Catching Ducks

First off, thanks Mom and Dad, for the awesome Christmas present! :)


22 March 07

Left Seattle. Dad dropped me off at the airport nice and early. Thanks again, Dad!


23 March 07

Arrived London. Mom met me at the airport. We picked up the rental car and drove to Lewes (pronounced "lewis"). Arrived too late to see Lewes Castle. I went to bed early instead. Mom watched TV. Apparently I was tired enough that I slept through it!


24 March 07

We drove to Pevensey Castle. I seem to have found my calling as a navigator -- Mom says I'm the best she's ever had (or was it second best? Either way, I was good.)

Pevensey is a proper castle: It has a moat!



It as a dungeon, too. (These are the stairs to it.) The dungeon was, as one would expect, dark and dank.



This is the interior of the castle. Those round things aren't cannonballs, they're catapult fodder from ye olden days. These balls (and a bunch of others) were dredged out of the moat. They were big. (Big = bigger than my head.)



Fun Fact #1: Pevensey Castle used to be right on the coast. Now the sea is about a mile away.

Fun Fact #2: It was used by the military as recently as World War II.

After Pevensey Castle (and before Michael Ball concert #1) we did a little shopping. I bought candy bars and a magazine with Hugh Laurie on the cover.

Question: Why does the U.K. have seven (eight if you count "Radio Times") TV magazines when they only have five (six?) channels??

Sorry, no pictures from the concert. Cameras are forbidden! Good concert, though.


25 March 07

Left Lewes. Went to Fishbourne Palace. This place was totally awesome! Mom and I accidentally spent three hours there!

It was discovered in 1960. Some workmen dug up a bit of it. At first they thought it was just another Roman settlement. Eventually they realized that it was actually a huge Roman palace! The only other sites that compare to it are in Italy.

There are some beautiful tile floors. Some are almost completely intact. This was from a dining room:



Most of the palace is still underground, buried underneath a road and a row of homes.

After Fishbourne Palace, we went to Portsmouth and Michael Ball concert #2. Front row seats this time -- eek!


26 March 07

Left Portsmouth. Stopped at Portchester Castle. Really neat. There was this large lawn surrounded by the outer wall. The lawn area seemed to function as a public park. (The same was true at Pevensey Castle.) There was a woman throwing a ball into the moat around the castle, and her dog would jump in and fetch it! (I have a great video of this.)



The tourist stuff was past the moat, in the actual castle bit. The tallest building (the keep? I think? I should really know this...) was still intact, so we could go up to the top. We had a great view of the water, Portsmouth, the countryside, and a bird's-eye view of the rest of the castle. Neat!




After Portchester Castle we went to Glastonbury. Unfortunately, it was a bust. We got there later than we'd hoped, it was hard to find the stuff we wanted to see, it was even harder to find parking, and the staff at Glastonbury Abbey was grumpy. Goodbye Glastonbury, and good riddance.

We drove on the Bath and went to bed.


27 March 07

Walked into downtown Bath.

We went to the Roman Baths first. The Romans were big fans of baths (both in the sense of washing and in the sense of the places themselves). The baths in Bath were a big deal because they were heated by a natural hot spring. This made them a holy place, not just a place to clean and socialize. (By the way, the Celts had set up a shrine -- to the goddess Sulis -- there before the Romans showed up. That didn't bother the Romans at all. They just figured out who the Roman equivalent of Sulis was -- Minerva -- and worshipped Sulis-Minerva. Quite accommodating, really. On a side note, the Romans generally get a bad rap for their treatment of the early Christians. And, okay, Christians vs. lions, etc. But the Romans got along fine with other polytheist cultures. It was the Jews and Christians and their "one god" idea that caused the problems. Not that that justifies slaughter. I'm just saying that the Romans are sometimes portrayed as intolerant, and I don't think they were. I think they just couldn't wrap their heads around the monotheism thing. Anyway.....)

Here's the famous Roman baths of Bath:



I don't know if you can see it in the small picture (click on it and you should be able to find a larger picture), but the actual Roman stuff only goes up a few feet above the pool. After that it's a Victorian expansion. The Romans put a roof over the pool. I'm not sure why the Victorians didn't follow suit.

The Romans baths are now below street level.

Like I said earlier, this was a holy place. The Romans built a temple. The temple's gone, but they've found bits and pieces. This was the centerpiece of the front decoration of the temple (They think it's a Gorgon's head.):




Right next door to the Baths is the Bath Abbey. And when I say right next door, I mean right next door. This is Bath Abbey, as seen from the balcony above the pool:



Here's the inside:



I find myself staring at the ceiling in these sorts of places. It's sort of hypnotic.

