Trip to England for our 25th anniversary. Day 1: Hampton Court, residence of Henry VIII. We sat at the high table on the dais in the great hall and toured the royal apartments, some of the gardens, canals, and the royal chapel. Also saw King Henry VIII’s crown. (Scroll down for subsequent days)
Day 2: Winchester Cathedral and Highclere Castle. The town of Winchester was King Alfred the Great’s (the first Saxon king of England’s) capital in Wessex. First built as a church in the 7th century, it became a cathedral after the Norman conquest, and it has been added to and upgraded many times since then. It’s now very much in the gothic style, and it’s the burial place for Jane Austen, among others. It also houses the Winchester Bible (illuminated), which was transcribed from a Bible from Rome in the 12th century. We are staying at The Old Vine Inn, which is practically across the street from the cathedral, and we plan to attend evensong tomorrow.
Highclere Castle is where they filmed Downton Abbey, at least the “upstairs” and outdoor scenes. The kitchen, servants hall, and their upstairs bedrooms were filmed at a studio because those areas at Highclere Castle have been renovated and are now very modern. The entry and great hall area with the gallery were decidedly smaller than they looked on television. But the library, the dining room, and Lady Grantham’s and Edith’s bedrooms were satisfyingly familiar. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take any photos indoors.
Day 3: Jane Austin’s House in Chawton and the Great Hall in Winchester. Had to satisfy my literary geek streak by visiting the house where Jane Austin finished writing and publishing her six novels. (I’ve only read five.) She lived there eight years before passing away, probably from Addison’s disease. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral.
We returned to Winchester to go up through the old West Gate and explore the Great Hall. Winchester was the original capital of England, and its Great Hall was where Saxon and Viking kings were crowned. Also, Richard Lionheart was re-crowned there when he returned to England, and it was visited a lot by Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Great Hall is the best preserved hall from the Middle Ages in England.
Since Winchester was thought by some to be the location of Arthur’s Camelot, the hall displays an oak replica of King Arthur’s Round Table, hanging high on the wall. It was probably built during the time of King Henry III, and then was later commissioned to be painted in the 16th century by King Henry VIII; hence King Arthur looks suspiciously a lot like Henry. The 23 chivalrous knights’ names are listed around the table.
Finally, we wandered down High Street in Winchester, very crowded and busy on a Saturday, with lots of weddings going on. This evening we’ll be going to Evensong at the cathedral.
Day 4: Blenheim Palace near Woodstock, and Christ Church in Oxford. Blenheim Palace was the birthplace and residence of Winston Churchill and belonged to the dukes of Marlborough for hundreds of years. It was definitely a bit gaudy (typical for the 18th century), overdone and just huge. It was reminiscent of a huge French chateau. In World War II, Blenheim Palace was requisitioned and became a covert location for MI5, the British security service, starting in September 1940. The women who worked there were involved in counter-espionage and intelligence activities during the war.
Christ Church, Oxford was where a lot of the Harry Potter films were shot. We recognized the staircase and the great hall, where they’d all eat together. It’s an operating college, with many students cloistered away, studying. Cardinal Wolsey actually founded the college in 1525, and when he fell out of favor, King Henry VIII took it over, similar to he did with Hampton Court. The site has been a place of worship for over a thousand years, with parts of the 12th-century priory church still intact and visible today.
We then drove on to the Cotswolds.
Day 5: The Cotswolds and Sudeley Castle. We drove to our inn last night, the Lords of the Manor, built in 1649, in Upper Slaughter. Beautiful place. Had a ten-course meal in their restaurant, and it was delicious.
Today we toured Sudeley Castle, a very historic place, going all the way back to Saxon England, and built into a fortress castle after the Norman conquest. It changed hands many times and was added onto through the years, eventually going to Richard III when the Yorkists took over. And then it went to the Tudors after Richard was defeated, and then eventually to the Seymours. Its chapel ended up being where Katherine Parr was buried — the sixth wife of Henry VIII — who married Thomas Seymour after Henry died. Much of the castle was left in ruins after the civil war in the 17th century, thanks to Oliver Cromwell, but the grounds are beautiful. Only certain portions of the castle have been renovated.
There were large animals (much more recent) made of wooden sticks scattered around the grounds, some sort of theme about coexisting in harmony with nature.
Afterward we explored the charming Cotswolds town of Winchcombe and ate a late lunch at the White Hart.
Day 6: Snowshill Manor, Evesham, and Bourton-on-the-Water. Explored Snowshill Manor and Gardens built up in the early 1900s by Charles Wade, an eccentric who collected machines, devices and oddities, kind of like Charles Foster Kane in *Citizen Kane.* He had everything from bicycles and carts to swords, Oriental cabinets and Samarai armor stuffed into that place.
