On our way home

Well after a crazy few weeks (and an even more insane past 36 hours) we are on our way home - we are currently in NYC and waiting for our 10:45pm flight out of here. Thanks for all your comments - see you all soon!!

London in a nutshell

Today has been a crazy day! We got up at 7:30, got ready and headed out to Paddington Station to catch the underground to Piccadilly Circus. By the time the train reached our destination it was 9:55 and our walking tour left at 10, so we had to run to make it as it was about 10 blocks away! Luckily we made it there with a few moments to spare, and we took the opportunity to catch our breath before embarking on the 2 hour tour.

The tour was amazing! We started from Trafalgar Square and headed to Waterloo Place. Here we heard about the battle of Waterloo and George Wellington's late nights at the Gentleman's Club (there were two mounting blocks on the square that he had ordered to be put in place so that he could get on to his horse more easily after his nights out!). From there we went to see the statue of King George and then down onto The Mall - the major street heading down to Buckingham palace where all the processions are held. Our first major stop was St. James' Palace, the former official residence of Prince Charles. It was here that the first official part of the changing of the guard was to occur.

There was no one there when we arrived, other than a couple of police officers - but minutes later the first guard came out. He barked out an order, and the whole band of guards who were going off duty entered the courtyard. They played a couple of tunes and then presented the flag and began their march to the palace. We marched along side them up to the palace gates as the crowd grew larger and larger and then veered off to the left to take in a view across St. James' Park of the horse guards and top at Wellington Barracks. Once again we were one of the first people there to view the second stage, the entry of the the new guards. A similar set up took place - with the band playing a couple of songs and then the flag being brought out and them marching out past us to the palace. This was a guest regiment of the Royal Air Force, so they were not wearing the red uniform or the bearskin headdress - instead they had what looked like a marine corps uniform with the addition of a light blue beret. Again we marched along with them to the palace gates, the crowd was insane! A police officer told us that the crowd had been gathering since before 7:30am (the changing of the guard was at 11:30) and that there were over 5,000 people there. We stayed back on the lawn where we could see the processions, but getting close was futile considering every gate was crammed. From there we walked down to the entrance to the Queen's Gallery and the Royal Mews (where the cars and horses are kept), and then we dispersed. It was a great tour, and we got a ton of really close-up photos of the guards!

Next we grabbed some brunch at a little cafe, and then walked back to the palace to take some photos of it, as we hoped it would be less crowded by this time. There were still alot of people hanging around on the grass and side gates, but the worst of the crowd had moved on, so we took some photos and then headed to Westminster Abbey. No camera's were allowed inside which was a bit of a disappointment, but it was enormous and beautiful. We saw the coronation chair - which is still used to this day to crown the King's and Queen's of England, and the tombs of many great King's and Queen's, as well as poet's corner where Geoffrey Chaucer, T.S. Elliot, Shakespeare and a host of others were honoured. It took us about an hour to walk through all the various chapel's and chambers, then we headed back to the underground to make our way to the Tower of London.

The Tower of London was bigger than you can even imagine.. the outer wall ran further than you could see, and inside were a whole host of Tower's and a second perimeter. The moat (though now empty) was wide and very deep, and there is talk of filling it back up as soon as the excavation work is completed. We walked through the original tower - The White Tower - which was built in 1097 and is the center of the complex, also the Beauchamp Tower, where the prisoners were held. Then we went through the Bloody Tower where the two Prince son's of Edward IV disappeared mysteriously after being placed there by their uncle Richard III who was crowned later that year. By far the most impressive tower was the Jewel Tower where the crown's of past King's and Queen's were held as well as the Crown Jewel's and along with them the Sceptre with the cross which now contains the world's biggest diamond. I have never seen so many diamond's or so much gold! The crown's were breath taking in person and we went through several times!! We walked past Tower Green which was the execution site for prisoners such as Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard (two of Henry VIII's wives). Traitor's gate was not as visible from the inside as it had been from our cruise the day before, but we did take a look, and managed to be back up on the wall walk just in time to see the Tower Bridge raised for a procession of boats!

Next we went to the London Dungeons for a horror tour through the black plague, London fire (that destroyed over 80% of the city in 1666), jack the ripper (who was renowned for killing and butchering 5 prostitutes in 1888 and never caught) and Sweeney Todd (between him and his wife killed over 160 people people in his 'trap door' barber's chair in 1785), it was basically a very bloody version of a horror house - except that all the stories were true. Geoff even got to experience what it was like to be hung on a free fall ride!

Then it was a quick couple of stops over to the London Eye. It was pretty empty as it was dusky outside, so we went through the line fairly quickly and then took the 30 minute ride. It was pretty cool to see all the places we had been, and aerial views of Buckingham palace and the houses of Parliament gave you a better idea of how big they really were! It was great way to round up the day, and we headed back to the hotel at about 8:30pm ready to sleep!

