All Things Royal

Using the Underground, we made our way to Buckingham Palace to immerse ourselves in more things Royal. After being processed through security just like at the airport, we joined the hundreds of tourists and entered the palace, not really sure what we would be able to see. Surprisingly, we had access to many rooms which are used for receptions and family events. Amazingly, we saw paintings by Rembrandt, Reubens,Van Dyke and more as the 'firm' has been collecting masterpieces for hundreds of years.

A highlight was the special exhibition of Royal toys and nursery furniture used by Elizabeth and Margaret, as well as her children and grandchildren. The most extravagant item, in my opinion, was the miniature caravan, complete with tow bar and internal accessories. There were battery driven cars which could tow the van.

The statue opposite the palace glitters startlingly against the grey skies of London

Th

The gates of the Palace are adorned with the Royal crest.

 Peter, inside the Palace grounds. No photos were allowed 

inside.

There are enormous grounds for the Royals to enjoy, including rolling green lawns, a lake and lush gardens.

Here we are the next day, back for the Changing of the Guard ceremony. There were literally thousands of people there and most of them would have seen very little! We were lucky enough to fluke a spot near the action but, even then, struggled to see clearly. The ceremony is long winded and nothing much happens quickly!

Lots of guards paraded around.

Off to the Tower of London where this 'Beefeater' was our informative guide, telling of the gruesome executions carried out by previous Kings in the Tower grounds. The crowds were overwhelming and the queues enormous. We actually decided to forgo looking at the Queen's jewels because we would have had to queue for over an hour and it was beyond us to do it! Never mind...life goes on.

 We did get to see the armour and weapons store though. Pretty spectacular considering that some of the armour was actually worn by Charles 1 and other famous Kings (and their horses).

A must have pic!

Our selfie, in fron of the Tower Bridge which is lovely to look at with its blue paint and gold decorations. The actual London Bridge up the road is very boring.

tower Bridge - it lifts up for ships.

 And the obligatory picture of a London bus, with London Bridge written on the front!

Brighton and Windsor

Sunday - woke up in Plymouth and travelled to Brighton. This pic shows the way you park in England on narrow roads. Just dive across and park in any direction! Love it. The white car is ours.

Plymouth had an interesting water front area, with a lighthouse, war memorials, lush green parks and the harbour. A highlight was finding the One Pound Shop, where every item in the shop cost £1. We needed a UK to Aus adapter and ended up buying UK to US and piggy backing our US to AUS adapter on it. Worked well and cost a pittance compared to what we paid for the adapters we had bought at home. 

Had to jump off the motor way to visit a Ringwood. Glad we did as it was a pretty town. After 

visiting this council run visitor centre at the Ringwood Gateway, we walked a short way to see a steam fair. Carousels and other rides were run by steam power and steam driven organ pipe music assaulted your ears. It was a fascinating and nostalgic glimpse into the past.

It was a long drive and we reached Brighton at 5:00pm. The pier has a carnival and casino along its length. There are poker machines as well as 

those where you feed coins in, in the hope that the build up of coins will push other coins off the ledge. We have them in Australia but you hope to push chocolates and other prizes off, not money. Was amazed to see people feeding coins from a cup into these machines.

Our accommodation is right behind the wheel.

This is the entrance to Windsor Castle. I had pictured the castle to be nestled in amongst spacious grounds, but it is actually right in the town and over the road from coffee shops, restaurants and other normal life establishments. It was quite a surprise to see it. 

The rain persisted all day and we were dripping on royal carpets as we walked through the public areas of the castle. We were allowed in to view opulent apartments that contained the formal dining halls, reception rooms and entertaining rooms that are still used today by the royal family. These rooms were the site of the 1990 fire which destroyed many important ceilings and rooms of the castle. Restoration work has ensured that the castle is as good as new.

This beautiful garden is actually situated in the moat which surrounds the Keep - the safe internal fortress that the Royal family used when under siege. There was a well inside the Keep to ensure that the family would survive a long period of isolation.

 The moat, looking the other way.

The Keep

Oops! Took this photo inside the Royal Apartments before I realised that it was not allowed. 

This poor young man stood sentry near the exit. He only moved once that I saw, when he executed a manoeuvre designed to stop him falling over from fatigue!

 The castle is in the background, taken from where we parked the car.

Having passed Heathrow airport to get to Windsor, we returned the hire car on the way back, caught a shuttle bus to the airport and a train to Hammersmith where we are spending the next 5 nights. I discovered that, if you download your route on The Google map app on the iPad when you have wifi, it continues to operate and show your location, even when you have no connection at all. Consequently, we navigated with ease today and even used it to get out of the shopping centre in order to find our apartment. We enjoyed our first home cooked meal of pasta bolognaise!

England 3

The map calls road like this major routes! Luckily we only encountered traffic when there was space to pass. Peter kept saying, over and over, 'Love it!'

This church was very 'elderly'! It was a well preserved Norman church, still in use in Tintagel, on the Cornish coast. Some grave stones were beyond deciphering, others dated back to the 1700s and there were recent graves as well.

The graves were on all 4 sides of the church.

Check ou the thickness of the walls!

Peaceful. All welcome...just close the door to keep the birds out!

The old post office. It became a post office because the residents of the town were sending out 125 letters a day, way back...some time!

Tintagel castle, or what remains of it, sits on the headland overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. This hole is one of the lookout spots.