The Cotswolds are very hilly, and the sheep pastures there are covered with strange “tussocks,” little hillocks that remind me of termite mounds, formed when sheep walk around weeds and plants, in fields that haven’t been tilled for centuries.
Since it was my birthday, Pat indulged me, and we took an unplanned diversion, driving to Evesham, the location of the tomb of Simon de Montfort. I’m kind of a fan of de Montfort, he was a pioneer in representative (parliamentary) government. He distrusted the absolute power of monarchy, and led the Barons’ Rebellion against Edward I, which was largely successful for a while. But he was defeated and killed at Evesham, and the monarchy was once again in power. De Montfort was ahead of his time.
Evesham was also the hometown of another, earlier, hero, the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman Lady Godiva. She is mainly remembered for a legend dating back to the 13th century in which she rode naked, covered only by her long hair, through the streets of Coventry to gain a remission of the oppressive taxes that her husband, Leofric, imposed on his tenants.
Our last stop was Bourton-on-the-Water, called the “Venice of the Cotswolds” because of the river running though a canal in the middle of town. We shopped and watched the ducks and seagulls on the river.
On another note, there are apple orchards everywhere in the Cotswolds. There are so many varieties of apples in England that, if you ate one variety a day, it would take you six years to get through all of them.
Day 7: We left the Cotswolds and headed down out of the hills to Nottingham to see the castle and the City of Caves, then on to York. Incidentally, Cotswolds means “sheep enclosures in the hilly places.” On the way we saw the biggest coal-driven power plant I’ve ever seen.
Nottingham Castle was a bit of a disappointment because very little of it is left. They tore it down in the 1600s to prevent Oliver Cromwell from taking possession of it. There are some of the curtain walls left, but the castle itself is gone, replaced by a palace built much later on. The museum was kind of… meh.
But the City of Caves was awesome. Nottingham was built over a really soft sandstone promontory, and over the centuries people dug down into it to form basically cellars in the stone. Many of the caves used to open out from cliffs onto the River Leen, a tributary of the river Trent. People of the town used these caves for access to groundwater, cold food and beer storage, cesspits, a tannery, secret meeting places, and even bomb shelters later during World War II. So far they’ve found over 900 separate caves. Despite the softness of the sandstone, the area doesn’t tend to cave in, because sandstone with weight over it compresses and becomes very stable and firm. Today the area we explored has a shopping center over it.
We lunched at a pub across from the castle area — fish and chips, of course.
Another interesting note: England seems to have re-outfitted all its old red telephone booths into defibrillation stations. Which would be confusing, I think, to Clark Kent, who’d be in for a shocking surprise.
Day 8: York, including Clifford’s Tower, the Jorvik Viking Center, and York Minster cathedral. We loved York, it’s a beautiful historic town with some preserved medieval streets, such as the Shambles. Clifford’s Tower is all that’s left of the original castle, and it’s built in a lobed pattern rather than being square or rectangular. Also, it’s way up on top of a man-made mound. Lots of steps.
The Jorvik Viking Center was lots of fun. The name York comes from the Viking name for the city, and not from the Saxon name — Eoforwic — which meant “wild-boar town.” Jorvik meant “boar creek.” Basically a city of pigs? (I won’t make a comment about New York.) The Viking artifacts were impressive. The display even talked about the Viking’s disease, Dupuytren’s syndrome, which I actually have, a genetic syndrome that causes lesions on the tendons of the ring and little fingers and can cause contracture (although mine hasn’t yet). So I’ve got Scandinavian in there somewhere. DNA keeps moving forward!
The jewel of the city is York Minster. Wow! We were stunned. We’ve never been in such an impressive cathedral. Untouched by the World Wars, I guess because it’s so far north, it’s gorgeous and old. And HUGE!! with stained glass all the way from Norman conquest times. During the World Wars, they actually took all the stained glass windows down and stored them in caves nearby for safety. No small feat.
The organist started practicing while we were touring, and it sent shivers up my spine. We toured the crypt, where they’ve uncovered the remnants of Roman columns from the original Roman fortress built on the same spot.
We then wandered thru the Shambles, did a little shopping and had dinner at Rustique, a French restaurant. A great day!
Day 9: We left York and began our drive north to Robin Hood’s Bay. On the way, we stopped at Rievaulx Abbey (Cistercian), which was an awesomely HUGE ruin, originally built in the 1100s. It’s discouraging how much damage Henry VIII and/or Oliver Cromwell did to these magnificent castles, churches and abbeys. It was raining, but worth the walk and the outdoor tour.
