Last Day in London

Today was our last day to explore London before our flight back home Monday morning.  We had one more educational stop left in us, so we explored the British Museum.  There's an amazing amount of treasures from around the world here, but we focused on Ancient Egypt and Greece.  First off we visited the Rosetta Stone (not the kiosk at the airport, but the real thing).  There were mummies (cats as well as people), stone carvings, tombs and statutes, really quite amazing.  There's probably more of the Parthenon carvings here than in Greece.  You could literally spend days looking around here, but we had other items on our agenda.

Next stop was a couple of exotic car dealerships in Knightsbridge.  David's had a jolly good time exploring the car offerings in London.  He even found an Alfa Romeo Montreal like the one Brandon is restoring.  I feel much better knowing that there are actually some still existing that actually drive down the street.  The Ferrari and Lamborghini dealerships were the icing on the auto cake.

David continued his exotic car search while I went to St. Paul's Cathedral to attend the Evensong service.  The choir was all male, both boys and men, and they sounded marvelous with the acoustics in the church.  It was a different and special way to experience one of the grand churches in England.

After a farewell dinner, we were off to stay near the airport for our morning flight.  London traffic is crazy even on Sunday nights, but it gave us one last chance to take in the London sights.  This has been a great trip, but I think we're all ready to be home.

Finally something for a foodie!

It was obvious today that the four of us needed our own "me" time with us all going in different directions.  David headed off to find an antique street fair and then people and car watching.  Tom and Jean Ann were off to art galleries and general sight seeing.  I spent time at a very, very busy food market.

However, before we all split we visited the Clock Museum in the Guild Hall.  This actually resides in a room in the library, so it didn't seem to be a big tourist destination.  We actually bought the guide from the girl at the circulation desk who had to find them in a locked up cabinet.  The array of clocks on display was very impressive.  The clock that actually brought us to the museum was a clock made to work on sailing ships that would help the captain identify the position of the ship by comparing the time and their celestial position.  The book "Longitude" is all about trying to solve this problem.   It was well worth the stop.

My foodie indulgence took me to Borough Market at the base of London Bridge (I know, the real London Bridge is now in Arizona).  A friend of mine suggested I visit the market and I could meet up with he and his wife and do a little exploring.  This place had it all - cheese shops, food vendors, meat markets, bakers, fresh produce, seafood, etc.  It was wall to wall people too.  In some spots you really just moved where the crowd took you.  Steve introduced me to the best cheese monger in London, Fiona, who let me sample at least 10 cheeses, each one of them delicious.  Next was gelato before I went off to find lunch (you know, dessert first just in case).  The options were almost overwhelming but I settled on an appetizer of chicken dumplings with a main of boar sausage.  Yummy!

I met up with David to enjoy his people watching post outside of Harrods.  You can see it all here, both inside the store and out.  There was a band playing which also attracted a crowd.  It was a nice day to stand outside and soak up the London sights.

We decided to finally sample Indian cuisine this evening.  London is such a multicultural city that their's a huge variety of restaurants to choose from.  Indian food is particularly renowned here and we had somehow missed it.  Cinnamon Kitchen is an upscale Indian restaurant and the food was outstanding.  It also seemed to attract a fair number of large parties.  The owner was obviously a proud grandfather with a large baby picture taped to one of the walls.  I was glad we made time to explore the Indian food scene before we departed.

Return to Civilization

Today was the end of our detour into Wales.  While I think we all appreciated the countryside, we were all ready to return to the excitement of the city.  We did have one more stop to make in Wales before heading back to London.

Tintern Abby is another deserted holy sight.  This one feels a little different because most of the walls are still standing.  All that's missing is a roof, windows and flooring and it could be up and in operation in no time.  It also helped that we had blue skies on our final travel day.  This was well worth our stop.

While traffic into London on Fridays can be particularly bad, we made good time and beat the crowd.  How hotel for the weekend was in London City, inside the walls of the original London.  This is now the banking and business section of the city which means it is much quieter on the weekends.  We didn't really have enough time to look around the area since we had a play this evening and also needed to eat dinner before hand.  We decided to head over to the Soho, West End area early and walk around.  This is a very busy shopping and entertainment area.  While some of the stores are specific to England most are names you'd find in any large US city.  It was still fun to browse.

Our play this evening, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, was quite interesting.  If you've read the book, you'll know the main character is a 15 year old boy with Asbergers, a form of Autism.  I was curious to see how they would relate this in a play.  They did an excellent job using an unusual box stage set, flashing lights and assorted characters that helped tell the story.  They also used strobe lights which caused a play goer to have a seizure.  while I appreciated the acting and script writing, I can't say this was the most uplifting play I've watched.  It was still worth the price of admission.

