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| New use for the classic phone booth! |
The rain REALLY may have mainly been in Spain as we lucked out with only 3 days of the wet stuff during our time in the UK. We started in London for a great weekend, then 5 days walking in the pastoral, quaint region of the Cotswold and ended up in the traditions and history of Oxford. For the most part, our good friends from Vermont, the Hutchinsons and Bergerons shared the adventures.
LONDON
From the historical monuments to the modern architecture...here are a few familiar sights.
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| Crossing the Tower Bridge by foot and having the bridge go up. |
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| Big Ben |
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| The famous double decker in front of St. Paul's Cathedral |
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| Very helpful tourist gesture. At every corner, you are reminded to look for traffic contrary to your instincts. |
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| Our snazzy hotel in the middle of everything |
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| Fact: Know where the expression pursed lips comes from? Back in the day, robbers would steal this leather pouch with coins from the belt of an unsuspecting soul. The owner reacted with lips resembling the tied up purse. |
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| This is a party double decker bus, labeled "Blush Bus" |
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| A lady on her way to church on Easter Sunday....or to somewhere.... |
Food
So you would think English and American names for food would be quite similar...
Here's a quiz. What is black pudding, bubble and squeak, a carvery meal, eggs and soldiers, a croque, ploughman's lunch and a faggot!? All hamburgers are cooked very well done by law. Guess that is a result of the mad cow disease.
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| My childhood favorite, hot cross buns. |
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| Croque with egg |
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| Ploughman's lunch |
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| Many, many beers at the pubs. Also the hard cider was thirst quenching after hiking for hours. |
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| Scottish Eggs |
After a fun filled weekend in the big city, we took a train to the Cotswolds, about 90 minutes from London. And so, the walking begins!
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| Every so often we came to the end of a pasture and had a swinging gate or step gate to cross |
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| Rest stop at lunch. Cathy had the book of instructions that guided us from point to point over 53 miles. |
Along the way, we saw scenes like these....
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| This is a new crop, rapeseed that makes canola oil. In full bloom while we were there. |
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| Inn that is purported to be the oldest inn in England....10th century |
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| One of our favorite tiny towns called Lower Slaughter |
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| This characteristic stonewall stretched out over many miles. No cement but plenty of moss. |
Couldn't get enough of those sheep and babies with their mothers... One farmer we ran into pointed to a 7 hour old lamb and asked me to name it. I decided on "Matilda" for Roald Dahl's wonderful book. If you come into this world as a lamb, you would want to be born a female..Only females get to stay on the farm and few males for breeding. The rest...well, after six months they are on your menu!
Spring flowers, blossoming trees, English estates, thatched roofs, churches and tiny cottages along our route.
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| This being right after Easter, we entered many of the little churches on our route only to find the most gorgeous bouquets from the multitude of spring flowers from everyone's garden. Every parishioner must have made one. Classy! |
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| You build a tower like this up the hill from your castle...just to look at it. No function. |
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| I just liked the one window on this building in Stratford on Avon. |
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| These little cottages are so British. Each usually has the name of the cottage on the front. |
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| Occasionally you would see a thatched roof on an old house. |
One afternoon, we took the local bus to Stratford on Avon with street signs like "Kill the Speed" and "Give Way" or "No Tipping" (littering). William Shakespeare's birthplace below.
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| Eating scones with clotted cream and tea by the river Avon. |
The last day it rained, and I mean it rained. Still the scenery had a beauty of its own. However, we had no beauty as we finished the 53 miles of walking, soaked to the bone! That's England!
Our last weekend was spent in Oxford, home to 34 colleges. We took a 2 hour tour by a delightful graduate of one of the colleges. She explained how one applies to Oxford and you are admitted to one of colleges that is offered to you. The student has a mentor and meets just with that person each week to get the reading list and assignments. Lots of one on one and weekly time with a person renowned in your major. You focus singularly on one area for the entire university experience as you carve out your focus in this major.
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| So this is how graduation goes. Your friends and relatives are gathered in this famous old hall. You, enter with 4 others in your flowing robs and encounter the head of your college who extends his 5 fingers. Each of you takes one of his fingers and he bestows his blessings in Latin. Then individually you go up to the head of the university who sits on a throne with flowing robs. You kneel before him, put your hands together and extend your arms to him. He wraps his hands around yours and tells you to go forth and lead a life to make the University proud. Then you walk out and it's over. |
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| This is the Science museum. You can see the blackboard that still has the formulas from Professor Einstein. |
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| Harry Potter filmed in here |
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| It was here that the guide told us about the Bullingdon Club. It is a club for those with money and who had attended a swanky private school. You only know if you are invited if you return to your dorm room and the place is trashed..I mean broken windows and such. A guy is standing in the middle of the room with a can of Coleman's Dry Mustard which you must devour. Then you go immediately downtown and buy this special jacket for $3500. The club has certain social events like eating out in a local restaurant. Before the event is over, the club members have been known to do $5,000 in damage, breaking plates, throwing food etc. However they leave a $10,000 tip to cover the damage. Prime Minister Cameron was among many famous members during his university years. |
There was the annual folk festival that weekend. In addition to small free performances by young very talented fiddle players, harpists, and singers...there were folk dancers from regions all over England performing on the streets.
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| This is the oldest pub in England. It started in 1242 and the first college of Oxford didn't start until 1248. The infamous owner has a habit of sighting any customer with a tie on, cutting it off and placing it with all the other tie ends on the walls. |
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| Cricket anyone, if you have the time? |
No trip would be complete without a trip to a palace. Blenheim Palace is the birthplace of Winston Churchill in 1874. Queen Anne in 1704 gave his distant relative, John Churchill land and about a billion dollars in currency for the time to build he and his wife a "home". As an aside, too bad for Queen Mary. She had 17 children all but one were girls who died stillborn or at birth. The one boy he died at 11. The British like to end a fact like that with "There you go".
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| The library! |
A packed 10 days of good British cheer and healthy living...."Bit of alright!"