There were lots of people buried (interred?) in the Abbey itself. Or were they memorials? I never quite figured it out. At any rate, some of them were elaborate, with beautiful sculptures.




Our last stop in Bath was the Costume Museum. Basically, it was a museum for clothes. I loved it! Unfortunately, they're doing renovations, and the oldest stuff was closed off. But what we did see was super-cool. Look! Pretty clothes!!




Walked back to the hotel. I loved this hotel, by the way. Two reasons:

1) They had several options for breakfast (not that I really liked any of them, but it was nice to have a choice!) and all-you-can-eat grapefruit and all-you-can-eat fruit salad. Yum!

2) They had a computer (with an internet connection) in the lobby that was free for guests to use. I think my mom and I checked our email half a dozen times!


28 March 07

I drove. Mom screeched.

Went to Stourhead Gardens. This was some rich family's estate at one time. There's a big fancy house, but it was closed the day we were there. We walked around the gardens though. We did the two mile path. (The gardens are big and fancy, too!)

Near the house were gardens where they grew exotic plants. In the center of one was a dipping pool. The gardeners used to go down those steps to fill their watering cans.



Further away from the house it was more like a big park. There was a lake in the center. (Did I mention this was a big place?)



Along the lake edge there was the "grotto". As you walk along the path, you see a rock formation ahead. When you get closer, you can see there's actually a tunnel through the rocks. It leads to a large, round room that has a skylight, a window looking out over the lake, seats built into the wall, and a statue of a naiad opposite the window. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but hopefully you can get the idea:



(The girls were on a field trip. One is sitting in the window, the other is sitting in one of those built-in seats.)


After we left Stourhead we drove down the road a couple of miles to King Alfred's Tower. King Alfred's Tower is a "folly". That is, a tall structure built for no purpose. It just is.



It's triangular, and the inside is empty. There's a hole in the top.



Mom didn't want to climb it (she was pooped from the gardens) but I did. Up I went!



(The stairs were in one corner of the triangle.)

I actually made it to the top before my mom made it back to the main path (that's the one that cuts across the green.)



See that speck? That's my mom.

It was ten or eleven stories tall. The view wasn't great (too cloudy) but I'm glad I went up.


Drove on to Bournemouth for Michael Ball concert #3.


29 March 07

Went to Old Sarum. It's the site of the original town of Salisbury. Why did the town move, you ask? Politics, of course.

Originally the church was right next to the castle:



But a few years later the church leaders wanted to expand it. To raise money, they started a market down the hill from the castle. (They were having a bit of a tiff with the king.) Eventually they decided to build the new church near the new market. And voila! Salisbury was born:



Old Sarum's one of those places that was used by various people for thousands of years. Eventually someone installed a privy.



Imagine being the guy who had to climb in and clean it out!


After Old Sarum we went to Stonehenge. It's right next to the road! You've all seen lots of pictures, so I'll just post my favorite of the ones I took:




After Stonehenge we drove to Winchester to see the Winchester Cathedral.



When we walked in we could hear the organist playing. My mom asked if there was a recital going on, but he/she was just practicing. It was really neat! Having organ music playing in the background really gave the place a great atmosphere.



We were about to leave when the verger told us we should see the crypt. Unfortunately, it floods during the winter, so we could just see the very beginning, but it was still pretty cool. A modern artist made the sculpture you see. It was designed for when the crypt floods.




Spent the night at a Travel Lodge north of Winchester. Specifically, the northbound Travel Lodge. Not the southbound. The northbound.


30 March 07

Left the Travel Lodge and went to Farnham to see the Waverly Abbey. Unfortunately, we couldn't find it. We finally stopped and asked a postman for help. He'd never heard of it (!) but he knew where the Waverly Abbey House was. Luckily, Waverly Abbey was next door to the Waverly Abbey House.



The Abbey wasn't particularly well maintained. It was also the only free site we went to. I suspect those two things are related somehow...


Drove into London, dropped off the car, and I got on a plane for home!


My dad picked me up from the airport (Thanks, Dad!) and took me home where I slept. And then went to work. And then slept. And then went to work again. And then slept. And ....


I bought some cool stuff while I was in England (Books! A Stonehenge jigsaw puzzle! An antique picture! More books!) but I think this was my favorite purchase:



Yes, that's right, it's forty-eight Crunchie bars! Yum!!!!


Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. :)

Labels: travel