It's really good, and it's free

Today we're touring southern Wales.  We spent time last night figuring out where we wanted to go since there were several options in the area.  Well, silly us, our driver had different ideas and he made it quite clear we were going with his plan not ours.  So, off we go!

Did I mention it rains a lot in Wales??? We again had soggy weather to deal with today.  We were determined not to let it dampen our spirits however.  Our first stop was at the second largest castle (behind Windsor) in the UK, Caerphilly Castle.  While not totally restored, there are many interior rooms that are still intact.  The displays were a little different than some, but it was still a castle.  And we were wet.  Very wet.

Earlier this morning, our driver had mentioned an outdoor folk museum that we could visit.  I don't know if you've ever visited one of these, but they bring in buildings from all over the country and set them up in a large area where you can walk from building to building and learn a little about the culture.  They can be interesting, but if you've visited one you really don't need to visit another.  We decided  that this might not be something we wanted to do in the rain, so we got up the nerve to tell Derrick that we were taking it off our list of places to visit.  He did not take this well, telling us how nice it was and that it was free.  We finally told him we might consider it if it stopped raining (and we were knocked unconscious and abducted by aliens).  Just kidding about the last part.  Well, not really.

Our next stop was the capital city of Wales, Cardiff.  While Wales is part of the UK, they do have their own assembly where they handle matters that pertain to their citizens.  The city is on the ocean which also makes it an important city too.  We wondered around the shops, attempting to stay in the arcades to keep from getting WET.  We were able to  purchase the much desired dragon t-shirts but passed on the much pushed "love spoons".

With time to kill and the threat of sunshine, we gave one more castle a go, this one Cardiff Castle.  This one decided to throw in a WWII twist with bomb shelters in the lower part of the castle walls.  The older part of the castle was built on a mound which gave it an interesting feel.  

Afraid that if we returned to the car too soon we would be forced to visit the folk museum, we decided to take a pub break.  Brains is the local brew in southern Wales, so we tried a pint.  I was very disappointed that they had just sold out of the bacon chocolate ale.  They really have some interesting flavors here!  Feeling safe to start our journey back, we called our guide to pick us up.  Well, he brought up the folk museum again!  We again insisted that we were passing it up on this trip.  Derrick was crestfallen, certain we were missing the highlight of our trip, and it was FREE.  I think at this point, he wrote us off as typical tourist, not really appreciating the finer stops along the way.  So be it, we held firm and returned to our manor house.

This is a fine mess you've gotten us into

This morning we had to bid farewell to our hosts, the Pitmans, at Tan-y-foyl to depart for the south of Wales.  Of course, since we're spending most of the day in the car we have some very nice weather.  We again chose the more scenic route which meant we would spend much of our day in the car. We made a brief coffee stop before continuing on to our first destination.  We visited a real Welsh butcher which is quite interesting.

Our first real stop was at Powis Castle and Garden.  These gardens were incredible.  They had a huge variety of flowers and trees in very well manicured , multilevel gardens.  Their fruit trees were full of fruit and their flowers were all in bloom.  After roaming around the gardens we took a quick tour of the house.  This one, while decorated in period pieces, is in one piece and could be lived in at anytime.  The house was nice but the real draw was the gardens.

The real adventure began when we were close to our destination for the evening.  With a little time to kill, our driver asked us if we would be interested in visiting an old priory ruins.  He thought they were worth the drive, so we decided we were up for the adventure.  We really got the opportunity to see real rural Wales.  The roads barely hold one car with hedges tower up on either side of the road.  If you met another car one of you had to back to a wide spot in the road to allow the other to pass.  It became even more exciting when a whole heard of horses needed by which left us backing for quite a long distance.  The priory wasn't exactly where the GPS showed it (yes, the GPS had all of these little country roads which were little more than a one car driveway).  It was really an adventure!

We did finally find the Llanthony Priory, which was well worth the drive (of course, I wasn't driving!). We had the place all to ourselves for most of our visit.  You could see the remains of the priory including the chapter house and chapel.  In one corner there's still a working pub, but we were a hair too early to have a brew.  Maybe next time.  These priories are all over the countryside because the monks and nuns were forced out of England when Henry VIII decided he really didn't like the restrictive rules on marriage in the church.  The rest, as we say, was history.

After our visit it was only a short distance to our guest house in Crickhowell.  It's really lovely setting, with a river outside our window and rolling green hills in the distance.  I believe a lot of people come to the area for walking trips which we would call hiking.  However, we're not going to have time to partake in the many trails on this trip.  While not what I had planned for the day, the adventure into the woods so to speak was the highlight to my trip into Wales.