Revelling in nature and an Eye on London

Murali, Sindhu and Elizabeth in the
deer park at New Forest

For the last time I drove in Britain to the sunny shores of Southampton where I gave my car back to the rental company. We were in Southampton to visit our new friends Murali and Sindhu. We met Murali and Sindhu in Cappadocia in Turkey where they celebrated their wedding anniversary with one of those fantastic hot air balloon trips over the Martian landscape. They made their first mistake by asking me to take their photo while we were walking to the outdoor museum of ancient caves. Their second mistake was inviting us to stay at their place if we were ever in Britain, so, as is always the case with us, we took them up on their offer :-)

A bee at work

Southampton has many options for the traveller who needs to relax and get back to nature. It has a history as an important port with an ancient wall you can walk along that was built to protect the town from invaders as well as many old buildings and churches. But I think where it excels is in the scenic attractions that are so easily accessible and close.

Alum Beach

For instance we spent a day out at the Isle of Wight, a short ferry ride away, visiting Alum Beach that has multi coloured sandy cliffs all along it. Walking distance from Alum Beach are The Needles, a collection of white chalk rocks just off the coast that jut out of the ocean like a dragon's spine.

The Needles

We also spent a day at New Forest. This is a huge green belt with trees and lakes as well as a large variey of local flora and fauna including horses walking around wild. They are quite friendly, but if fed (signs say not to) they can become too friendly with several intances (not us) of people being followed by horses that would not go away. The forest also includes a deer sanctuary with a beautiful walking path through the trees with views of deer. There are several thousand now, after nearly being driven to extinction by a culling in olden times. A lovely place to come and explore and have a picnic, which we did.

On our last day there we visited Southampton Common, a large park in the middle of the city, and ate a traditional pub meal at 'The Cowherds'. This busy little pub had a separate gluten free menu so I was in seventh heaven with a chicken and chips meal (melted cheese and bacon on the chicken) and peas. Yum. All in all a terrific and relaxing time with our new friends and lots of home cooked authentic Indian meals. Thanks guys.

After the pub it was a race to the bus station to catch a coach to London. I must say that the hostel I found us in London was the worst we have been in. We were on the 4th floor, all stairs (no lift) and the shared bathroom and toilets were two floors down. Not very convenient at night for a person with a weak bladder. The reception demanded cash only before we could get our key (did not have that much cash on me) and the price was at the upper bounds of our budget. No wifi and paid brekkie that consisted of coffee, some bread and jam. It was chosen for three reasons: location, location and location. Down the end of the street was Hyde Park and this place was walking distance to most of the attractions we wanted to get to.

Buckingham Palace

London Eye

London itself was awesome. After one of those free walking tours we have grown so fond of, we continued walking to get our bearing on the major sites such as the London Eye, the ferry situation and to help plan out our next day.

The second day was an explosion of activities from start to end. We began at Madame Tussaud's. To give you an idea of how realistic these creations are just have a look at the photo of Patrick Stewart with the girl taking his photo. We waited here about five minutes for the girl to finish taking her photo before we realised she was a wax dummy herself (or maybe we are the dummies). Once we realised, I was able to take a photo with my Star Trek hero (points with finger and says 'engage' in a strong British accent). My mate Barack let me help him solve the world's problems and I nearly lost Elizabeth to The Hulk when he got a finger on to her backpack. The ticket included a 4D movie that was amazing with blasts of air, stabs in the back from the chair and 3D so realistic I was ducking.

We then took a ferry ride to Greenwich, home of 0 time and the line between East and West. It has a fantastic park where the astronomical observatory is housed and we saw many friendly squirrels in the grounds. Afterwards we hopped back on the ferry outbound to the end to see the Thames Barrier, one of the city's protection mechanisms from flooding, and stayed on it for the trip back to the London Eye.

Half in the west
hemisphere and
half in the east.