The wheels on the bus go round and round

Well, Best Western has been a bit of a disaster - our first room was 27C (which is the equivalent of around 86F) and had no AC or fan, so we got moved, second room reeked of smoke (we had booked a non smoking room) so we moved again, third room seemed great until 6:30am when remodeling was being done on the room directly above our heads and the bed and window began to shake, we moved, our current room you cannot close the bathroom door and the shower leaks - but by this point we have given up!!!

Today we headed out to the tourist information office to find a tour bus. They were selling tickets to everything in the city, but we decided to by on an as visited basis since there was no discount and everything was $$$ ! We jumped on the big bus and headed to the roof - the basic tour was 2 hours, and the package included extra options for two walking tours and a river cruise from Westminster to the Tower of London. It was alot of fun, and there was so so much to see - we went past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, BA London Eye, Florence Nightingale's Museum, Lambeth Palace, Covent Garden, Royal Opera House, St. Paul's Cathedral, Swiss RE Tower, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Trinity Square Gardens, Marble Arch, Hard Rock Cafe, Trafalgar Square, the River Thames, and more! It was crazy to see so much and we were so overwhelmed! We rode half of it over again just to make sure we had seen it all!

Next we went on a river cruise on the River Thames from Westminster up to the Tower of London - it was a great way to see some of the huge buildings from a more visible point, as when you are too close you can't take them all in!! We also saw Cleopatra's Needle which was a column of hieroglyphics with a Sphinx either side... but they were facing the wrong way, because when they were set down no-one realized that they should be facing out, not in, and the cement had already dried by the time it was pointed out! At the Tower of London we walked around the outside and then since it was getting late we hopped on the underground back to Paddington and got some dinner before heading in to type this up!

Knight's and Royalty

We got up this morning and headed out to Canterbury, when we got there we did a little bit of shopping at Marks & Spencer. The center of town was really quite amazing as it was surrounded by old fort walls that were still higher than all the buildings and it had tower turrets every couple hundred yards! After shopping we walked up to the Cathedral - it was really big, and you could get quite lost in it. The resting place of Thomas Kent and the tomb of the Black Prince were held there, and it was so fun to walk around through all the chambers and various chapels. We left Canterbury at around 1pm and headed to Windsor.

Windsor Castle is ENORMOUS. There is no other word for it, if you haven't seen it, then you can hardly imagine its size, but it truly is just.... enormous. We walked up through the grounds, and made it to the chapel about 15 minutes before the admittance to it closed, and we were so glad we did! It was beautiful, so ornate and traditional. It was crazy to be walking where King's and Queen's have stood. We visited the burial tomb of King George and Elizabeth, and also Princess Anne. It was quite surreal to be staring at them. We continued on out of the tomb and onto the Dolls House display and the State rooms. The dolls house really should not be called a dolls house as it was the size of a small room!!! It had cars parked underneath and all the walls folded down, floors pulled out to unfold into yet more rooms and ceilings were painted with golf leaf, it was quite a sight! The state rooms were all very grand, we only walked through what was a small small portion of the castle, but it was easily the size of two large houses, and each room had so many things to look at that your head was spinning! Outfits, furniture, portraits, swords, shields, tapestries and so on. It was fabulous and by far the best castle we have visited!! We finally walked through the gardens and back down to King Henry's gate - where Geoff got his photo taken by a beefeater (guard). We came to the conclusion that he must be a guard in training as he was a little fidgety and kept running his drills. It was fun to watch though!

Now we are in London, we just had some great Chinese for dinner and we have checked into a very small room in a best western, and feel a little like we took a detour to Hong Kong or something!!!

Travelling back in time

Word of Warning - this may not make too much sense to the Americans reading this!

Today was a quick sweeping day through my past! I took Geoff to Marlborough first, which was the nearest town to where I grew up. It was pretty weird to see the old place's like Duck's toy shop (where we stopped in and bought a mini diabolo for old time's sake!), and the India Shop down by the duck pond! I bought a fountain pen in WHSmith's and poked my nose into Polly Tea Rooms. The fairy shop is gone, but Monsoon is still there by Woolworth's - it is all such a trip! We had lunch in Calne, and took a quick look into St. Mary's (my secondary school) and then headed to Avebury. We spent a while walking around Avebury stone circle, and watching two old hippie ladies 'be one with the stones' to try to 'absorb their power', it was freaky but very amusing watching them try to nestle into the nooks and crannies that they could find! Then we headed off to Pewsey - we turned down the wrong road by mistake and ended up in the West Woods - we decided to see if the old picnic spot I used to go to was still there, it was, and so we got out and took some pictures of the bluebells that were out in full bloom in the forest. Then it was back on the one lane road - we had a couple of close calls with the mail man, but Geoff worked out the pull-offs and we survived!

