vacation (part 1)
May. 7th, 2012 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eorSummary:
Thursday: arrival, Covent Garden (somewhat), Foyles, exhaustion
Friday: The tower of London, meeting Kryptyd
Saturday: Bletchley Park, indian at Paddington, train to BOA, curry at BOA
Sunday: Tithe Barn, Farleigh Hungerford Castle, something like 9 miles
Monday: Portsmouth, HMS Warrior and HMS Victory
Tuesday: walk to Bath 9.9 miles, roman Baths and abbey, walk around Bath 2.2miles
Wednesday: bookstore, clotted cream shake, antique store
Thursday: Market day, teashop, Trowbridge, Sospan_fach & S.
Friday: tea shop, Sospan_fach & S, Cross Guns and cider
Saturday: train to Paddington, tube from Paddington to Heathrow, Heathrow to Logan, Logan to Portland, Portland to home, supper
Our time in England was wet. In the 10 days we were there, it rained for, you got it, 10 days. When we arrived they were talking about hosepipe bans. By the time we left London the Metro paper had a headline about two month's rain falling in two days. I will refrain from talking about the extreme humidity except where it moves the story along. Assume all subsequent scenes are separated by cuts of people running from doorway to doorway in lashing rain, steady rain, or drizzle.
Thursday found us quite tired, since it was a continuation of Wednesday. We got delayed on the tarmac so we ended up at the end of a huge line going through customs. It took us two hours to get out of the airport and headed into the city. After checking at the hotel to find they wouldn't let us in early or hold our bags we dropped the bags at St. Pancras and headed for Covent Garden.
The day was a challenge because it was a combination of not wanting to sit down for fear of falling asleep, being dehydrated, and being wet. We went to Covent Garden, but didn't stay very long because we wanted to find someplace to eat that didn't involve standing up or signing into indentured servitude. We made the mistake of setting out for Foyles bookstore, with the idea that we'd find someplace nearby there to eat. The problem was that the streets of Soho are like roads in New England. We managed to circle the block we wanted to be on, eventually. We did eventually arrive at Foyles, gave it a cursory go through (only got three books and touched on just two of the six stories of books), then went down the street a couple blocks to the Porcupine Pub (just because they have a big etched Porcupine on their door). The food there was good and it was such a wonderful feeling to sit down, eat, and watch the people walk by on the street. From there we walked all the way back up to check into the hotel, then back to St. Pancras for the bags, then back to the hotel, shower, collapse.
Friday started with a traditional English breakfast, then a trip to The Tower of London. My advice on The Tower is to take a full day on this.
There is a lot there and it is probably best to see half, sit down for lunch in the cafe, then see the other half. We did not go in to see the crown jewels, but saw much of the rest of the Tower.
The Tower was built and rebuilt over the course of hundreds of years, so it's an architectural hodgepodge. Sitting in the moat is something that just shouldn't be missed, because it's sitting in a moat! But also it provides a great vantage of the West side wall and the buildings, which illustrate the point clearly. The sections of different stone and brick are clearly visible. Once inside the number of details to be observed could throw the unwitting into a architectural coma.
The White Tower contains a huge collection of weaponry and armor. My two favorite bits where the stash of weapons in the basement and the dragon on the top floor. The dragon is a work of art constructed of weapons and armor. It really has to be seen in person to be appreciated (http://www.royalarmouries.org/visit-us/tower-of-london/power-house/dragon). Some of the rooms of the basement are lined with different types of weapons ranging from cannon (on the floor) to riffles and pikes (on the walls). Also of note was a silver flintlock mace, which certainly solves that problem of "what do I do when I've fired my one shot, ask the enemy to pause while I reload?"
One of my favorite parts of The Tower was the ravens. These are birds that are pampered and have the royal attitude that shows it. While we were nearby, one of the staff gave a raven a hard boiled egg. It was great to watch the bird sitting proudly with the egg in his beak, then drop it and peal the egg before eating it. The ravens are not frightened of people in the least. In fact, this raven when surround by school children just hopped straight toward the middle of them, the crowd parted and he hopped down the open path, like Moses parting the waters. I really adored these spoiled birds with their curmudgeonly calls and fearless attitudes.