Thames Barrier

The London Eye is taller than it looks and I even felt a little apprehensive as we reached its zenith. The views are amazing. We took it at night as some travellers in Europe recommended. Then the underground back home to get some sleep before a 4:30 am wake up time to catch our flight to the USA and New York, New York.

Parliament from the
London Eye

Castles *3

After our scenic drive through the Lakes District we arrived in sunny... err wet and cold Scotland to visit Elizabeth's friends Gwen and Ronnie in Ardrossan near Glasgow. Scotland was not all cold and wet; we did have significant dry periods and actually spent most of the following day walking around the surrounding area. Gwen and Ronnie, with obvious pride and enthusiasm, showed us the sights of this charming area while displaying typically generous Scottish hospitality, feeding us large slatherings of gluten free food, including crumpets (GF is well catered for in the supermarkets), and even some salads (even though the Scots consider 'salad' a dirty word).

Portencross Castle

Portencross inside

Ardrossan is right on the beach and was a relaxing and beautiful area to walk around in its own right but we also visited Portencross Castle, a small but superbly renovated castle sitting like a lighthouse on the coast. This was followed by the huge and extravagant Culzean Castle, completely decked out with authentic furniture and fixtures. I particularly liked the working music box that one of the staff opened and played for me and the certificate (called an indulgence) from the pope that pardoned a person's sins and granted fast track access to heaven. The gardens were also huge and magnificent, so extensive that we weren't able to cover the whole grounds in one go. Our time in Scotland was very enjoyable and it's very beautiful, green and crisp this time time of year. Thank you Ronnie and Gwen for showing us around.

Culzean Castle

Ardrossan

Where Shakespeare was born

When we left Scotland it was still raining but that just added to its atmosphere as we began our journey back down through the middle of Britain to the eventual destination of Southampton. But we had a few stops, the first one being Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of the most famous of bards, Shakespeare.

Performances outside
the family home

'Alas poor Yorick, I knew
him, Horatio'

The town's whole existence seems to be geared to the life of Shakespeare. There is his family home and birthplace, and I remember after being told that the floor was still the original stone bending down and touching it with a resulting shiver of knowing that Shakespeare himself probably touched this floor as well. The feeling was quite surprising. Outside in the garden professional actors continuously recite famous parts of Shakespeare's plays on demand. Throw them the name of a play and they are able to instantly act out a passage for you.

The little lady's family home

We also visited the cottage Anne Hathaway grew up in (Shakespeare's wife, not the actress) where we were told fascinating stories of life back then and a few too many examples of English sayings and where they come from. The large garden had bushes on which hung laminated Shakespeare sonnets as well as a secluded seat under a small tree where from an audio panel you could choose from a selection of sonnets read by a famous actor. Definitely a romantic getaway that will make any girl swoon. There were many more buildings and references of significance throughout the town but we only had the one full day and just up the road was the famous Warwick Castle.

Shouldn't eavesdrop,
Elizabeth

Falconry at Warwick
Castle

Now that place is a day out. Currently owned by the Merlin entertainment group (also owns Madame Tussaud's) this place is a continuous medieval festival with shows and activities all year round. The castle contains wax models of previous castle inhabitants and tells a consistent story throughout with taped voices, supposedly from the models, of its glory days. There was a falconry display, a huge catapult firing a flaming ball, horror dungeon displays etc. I also like the fact that you could take as many photos as you liked, anywhere.

Warwick Castle from one of its ramparts

Just a small gripe: I hate it when they don't allow photographs inside buildings, it really takes away a lot of the future enjoyment. I can't browse back through the photographs and flood my mind with the memories of the experience. This occurs all too frequently; if it is a question of the flash affecting artefacts then they should just say so and warn that you will be asked to leave if you use flash. If for other reasons then it is just wrong.

Our last stop on our long journey was Stonehenge. Elizabeth had done a good job of lowering my expectations by saying how small and unimpressive it was when she first saw it, so when it came into view I was both surprised and impressed by its size and atmospheric presence in the English countryside. It was larger than I expected, was as old as the pyramids and would have required similar engineering skill to get the stone down from Wales and bury the pillars a third deep in the ground while interlocking them with the huge stone beams along the top like a jigsaw puzzle. They apparently used tools meant for wood to initially shape the pillars. It just shows what can be done with enough will and enough hard working human beings.