 Check out Peter's Summer attire!

 These steps were incredibly steep. I was quite concerned as I went down and very careful not to ruin my holiday by doing damage to ankles, etc!

Those steps, from another angle.

 The camera is tilted 45degrees to capture both parts of this castle, built in medieval times by Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Only ruins remain now and many walls of the castle have fallen into the sea. The castle has been linked to the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the round table. Depending on where you read the information about Arthur, it is either totally true that Arthur was conceived at the castle or the castle was built 600 years after Arthur's death. I left the area confused about the legend and what was fact and what was myth!

 Nothing can detract from the views though. It's a stunning area to visit and the castle ruins, being my first ever castle, were well worth the effort of climbing up and down slate staircases and almost vertical roads!

We left Tintagel around 2pm and traveled to Plymouth in far less time than we'd ever travelled anywhere in England before. Only at the end of our journey did we come into difficulties as, with our international sim not providing good data, we located our hotel based on screen shots on the iPad. All ended well though and we strolled around this seaside destination reading about Sir Francis Drake and the Spanish Armada before finding a pub and eating an English meal of bangers and mash! Another item ticked off the bucket list, along with seeing a red double decker bus, a red pillar box postal box and a red telephone box. Doing well!

England 2

Another amazing day, seeped in ancient history. Leaving our accommodation early, we drove 5 miles into Bath city, stumbling by luck on the long term parking lot. With a purchased guide map in hand, we headed off in the direction of the abbey as we intended to take a Mayor's free walking tour at 10:30am.

 Best Western, Limpley Stoke, Bath

The view from our window

Hanging baskets of flowers are common in the area.

After a delicious bacon and egg breakfast (with gluten free toast!) we found the pump house and gathered with 30 other tourists wanting the tour. 4 guides turned up, all volunteers who had to pass an exam to have the honour of being our unpaid guides. I highly recommend the tour; it was fascinating 

and opened our eyes to so many details that we would have otherwise missed.

This is a statue of St Peter, positioned on the left side of the abbey doors. Notice that his head is rather small and that he has no neck? He actually lost his head during a war when soldiers were practising manoeuvres outside the abbey. A later restoration reused the stone that made up his original beard to carve a new face. The statue of St Paul on the other side of the doorway is complete with original head and halo and looks very different.

 

The Circus, Bath. There were 3 of these buildings, each with 3 stories and they formed a ring around a central courtyard where the wealthy ladies and gents would stay for 4 to 5 months for the sole purpose of finding a suitable match. The courtyard was gravel, not grass as it is now, so the fine shoes and dresses were not soiled. The columns on the lower level are Doric, the second level Ionic and the top level are Corinthian. Stone acorns decorate the roof edge.

A tour through the old Roman Baths completed an amazing morning in Bath. We had soaked up enough history by then and escaped for an English cup of tea and a peach for me, and an authentic traditional Cornish pastie for Peter.

Then began the torturous journey from Bath to Tintagel, on the coast of Cornwall. Finding the route out if Bath, and then out of Bristol had our nerves frayed. But succeed we did and the supposed 3.5 hour journey, predicted by Google, actually took 5.5 hours and provided us with significantly more grey hairs than we'd had before the journey started.

 The view from the B& B near Tintagel where we are staying. Pity we didn't arrive earlier as the day is sunny and a walk to the beach would have been great.  Tomorrow...

And another must do ticked off the list - Dinner in an English pub!Yum!

England 1

A full on 48 hours of travel took us from Singapore to London via Zurich, then by car to the south to see the world heritage listed Salisbury Cathedral and Stone Henge sites. With nothing but a map of the whole country to go by, we navigated south to Salisbury, marvelling at the picture postcard English scenery and cursing the lack of signage. We encountered traffic reduced to a standstill on narrow country roads (that were major enough to be listed on our map) and took too long to find the cathedral so missed the prepaid tower tour booked over the Internet. However, we still guided ourselves through the cathedral and viewed one of four original Magna Carta documents, in amazing condition, so all was not lost.

Where the Magna Carta is housed - no photography allowed.

Salisbury Cathedral cloisters.

Oldest working medieval clock in the world.

Me, next to one of the many sarcophaguses in the cathedral.

The magnificent Salisbury Cathedral. Tallest spire in the UK.

Having been told that it was a mere 20 min trip to Stone Henge we set out early, allowing one hour so that we wouldn't miss our 3:00pm Internet booking! Murthy was present, however, and we struck traffic jams, narrow major roads and the English lack of road signs which all combined to prevent our journey being easy. At 3:02 we finally pulled into the S.H. Car park, weary and frazzled.

By now the chill was settling in and the warmth of Singapore was forgotten as the 13 degree air seeped through our thin clothing. But all was forgotten when we saw the monoliths. It was a breath taking sight and it was hard to comprehend the age of the place...a mere 5000 years old. A brilliant audio guide, clutched to our ears as headphones were not provided, made the experience so much better.

Peter, feeling the cold!

Believe it or not, there were hundred of people there.

A spectacular site.

The day ended near Bath where we found our accommodation - an old establishment overlooking rolling green hills, not unlike the Yarra Valley. Too tired to seek out food anywhere else, we ate at the hotel, enjoying roast pork with mountains of veges! To top it all off, a charming young French waiter, the doppelgänger of son-in-law Daniel, made the night very special with his lovely manner and chatty nature.

Now for sleep!