After The Tower we walked across the Tower Bridge and gazed upstream at the HMS Belfast, which was not open for visitors. On the other side of the bridge we found a pub that provided refreshment and a nice dry place to sit, both most welcome. This wasn't the pub where we were to meet Kryptyd., but it was nearby. After regaining some energy back we went off to meet up with Kryptyd. We had a nice pub supper with her although, being Friday after work, the place was packed. After that we walked up to the Millennium Bridge along the river, seeing the Golden Hind on our way. Then we retraced our steps back to the Tower Bridge, across to the north side of the river, then up to Whitechapel to meet up with Kryptyd's M, at the Anarchist Center, which was packed because they had live music and beer.
We ended up getting home somewhere around midnight and after packing most of our cloths, got to bed by 1am, I think.
Saturday we got up early so that we could get down to Euston station in good order, check out bags in, and get breakfast before catching our train. It was an hour ride up to Bletchley and the timing was just about perfect, we arrived a few minutes before opening time. The walk between the train station and Bletchley Park is just a few minutes. A kindly security guard told us we couldn't go in yet, but we were welcome to sit on the steps of one of the buildings in the sunshine.
Bletchley Park feels at once amazing and underwhelming. So much of our modern world was shaped by what the people at Bletchley Park were doing, but much of what is presented feels thrown together. The Park has struggled against history and is only now coming into its own. It's obvious that they are making progress and I expect it will continue to evolve. Much of the source material was destroyed at the end of WWII as highly secret, but no longer needed. Most of the buildings were built as temporary and the name "huts" fits. Many of them are still in pretty rough shape. Many of the displays are simple posterboard with text and pictures.
One of the huts houses an interesting series on Ian Flemming's role in the intelligence service and another contains displays on the capture of one of the enigma machines from a u-boat and women's roles in spying.
The building that houses the Colossus requires a separate 1 pound entrance fee, but is well worth it. That building contains a real step by step view of how the brute force attacks were carried out against the communications between land based stations.
Two unfortunate things about our trip to Bletchley: 1) I had only allocated a bit over three hours and to go through the exhibits it takes a full day at least 2) the National Museum of Computing was not open the day were were there.
All too soon it was back to London to pick up our bags at Euston. Then we walked from Euston to Paddington, which turned out to be a fair walk in its own, but the weather was favorable. The last two blocks of the approach to Paddington turned into a culinary disneyland, with lots of delightful choices. We chose an Indian restaurant and had a sumptious meal: tea, the most wonderful pappadums ever, tandori chicken, tandori lamb, and chicken tikka appetizer, main course of lamb madras, and another cup of tea for desert. The train ride to Bath, then onward to Bradford-on-Avon (BOA) was smooth and quiet.
We were greeted at the station by Cyberquail and walked through the town and up the hill to the cottage. Now a word about BOA: It's a mostly residential town straddling the river in a steep valley. The downtown is a couple blocks and the remainder is wandering streets lined with houses of varying age. This isn't the bustling market town of Skipton where we stayed before. It felt more gentrified. But if you want a quiet place to hang out in easy distance to the attractions of the southwest, it is a good location.
Our cottage was originally a pair of one up/one down apartments that was combined into a kitchen, sitting room, add on entry and bath on the first floor. On each end of the first floor stairs led up to one of the two bedrooms. As you might expect, all the spaces were small by American standards, but more than adequate for vacationing. The kitchen provided a bit of a challenge because it had three doors and the dining table, which didn't leave much room for actually cooking.
Cyberquail had prepared a lamb curry and briryani for supper. So shortly after arriving we sat down for another grand meal, fell into a food coma, then shortly to bed.
Sunday we started with a full English breakfast at a place just a block from the bridge. Then made our leisurely way to the tithe barn (which may or may not have actually been for tithe, but most certainly was a barn). The tithe barn has wonderful curved rafters and is a treat for people interested in building methods. From there we walked through park and along the canal until reaching Avoncliff, where we crossed the river and railroad tracks on a bridge that carried the canal. Yes, boats floating over the railroad and the river. It's quite a trippy bit of construction.
From there we took a walk up to a country church and peeped in at it's adjacent manor before continuing on to Farleigh Hungerford. While at the church we got our first glimpse ot the white horse near Trowbridge, which was an unexpected delight. At Farleigh Hungerford there are the ruins of a castle. We toured the castle, which was torn down and the stones were used to make a new house! But though the walls and almost everything else were gone, the castle's sewer system, such as it was, remained functional. Plumbers have always known what runs down hill.