From the white cliffs to the white rabbit

Next stop and another old friend of Elizabeth's in Folkestone. For the first time this year I hired a car and drove; I also bought my own GPS (we call her Emily) because at £11 per day it was cheaper than hiring one. Driving in the UK is a pain for several reasons (though they do drive on the 'right' side of the road). Firstly they have about 2 billion roundabouts, some of them huge with 3 or 4 lanes and 5 to 6 exits, so confusing. Secondly their roads are not big enough for two cars so you have to look ahead all the time and duck out of the way.

Elizabeth and Caroline

White cliffs of Dover

Anyway I successfully negotiated my way to Folkestone where we met up with Elizabeth's friend Caroline. We spent a relaxing few days here catching the sights and catching up with the old days. Folkestone is a charming little town on the south coast that is the quintessential British beach town. From here you can go to see the white cliffs of Dover, stroll along a charming little beach by taking one of the only water and gravity powered funicular railways in the world and visit the pier with its constant hive of activity. On the day we were there they were teaching some dogs to rescue in the water and speedboat races were occurring. A big thank you to Caroline for showing us the beauty of Folkestone and the surrounding Kent countryside.

Ye olde phone booth

Me, gardening and fire
- dangerous combination

Folkestone version
of the Little Mermaid

Harry Potter fans can drool :-)

Oxford town

From here we drove to Oxford, where we spent one night and went for a walk around the city the next morning. The architecture here was amazing, very old, very beautiful and everywhere you looked. We went to see Oxford Castle (built in 1071) and its accompanying St George's Tower, which was still a prison until 1996. The place holds a very torrid history of maltreatment of prisoners with many sadistic practices in the olden days and ghost tours are also conducted here, though we did not see any ghosts. Wandering the streets I could feel my brain cells growing as we came across many universities still in use today in buildings and grounds that look like they did several hundred years ago. One of my favourites was New College where Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was filmed.

Prison cell

Bound for prison cell

Great Orme ancient mine

Off we went again to visit the cute little town of Llandudno in Wales. Their main claim to fame is a small hill they call the Great Orme that's less than 400m high. In the style we have become used to we accepted the challenge and decided to do the walk around it as well as up it on the same day (we were only there for the one full day), so with the local in the hotel asking repeatedly why we don't take the tram we set off on our trek. On the way we came across an old copper mine that dates back to the Bronze Age and apparently rivals the pyramids of Egypt in its age and history. This archaeological site is still being excavated and explains how people would have mined and refined and worked the copper back then.

Off with her head!

On top of all that they have a tenuous connection to the book Alice in Wonderland because Alice Liddell, the girl the book is apparently based on, used to holiday here. Consequently they have many statues representing characters from the book. It was a big day but very satisfying and enjoyable. With a beach on two sides and the Great Orme on a third side and with views to Snowdonia, this is a town I would thoroughly recommend.

We left here to meander slowly through the Lakes District on our way to Scotland. This included a stop of several hours at Lake Windermere for a scenic cruise on this wonderful lake and a walk through the countryside. This year in Britain had been the wettest in 100 years but our luck in getting fine weather has been nearly flawless. I wonder what the weather in Scotland will be like...

Watch out for that tree...

After roughly six and a half months of travelling we finally arrive in a country that speaks Engish. It is really weird going into McDonalds or a shop and people understand you, it will take some getting used to. I found myself still talking slowly and deliberately looking for understanding, and I can finally watch TV :-) (much to Elizabeth's disgust).

