the various royals spoke German,
And the folks here in the flatlands of the US of A have solved the turn-signals-windshield wipers thing–they use neither. Ever.
The best way to get around and avoid the various road and parking revenue operations is to use the trains, although if you are a claustrophobe or taller than a horse that can be a bother.
Quinn gives good advice – Portmeirion is well worth visiting. It’s an eccentrics vision of a perfect (fake) village in a perfect location and has a magical quality. It’s a challenge to take a photograph from any location (looking in any direction) that doesn’t look designed to please the eye. Somehow the place looks as though nature has spawned it – as though it had grown out of the landscape.