We wandered back via a different route that took us past Iford Manor and instead of going back along the canal from Avoncliff we walked back through the adjacent park, a parallel but muddier path. The premium find in going back via this route was live willow constructions that are underway. The first we encountered was a circle of willows planted on the diagonal so the wall looked like XXXXX. Then a little further on we came to a classical labyrinth made of woven willows. So far the woven part of the willows only reaches a couple of feet high, but the willows extend about 6 feet above that (and were due for another weaving because they were starting to flop about). In the same field was a made pond with lilypads and a few other plantings. We continued back to BOA coming up the river into the center of town. Total walking for this day was somewhere around 9 miles, not counting the walking around town.
On Monday we got up and out fairly early en route to Portsmouth and the naval museum there. By the time we arrived full downpour mode was on so we scurried quickly to get tickets and get into our first ship, the HMS Warrior. The Warrior had a brief career, it was a steam/sail hybrid and technology was moving quickly when it was built. Taking a tour of it was a real treat, though, because they have all the decks open to the public, with the vast majority of the areas set out as it would have been when in operation. You can wander and take your time looking at little tiny bits and big huge bits, walking amongst the guns, the mess tables, all the way to the boilers. The carpenters area was still in active use by a carpenter making repairs on the ship.
From the Warrior we went forth to the HMS Victory. The Victory was more structured, with an allowed path and many cordoned off areas. But also many more people in a smaller space, so you can't really blame them for wanting to get people in and back out again. The contrast between the Warrior (1860) and the Victory (1759) is immediately apparent upon stepping into the latter. The Victory has significantly lower ceilings! There wasn't as much effort done in presentation on the Victory with the exception of the Admirals quarters, which looked fully fitted out.
Among other things we got to see at the naval museum was a steam motor launch, I've always wanted to see one of those for real, because they come up in books. We also got to tour through exhibits talking about the shipyard workers' professions and tools. We didn't have time to go across the river to the submarine museum. In order to do that and go up the spinnacker you'd definitely need a second day. We did have time to get some delicious lunch at a pub across the street from the shipyard. They had minted lamb burgers. Yum.
Tuesday To Friday (continued in the next part)
Saturday morning we got up early to catch a fairly early train BOA to Bath Spa, Bath Spa to London Paddington, tube from Paddington to Heathrow, lunch at Heathrow after getting through security. A trouble free flight of just over six hours. Almost an hour waiting for a bus to Portland, two hours to Portland. Twenty minutes drive from Portland to Freeport. Supper, exhaustion.
Thursday: arrival, Covent Garden (somewhat), Foyles, exhaustion
Friday: The tower of London, meeting Kryptyd
Saturday: Bletchley Park, indian at Paddington, train to BOA, curry at BOA
Sunday: Tithe Barn, Farleigh Hungerford Castle, something like 9 miles
Monday: Portsmouth, HMS Warrior and HMS Victory
Tuesday: walk to Bath 9.9 miles, roman Baths and abbey, walk around Bath 2.2miles
Wednesday: bookstore, clotted cream shake, antique store
Thursday: Market day, teashop, Trowbridge, Sospan_fach & S.
Friday: tea shop, Sospan_fach & S, Cross Guns and cider
Saturday: train to Paddington, tube from Paddington to Heathrow, Heathrow to Logan, Logan to Portland, Portland to home, supper
Our time in England was wet. In the 10 days we were there, it rained for, you got it, 10 days. When we arrived they were talking about hosepipe bans. By the time we left London the Metro paper had a headline about two month's rain falling in two days. I will refrain from talking about the extreme humidity except where it moves the story along. Assume all subsequent scenes are separated by cuts of people running from doorway to doorway in lashing rain, steady rain, or drizzle.
Thursday found us quite tired, since it was a continuation of Wednesday. We got delayed on the tarmac so we ended up at the end of a huge line going through customs. It took us two hours to get out of the airport and headed into the city. After checking at the hotel to find they wouldn't let us in early or hold our bags we dropped the bags at St. Pancras and headed for Covent Garden.
The day was a challenge because it was a combination of not wanting to sit down for fear of falling asleep, being dehydrated, and being wet. We went to Covent Garden, but didn't stay very long because we wanted to find someplace to eat that didn't involve standing up or signing into indentured servitude. We made the mistake of setting out for Foyles bookstore, with the idea that we'd find someplace nearby there to eat. The problem was that the streets of Soho are like roads in New England. We managed to circle the block we wanted to be on, eventually. We did eventually arrive at Foyles, gave it a cursory go through (only got three books and touched on just two of the six stories of books), then went down the street a couple blocks to the Porcupine Pub (just because they have a big etched Porcupine on their door). The food there was good and it was such a wonderful feeling to sit down, eat, and watch the people walk by on the street. From there we walked all the way back up to check into the hotel, then back to St. Pancras for the bags, then back to the hotel, shower, collapse.