Our travels in the UK started at the house of Elizabeth's old friend Nicola in Sussex. The hugely generous, fun and slightly crazy Nicola and her two fabulous teenagers opened up their home to us for a marvellous week of activities. Warning: If Nicola offers to take you for a short bike ride, please be advised this will normally entail several hours or more of mountain bike riding on steep hills, out in the countryside, off the beaten track on rocky and grassy paths or no paths at all, and possibly/probably in the dark. If told to ignore a 'do not enter' sign on a property you may find yourself being chased out by angry security.

As usual our luck was holding and the weather fined up for us as we fortunately arrived on the weekend of the medieval festival at Herstmonceux Castle. I believe it's the biggest medieval festival in England. Now the British may be crazy but they really know how to bring history to life. This was a huge day of activities that included the re-enactment of the siege of the castle with cannons and rifles going off, bows firing actual arrows (soft tipped I presume as I saw no actual blood), a huge catapult being used and hand to hand combat. A really huge and impressive display. They also had a cannon display culminating in the firing of a cannon that was so big we were told to put our hands over our ears and open our mouths with the resulting shock wave making our bodies shake.

There were flying falcons, medieval plays and more but the highlight for me was the jousting competition. Obviously it was a show but it was done so realistically with lances actually hitting and splintering you could imagine you were in the audience in the Middle Ages.

Moments before being
hit by the icy cold

Another day we went to the beach. Hmm beaches in the UK are not like Australia, they don't have nice soft sand that you can walk on with bare feet, you need to wear sandals on the pebbly beach and we even needed to wear them into the water, which, by the way was freezing, needless to say we jumped in anyway.

Nicola's friend singing in the pub

There were also the marathon  life threatening bike rides and the long lovely drives through the wonderfully green and luscious UK scenery. This was the wettest UK summer in 100 years so the scenery had the benefit of plenty of water and sun to put its best foot forward for us. A night was spent in a typical English pub watching karaoke without a karaoke machine, these amateurs actually knew how to sing, knew the words and created their own music. We had a great time in the South Downs area of the UK and the little town of Hurstpierpoint, thank you very much Nicola, Jill and Mark.

Night before the blue moon, same
bike ride

On one of our bike rides

Ode to train travel

After nearly 3 months of travelling by train through Europe, there have been good times and bad times, but it is still my favourite mode of travel. As we leave the trains behind and switch to car travel as our primary mode of transport, Elizabeth has written this little piece.

39 main intercity train journeys (plus numerous little ones)
First: 2nd June Rome
Last: 24th August Paris

Ode to Eurail:

Training through thirteen countries on The Continent during three mad months the main memories are.....

Italy
Loud impish Italy sometimes refuses to stick to schedules but its vistas are nearly always awesome (except when excluded by exasperating tunnels).

Switzerland
Terrific train terrain. Every view from every wide window a perfect picture postcard of massive mountains, limpid lakes or craggy canyons.

Austria & Hungary
Soft scenery & complimentary kit kats (sadly not suitable for coeliacs).

Czech Republic & Germany
High hills, tall trees. Bavaria boldly displaying its planet protecting shiny solar panels & whizzing wind turbines.

France
Frustrating France refuses to relate with its Eurail rellies but dishes up delicious free food in first class on one of its fast trains & chunks of charming countryside on its slower ones.

Belgium & The Netherlands
Barging through Belgium to arrive at the red lights of accepting arty Amsterdam.

Denmark
Earn brownie points from the thorough ticket inspector for filling out our Eurail form fully. Train travels on ferry from German border.

Sweden
Swaying past serenely still lakes to Stockholm.

Norway
Luck holds as we land in the comfy family-friendly wide windowed area courtesy of the Copenhagen booking clerk. The super wide windows suit the amazing Arctic Circle scenery of fantastic fjords, classic coastline & rugged rocky ranges.

Spain
Burning from the Riviera border to beautiful Barcelona by bus when our double-destination train refuses to part company with itself. Back on a tranquil train to the perfect Pyrenees.

Summing up
Mostly.....comfy chairs, cosy couchettes, efficient employees, stunning scenery, tasty tucker, varied views, wide-eyed wonder.  