We were planning to stop by Helmsey Castle, but the rain and wind picked up, and there’s not much left of that castle, anyway. We drove through the North York Moors, a huge expanse of nothing but heather and rolling hills. Apparently the heather is beautiful in late summer when it blooms purple. Some areas had been burned purposely to prevent out-of-control wildfires.
We are seeing pheasants everywhere. That’s the major roadkill here. At the abbey, the sheep and pheasants kind of dealt politely with each other. On our way north, we could see the results of the huge wildfire that just ran through Yorkshire Moors.
I think we’re averaging 2.5 to 3 miles of walking a day. York was way more than that! Our current hotel is on the North Sea at Robin Hood’s Bay. We’re hoping for great photos tomorrow. Trying to warm up and dry off at the moment…
Day 10: Robin Hood’s Bay. Its name comes from an inaccurate legend that Robin Hood was allegedly here at some point, involved in defending the coast from pirates and returning the loot to the people. (This was a principal smuggling center for Yorkshire.) But it’s no doubt apocryphal.
Today was a bit more restful as the weather wasn’t cooperating. Storm Amy apparently blew through, causing some flooding in northern Yorkshire. It was so windy they shut down Whitby Abbey, which sits at the top of the cliffs, so we could only see it from afar. But we did get a few photos.
The tides here are extreme, like more than 4 meters (12 feet) difference. At low tide there is a huge beach with rocks full of Jurassic era dinosaur footprints and fossils. At high tide the water is at the very foot of the cliffs.
In the early afternoon Pat walked down into the bay town and immediately realized my knees wouldn’t take the steep descent when we went down for dinner. (Cars aren’t allowed because there’s no parking.) So we requested a harrowing and windy ride in a hotel-supplied golf cart — with seat belts. We ate at the Brambles Bistro.
A short lesson on the Yorkshire accent: water = wah’-uh, and butter = buh’-uh (no T). They also have their own version of the short vowel U, which is hard to describe, but it reminds me a bit of some North Dakota pronunciations and definitely doesn’t require your mouth to be open very far. They also use wrong verb tenses, like, “That were the right answer.” Only with the last two words pronounced “roit ahn-sir.” Think Daisy on downtown Abbey.
They have more beef on menus up here, definitely lamb, and Scottish breakfasts like scrambled eggs with salmon. All desserts are called pudding. Dogs are welcome in all pubs, in fact we had a friendly lab sleeping under our chairs at the hotel pub this afternoon.
Day 11: We left Yorkshire this morning and headed towards London, stopping to tour the Richard III Center in Leicester on the way.
The North York Moors were all black with burn marks, acres and acres of moorland. We thought it was part of controlled burning, but it turns out there’s been a big wildfire there, from Aug 13 until now. It took nearly a month to control it and there are apparently still firefighters working on it. The problem is the fire has continued deep underground in places because of all the peat, so there are hotspots. Makes me think of the fire swamp from The Princess Bride.
It was 3 1/2 hours drive to Leicester (pronounced Lester), where Richard III had been buried at the Grayfriars Friary after his demise at the battle of Bosworth. His bones were discovered in September 2012, under the parking lot that was built over the location of the old friary, and found in the first place they dug! DNA analysis proved his identity because he has current descendent relatives through his sister.
His skeleton showed Richard was not hunchbacked, as depicted by his detractors (the Tudors, who won at Bosworth) as well as by Shakespeare. He just had scoliosis, and it probably wasn’t even that debilitating. He also never cried out in anguish, after being unhorsed, “A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” as depicted famously by Shakespeare. Rather people quoted at that time said that he died courageously, the last English king to die in battle.
My interest in Richard III and the Yorkist monarchs came from reading Sharon Kay Penman’s historical novel *The Sunne in Splendor.*
The Yorkists were in power in England for 24 years, from 1461 to 1485, through Edward IV, Edward V (the 12-yr-old prince who was held in the Tower with his younger brother until they mysteriously disappeared) and Richard III. Then came the Tudor dynasty, which lasted 118 years (four monarchs).
Next came the house of Stuart (seven monarchs up through Queen Anne), which started with James I and brought England and Scotland together. The Stuarts oversaw the shift of power from the monarchy to Parliament, setting the stage for a constitutional monarchy in 1688 — all of which started with Magna Carta in 1215, the first document to limit the power of the king.
Parliamentary government was pursued by Simon de Montfort and later on by Oliver Cromwell who established the Commonwealth — though by rather brutal means. Maybe I’m a little nerdy, but I find this stuff interesting. Blame the historical novelists who breathed life into this.
Day 12: London, including Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Our hotel is across the street from the Palace Green, so we walked over to Buckingham Palace and chanced to arrive right during a big changing of the guard routine. They pretty much played a concert, with a band and a bagpipes regiment. The crowd was like being at Times Square on New Year’s Eve — thousands. It was nuts.