Friday started with a traditional English breakfast, then a trip to The Tower of London. My advice on The Tower is to take a full day on this.
There is a lot there and it is probably best to see half, sit down for lunch in the cafe, then see the other half. We did not go in to see the crown jewels, but saw much of the rest of the Tower.
The Tower was built and rebuilt over the course of hundreds of years, so it's an architectural hodgepodge. Sitting in the moat is something that just shouldn't be missed, because it's sitting in a moat! But also it provides a great vantage of the West side wall and the buildings, which illustrate the point clearly. The sections of different stone and brick are clearly visible. Once inside the number of details to be observed could throw the unwitting into a architectural coma.
The White Tower contains a huge collection of weaponry and armor. My two favorite bits where the stash of weapons in the basement and the dragon on the top floor. The dragon is a work of art constructed of weapons and armor. It really has to be seen in person to be appreciated (http://www.royalarmouries.org/visit-us/tower-of-london/power-house/dragon). Some of the rooms of the basement are lined with different types of weapons ranging from cannon (on the floor) to riffles and pikes (on the walls). Also of note was a silver flintlock mace, which certainly solves that problem of "what do I do when I've fired my one shot, ask the enemy to pause while I reload?"
One of my favorite parts of The Tower was the ravens. These are birds that are pampered and have the royal attitude that shows it. While we were nearby, one of the staff gave a raven a hard boiled egg. It was great to watch the bird sitting proudly with the egg in his beak, then drop it and peal the egg before eating it. The ravens are not frightened of people in the least. In fact, this raven when surround by school children just hopped straight toward the middle of them, the crowd parted and he hopped down the open path, like Moses parting the waters. I really adored these spoiled birds with their curmudgeonly calls and fearless attitudes.
After The Tower we walked across the Tower Bridge and gazed upstream at the HMS Belfast, which was not open for visitors. On the other side of the bridge we found a pub that provided refreshment and a nice dry place to sit, both most welcome. This wasn't the pub where we were to meet Kryptyd., but it was nearby. After regaining some energy back we went off to meet up with Kryptyd. We had a nice pub supper with her although, being Friday after work, the place was packed. After that we walked up to the Millennium Bridge along the river, seeing the Golden Hind on our way. Then we retraced our steps back to the Tower Bridge, across to the north side of the river, then up to Whitechapel to meet up with Kryptyd's M, at the Anarchist Center, which was packed because they had live music and beer.
We ended up getting home somewhere around midnight and after packing most of our cloths, got to bed by 1am, I think.
Saturday we got up early so that we could get down to Euston station in good order, check out bags in, and get breakfast before catching our train. It was an hour ride up to Bletchley and the timing was just about perfect, we arrived a few minutes before opening time. The walk between the train station and Bletchley Park is just a few minutes. A kindly security guard told us we couldn't go in yet, but we were welcome to sit on the steps of one of the buildings in the sunshine.
Bletchley Park feels at once amazing and underwhelming. So much of our modern world was shaped by what the people at Bletchley Park were doing, but much of what is presented feels thrown together. The Park has struggled against history and is only now coming into its own. It's obvious that they are making progress and I expect it will continue to evolve. Much of the source material was destroyed at the end of WWII as highly secret, but no longer needed. Most of the buildings were built as temporary and the name "huts" fits. Many of them are still in pretty rough shape. Many of the displays are simple posterboard with text and pictures.
One of the huts houses an interesting series on Ian Flemming's role in the intelligence service and another contains displays on the capture of one of the enigma machines from a u-boat and women's roles in spying.
The building that houses the Colossus requires a separate 1 pound entrance fee, but is well worth it. That building contains a real step by step view of how the brute force attacks were carried out against the communications between land based stations.
Two unfortunate things about our trip to Bletchley: 1) I had only allocated a bit over three hours and to go through the exhibits it takes a full day at least 2) the National Museum of Computing was not open the day were were there.
All too soon it was back to London to pick up our bags at Euston. Then we walked from Euston to Paddington, which turned out to be a fair walk in its own, but the weather was favorable. The last two blocks of the approach to Paddington turned into a culinary disneyland, with lots of delightful choices. We chose an Indian restaurant and had a sumptious meal: tea, the most wonderful pappadums ever, tandori chicken, tandori lamb, and chicken tikka appetizer, main course of lamb madras, and another cup of tea for desert. The train ride to Bath, then onward to Bradford-on-Avon (BOA) was smooth and quiet.