Our amazing race

My son once said that he was watching The Amazing Race and had thought of us, but thought our trip would not be as exciting as that. Well, you would be surprised at how many times our travels have been exactly like that, consider our trip out of Europe.

I was sitting on my bed

With 3 days to get out of Europe before the Schengen Convention runs out we started the long trek from the Tuscany region of Italy to the UK. We left the hotel at 9:30 in the morning with a lift from the hotel owner down to the train station. Our first leg was to Milan with several train changes. Once in Milan we had a 4 hour wait until our night train at 11pm. Unlike the night train in Norway, which was a fancy cabin with comfortable beds for two, the Italian version was 4 times the cost for a 4 bed berth and was really seats with the armrests lifted up. Several times during the night I banged my head on the middle table and bin above me. Luckily the young Italian people we shared with were really nice even though I could not understand them.

After a very uncomfortable night we arrived in Paris about 11am the next day. Now it might seem weird but we had no way organised to get to the UK from here. We did try to book the ferry in Italy but the internet was saying it was full, then Elizabeth's friend in the UK had a go but after initially saying that it had seats it suddenly changed to full when she tried to book and when she phoned they also said they were full. The other option was the Eurostar train through the Channel Tunnel. The price seemed good as we get a discount using our Eurail passes, 57 euros each to London and then we would need to find a train down to Brighton. This would have been ideal except for the fact that the website said you could not buy it online, only in person. So we thought we could buy it when we got to Paris.

From the Paris de Lyon train station we had to get to the de Nord train station to catch the Eurostar so we found out how to get there and caught the metro. After wandering about and asking several people we eventually arrived at the ticketing counter. The not very friendly lady behind the ticketing counter informed us that you cannot buy a Eurail pass ticket on the day of travel and we would have to pay full price, full price that day was 249 euros, each. I asked for clarification on the logic of Eurostar not letting us buy it on the internet and then not letting us buy it on the day then how were we supposed to buy them? She fully agreed that the logic seemed faulty and was playing the agree with anything we say game until we left. We left.

Our only other option was the ferry that was apparently full but had said on the phone you could turn up and see if any seats were left on the day. So we found out how to get to Dieppe whch was where the ferry leaves from. We found the appropriate train and went on our way. We got into Dieppe at 5pm, the ferry leaves at 6pm so instead of doing the logical thing and taking a taxi we decided to walk to the docks by heading in the general direction of the sea, because, well because that's what we do :-)

Dragging our luggage behind us we asked for directions from a tourist office we passed and picked up a map. It was about 3km from the train station and we got there at 5:35pm. We waited not so patiently behind a guy in front of us and finally asked for tickets and were informed there were none left. We gave our sob story of having nowhere to sleep that night and that we would stand the whole way and we did not take up much space etc and he got on the phone to the captain. The captain said he could squeeze us on but we were the last two. We finally got our tickets and headed to  customs, passport control and the bus to the ferry which were all waiting for us. We survived the dirty looks and arrived at the boat.

Bye Europe

Nice summer gear on

The boat was brilliant, lots of seats, areas where you had couches and big lcd screens, restaurants, bars, kids' play areas etc for only 25 euros each, phenomenal! It even had wifi for a small charge. We needed to find a powerpoint as my phone was flat after 2 days of travel and we needed to inform Elizabeth's friend Nicola how we were arriving. We sat on the floor, plugged in, paid for some internet and passed on the info through facebook. All done, time to kick back and enjoy the ride. At Newhaven in the UK 4 hours later the border control gave us the third degree for the first time in 3 months (Europe is really cool for not needing a passport once inside). Poetically for Elizabeth she was arriving in the same manner and in the same place that she left the UK 22 years ago and being picked up by the same friend that dropped her off. As we exited the ferry terminal Nicola was waiting for us and after hugs, 22 years old in the making, we hopped in the car freezing in our hot European weather gear. The UK was wet and cold. Just like I remembered it 20 years ago.

Does it look cold over there?