We went up to St. Francis school (my primary school) - it has added lots of new buildings and the old tennis court has turned into parking spaces which was kind of sad, but still interesting to see. We drove through past Martin's (the old news agents) and the best take-away Indian restaurant ever (okay so I am biased), and went up into the old Church to look around - it was pretty much the same except the pews were replaced with wooden chairs (sad!) Then we headed for Wooten Rivers to see Oak Cottage (the main house where I grew up.) The roads were much smaller than I remember, and it was an interesting drive... we stopped at the canal to take some photos of Geoff on the locks, and then parked by the house and walked down to the allotments. It was really weird to see because nothing has changed at all! Then we drove over to Bottle Farm (the house I lived in before I moved to the states), we went down the driveway but there were quite a few cars there and we didn't want to get yelled at so we took a quick peek through the hedge and moved on. (Mr. Vigor's is gone.) We went up past the white horse on the hill, and past Pewsey Vale riding center, and on back to Bath.

The reason we headed back to Bath is I found the piece of paper from Mum with the road names on it, so we wanted to make a last attempt to find my Great-Grandparent's grave. (We already had searched Haycombe cemetery and gone back the following day to the info. office to try to look it up with no success.) We followed the directions to the intersection written down, and found a little church called Bath Abbey, sure enough - there it was - I cleaned it up and arranged the flowers I had bought, spent some time there talking and then we headed towards Medway.

Lions, Tigers and Lords? Oh My!

We headed out early this morning to Longleat. We started off with the safari park and it was a ton of fun! Geoff was amazed that you could drive through all the cages, and we took our time making sure we spent long enough in each enclosure that the animals came close! We first went through where the giraffes, zebras and camels were kept, then onto the monkeys, rhinos, and deer (which we got to feed as they scrambled to get in the car window!). Then we went onto the tigers, unfortunately we couldn't get too close to these as they were three new ones from France and were in quarantine. Next were the lions - this was the best part, the male lions were all sleepy, but the females were playful and we came around a corner to see one jump into a tree, as we snapped photos we realized there were about 4 or 5 others in the tree already! We spent a good half an hour just watching them as we were parked right next to the tree. It was really cool, just like being on a real safari! Next we saw the wolves, flamingos, gazelles, and vultures, and then headed onto the next part of the park.

We took a safari boat along a river in the park and went past gorilla island to see their old silver-backed gorilla, at the same time a bunch of sea-lions were swimming along-side the boat begging for food. We went past a couple of sleepy hippo's and then headed back to shore.

Next we went to pets corner to take in the parrot show. This is where the 6 parrots show off their skills by talking, driving mini cars, rollerskating, playing basketball and a variety of other tricks! It was fun, and we got front row seats so the parrots were right up close! Then we headed onto the steam train ride around the house grounds, saw some pelicans and pretty gardens, this ended up at the butterfly house which we then walked through before heading to the old Joe's mine. This was something I don't remember from past visits, it may be new, or maybe I blocked it out... you walk into a room filled with fruit bats flying over your head and are told not to scream.. YUK. Needless to say we didn't spend too long in there and we jumped on the flight simulator on the way out to 'visit' gorilla mountain. Then we went to the hedge maze.. the largest hedge maze in the country, Geoff said he had heard you take all right turns to get out, he proceeded to do this and got out in under 10 minutes and then was disappointed so went back in to get lost!!!

Longleat house was our final stop, we walked around the big manor house and saw all the paintings and state rooms. It was mainly all pictures of Lord Bath, and not that interesting, but Geoff enjoyed seeing the staged rooms!

We started heading towards our hotel and on the way realized that we were 30 minutes from Stonehenge, so we made a quick detour to take a look around. It was nice as there were not too many people there as it was the end of the day, so we snapped some pictures and walked around, and then went to the hotel. We had some really awful Chinese food at a small place in town, and attempted to find somewhere to get online, but no-one's Internet was working.. we ended up spending $10 (5 pounds) for 15 minutes to jump online and book a hotel, then we came back to the hotel and are about to hit the hay for the night!

Scrub a dub dub

This morning we woke up a little late, so we headed straight to the Roman Bath's, it was a beautiful, we took an audio tour around all the chambers, and looked at the original baths, mosaics and statues. It is really amazing to see how much has survived! The bath's were right next to Bath Abbey, so we walked around that afterwards and then had lunch at a local cafe.

After lunch we jumped on the city sightseeing tour bus to see all the hot spots in bath including Pulteney Bridge, Royal Victoria Park, the Jane Austen Center, the Heritage Vaults, Prior Park, and the Royal Crescent. All of the parks were in full bloom and the buildings were gorgeous. We got off at Pulteney Bridge at the end of the tour to take some closer pictures and walk along the river bank. We stopped at an Internet cafe and booked our hotel for the evening and then headed out for the half hour drive to Frome to find it. Once we were there we discovered that the only place to eat was the restaurant hotel, so we ended up heading back to bath to grab some pizza - since neither of us was hungry for a big meal.

When we got back Geoff had a temperature and was not feeling well at all, so we pumped him full of water and sent him to bed with two aspirin. Luckily he is feeling better this morning, so we think it is just dehydration.