We were greeted at the station by Cyberquail and walked through the town and up the hill to the cottage. Now a word about BOA: It's a mostly residential town straddling the river in a steep valley. The downtown is a couple blocks and the remainder is wandering streets lined with houses of varying age. This isn't the bustling market town of Skipton where we stayed before. It felt more gentrified. But if you want a quiet place to hang out in easy distance to the attractions of the southwest, it is a good location.
Our cottage was originally a pair of one up/one down apartments that was combined into a kitchen, sitting room, add on entry and bath on the first floor. On each end of the first floor stairs led up to one of the two bedrooms. As you might expect, all the spaces were small by American standards, but more than adequate for vacationing. The kitchen provided a bit of a challenge because it had three doors and the dining table, which didn't leave much room for actually cooking.
Cyberquail had prepared a lamb curry and briryani for supper. So shortly after arriving we sat down for another grand meal, fell into a food coma, then shortly to bed.
Sunday we started with a full English breakfast at a place just a block from the bridge. Then made our leisurely way to the tithe barn (which may or may not have actually been for tithe, but most certainly was a barn). The tithe barn has wonderful curved rafters and is a treat for people interested in building methods. From there we walked through park and along the canal until reaching Avoncliff, where we crossed the river and railroad tracks on a bridge that carried the canal. Yes, boats floating over the railroad and the river. It's quite a trippy bit of construction.
From there we took a walk up to a country church and peeped in at it's adjacent manor before continuing on to Farleigh Hungerford. While at the church we got our first glimpse ot the white horse near Trowbridge, which was an unexpected delight. At Farleigh Hungerford there are the ruins of a castle. We toured the castle, which was torn down and the stones were used to make a new house! But though the walls and almost everything else were gone, the castle's sewer system, such as it was, remained functional. Plumbers have always known what runs down hill.
We wandered back via a different route that took us past Iford Manor and instead of going back along the canal from Avoncliff we walked back through the adjacent park, a parallel but muddier path. The premium find in going back via this route was live willow constructions that are underway. The first we encountered was a circle of willows planted on the diagonal so the wall looked like XXXXX. Then a little further on we came to a classical labyrinth made of woven willows. So far the woven part of the willows only reaches a couple of feet high, but the willows extend about 6 feet above that (and were due for another weaving because they were starting to flop about). In the same field was a made pond with lilypads and a few other plantings. We continued back to BOA coming up the river into the center of town. Total walking for this day was somewhere around 9 miles, not counting the walking around town.
On Monday we got up and out fairly early en route to Portsmouth and the naval museum there. By the time we arrived full downpour mode was on so we scurried quickly to get tickets and get into our first ship, the HMS Warrior. The Warrior had a brief career, it was a steam/sail hybrid and technology was moving quickly when it was built. Taking a tour of it was a real treat, though, because they have all the decks open to the public, with the vast majority of the areas set out as it would have been when in operation. You can wander and take your time looking at little tiny bits and big huge bits, walking amongst the guns, the mess tables, all the way to the boilers. The carpenters area was still in active use by a carpenter making repairs on the ship.
From the Warrior we went forth to the HMS Victory. The Victory was more structured, with an allowed path and many cordoned off areas. But also many more people in a smaller space, so you can't really blame them for wanting to get people in and back out again. The contrast between the Warrior (1860) and the Victory (1759) is immediately apparent upon stepping into the latter. The Victory has significantly lower ceilings! There wasn't as much effort done in presentation on the Victory with the exception of the Admirals quarters, which looked fully fitted out.
Among other things we got to see at the naval museum was a steam motor launch, I've always wanted to see one of those for real, because they come up in books. We also got to tour through exhibits talking about the shipyard workers' professions and tools. We didn't have time to go across the river to the submarine museum. In order to do that and go up the spinnacker you'd definitely need a second day. We did have time to get some delicious lunch at a pub across the street from the shipyard. They had minted lamb burgers. Yum.
Tuesday To Friday (continued in the next part)
Saturday morning we got up early to catch a fairly early train BOA to Bath Spa, Bath Spa to London Paddington, tube from Paddington to Heathrow, lunch at Heathrow after getting through security. A trouble free flight of just over six hours. Almost an hour waiting for a bus to Portland, two hours to Portland. Twenty minutes drive from Portland to Freeport. Supper, exhaustion.