Next we walked to Westminster Abbey, where many coronations have taken place through the centuries and many monarchs have been buried, as well as William Tyndale, John and Charles Wesley, and C. S. Lewis. There was also a “Poets’ Corner” that honored authors, poets and actors.
A taxi ride took us to the Tower of London, although we arrived too late to tour the Tower Bridge. This was an awesome place to visit. Chocked with history, including the Tower Green where many lost their heads, including Anne Boleyn.
Finally we grabbed another taxi and arrived in time at St. Paul’s Cathedral for Evensong. Behind the cathedral was a restaurant called Ivy Asia, which was spectacular and where we ate dinner afterwards.
It was a nice change from heavy English fare, which seems to mostly include greasy wild fowl like ducks, pheasant, partridges and quail. Not to mention questionable “black pudding,” bacon that looks more like thick ham that’s been stuck under the broiler for five seconds, steak and kidney pie, and bangers and mash. Food is not their forte, except for fish and chips.
Neither is plumbing, which is atrocious even in high-end places. The toilets are set so low, they seem designed for people under 4’8″, all fixtures are different, and nothing is standard, so taking a shower is like solving a Rubik’s cube puzzle, and water pressure is like taking a shower at a M.A.S.H. unit in South Korea. Also, showers and sinks never seem to drain properly. We need to send them some plumbers.
Electrical outlets — don’t get me started. Maybe two per room if you’re lucky, but not next to the bed, and none in the bathroom where there’s actually a mirror, because it’s 220V and you’d get electrocuted. So maybe we need to send them some electricians.
Also, there are cameras at EVERY intersection, which snap photos of your license plate, so the gov’t knows exactly where you are at all times. And no free parking, always paid, with more snapshots of license plates. Every quarter mile there’s yet another confusing roundabout, so there’s little chance of falling asleep at the wheel; sometimes it’s just a slight wiggle in the road, and sometimes it’s a quarter-mile on diameter.
Very few roads have shoulders (they call them verges) of any kind, but are rather closely rimmed with hawthorn hedges and miles of rock walls. And the rental car has a Nanny program that harasses you about your speed, reminds you to take your cell phone with you when you get out, and — my personal favorite — after three hours of driving, Nanny suggests you pull over and take a break.
And by the way, EVERYBODY in England is attached to their mobile phones like cyborgs — it’s not just the U.S. I have seen at least four people trip over curbs because they were staring at their phones. Everyone at the Tower of London was gazing raptly at a cell phone, and at the upscale restaurant this evening the woman at the next table was Facetiming loudly with someone on speaker phone in Japanese.
What I like about England: they actually have a yellow light before the traffic light turns green! So you can rev your engine and wake your low-emissions car back up in time to get through the intersection.
I like that they recycle everything. Everyone here thinks we’re “brilliant,” and they call everyone “love.” Or “loave” if you’re in Yorkshire. They call popsicles ice lollies. They love dogs. The speed limit on almost every road, including single lane roads and roads with extreme hills and curves and no shoulders or lines, is 60 miles an hour. Except in London, where everything is 20 mph or less.
Day 13: Our 25th anniversary and our last day in England. The British Museum.
Our taxi took us past the Ritz Hotel and Piccadilly Circle, which is kind of a mini version of Times Square. On we went through Soho and Chinatown to the British Museum.
The museum was frankly overwhelming. We started in the Egyptian section, full of mummies and sarcophagi, but were instantly overrun with thousands of uniformed schoolchildren on field trips. Can’t tell you how many times I tripped over an oblivious kid or got run into by one. Also, I discovered that if I left even just 12 inches of space between myself and a display, somehow two Asian tourists would step into it and block my view. ???? I learned to practically hug the displays if I wanted to read anything or see up close.
We had lunch in the 3rd floor restaurant, very nice, then moved on to see early Europe and Britain (bronze and iron ages), then Roman Britain, then Saxon and Viking times. Next we went through a huge display of clocks, which I loved. Clocks as we know them were invented by western Europeans who needed to know when the next worship time was in medieval churches and monasteries. Also they had terrible weather and couldn’t depend on sundials.
We then explored the actual Rosetta Stone and more Egyptian, early Greek, Assyrian and Roman artifacts. The museum is chock full of them, probably because most of the early archeologists in the 1800s were British. It would take another two days to see the whole museum, but we had to run up the white flag after six hours.
Our hotel, the Atheneum, has a wall corner covered with greenery all the way up, and I guess they decided to keep it that way.
Dinner was at Alba, an Amalfi Coast Italian restaurant in Knightsbridge, not far from our hotel, which is in Mayfair. And then Harrod’s afterwards, which was right across the street from the restaurant. And they had a “chocolate hall.”