Friday, July 1, 2016

Brexit

Welcome to another post that has been taken over by me Noah ha ha ha. On a real note  today has been more than a good experience. I will always look back on this trip and think of all the good that has come from it. If i wouldn't have gone i would have not been able to meet Justine the travel  director  Peter the coach drive for the first couple of days and Carl for the last, and the 29 other people on this trip. Thats besides the point today we traveled all over Edinburgh Scotland.


Edinburgh 

Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh was a great experience. we  all stared with a tour of the city where Eddy our guide showed us around and explained the whole kilt and high socks on a man. Now do not mess with them they have knives in their boot. So think twice to call a kilt on a man a skirt...   


We went to see the change of guards and we witnessed the band that plays for the army play some songs. 






We have got see a castle older than 800 years and we got to go see where an actual king has been born! Ya a small room in the Edinburgh castle had a little baby born... The castle was a cool spot because the history of Edinburgh was rich if you just did a little research and to go to the castle it is all out in front of your  face and it is just a great experience just there. We saw the religious crown of Scotland the religious sword  and the staff. (sorry no pictures allowed). 


But we did get to see where Harry Potter Dinning Hall in the  movie was based off of.  After all of  sight seeing of the castle we went on The Queens  old boat named Britannia. That was an excellent time. It is now docked and created into a museum for anyone to go on board and check out everything on the ship that took many trips around the world.  

Partial view of the city from the castle

In the Great Hall (inspiration for Harry Potter dining room at Hogwarts)

More from the Great Hall 




Then we got lunch and continued our  trip around the city and got to see some very interesting sites around the city and we saw some more dudes in kilts and just fully immersed ourselves in culture. We saw the place where the first Harry potter was written in. It was a small cafe in on the corner of Queen Street. It's small and pretty cool  spot. The shop was called The Elephant House. Her words where "The Elephant House has magic  that is unexplainable".  After we grabbed a pint at some cool pub that all the locals love and then back to the hotel. Since it was the last night we had a nice dinner with everyone and said our good byes to some who are staying and some who are going their separate ways. It was very nice.
A personal favorite - t
wo reflections of us in the photo of the Queen's car stored on the yacht
(love the Corgi in the back seat)

It's been a fabulous trip!  Thanks to all for following!  See you soon!

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Scotland!

We left England this morning and stopped at the Roman Army Museum to have a look around.  Noah took a lot of photos there which I’m sure will make it on to facebook in due time.  We then drove a short bit to see remnants of “Hadrian’s Wall” --- the wall that the Romans built on the approximate border between England and Scotland to keep the Celts out of the Roman Empire.  It was built in the first century AD --- and parts are still standing!  (The parts that are missing are missing because people took the stones to build other things over the years - like castles and other walls - rather than looking for their own rocks.)






We left when these friends decided to join us at the wall!

We finally crossed the border into Scotland and were met by a piper!   

Piper on the border between England and Scotland



Quick stop at hotel to change clothes and head out for an authentic Scottish dinner and show, complete with haggis, dancers, bagpipes, kilts and songs.  It was a great evening and I’m not doing it justice in today’s post but we are tired and ready for bed.


Piper outside our dinner theatre in Edinburgh tonight

Will post a farewell to Great Britain tomorrow after a day of sightseeing in Edinburgh, but will leave you with this quote we overheard as we were leaving the show--- A woman asked a Scottish man wearing a kilt why it was that he wore a kilt.  In a wonderful Scottish accent he answered, "Because balls this large cannot be contained.”  It made us laugh out loud and chuckle most of the way home.




Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Bus, train, boat, rain

Woke up to cold and rainy weather.  We boarded our coach and headed back to England for a tour of an English mansion – narrated by actors portraying the head butler and housekeeper.  We enjoyed it but skipped the tour of the garden and farm due to the continuing rain.

The drawing room


Library

Seriously- you're looking for a label on this one?

The main kitchen (as opposed to the scullery).  Note: only Noah was able to lift that cast iron pot on the near right front part of the stove handily....He was offered the job of kitchen man, but declined in favor of seeking a job with indoor plumbing.


We then drove to the Lakes District and took a short ride on a train pulled by a steam engine from Haverthwaite Station to Lakeside Station.  There, we de-trained and boarded a passenger ferry.  We traveled up Lake Windermere from Lakeside to Bowness.  It continued rainy --- until we de-boated.  That’s when the sun came out.  Just in time for an ice cream cone, short stroll around the posh little town of Bowness and a 40 pence pee.  (Many public toilets charge an admission for upkeep.)  The Lakes District is and has been home to many authors and artists over the years, including Beatrix Potter.
We didn't get a photo of our train but here's Noah on the bridge

This is what most of the day looked like today

This was followed by a relatively short coach ride to our hotel for the night in Lancaster and dinner with our group.


Okay - so when it stops raining, it is absolutely breath-taking!  This photo shows the stone wall dividing the paddocks.  (In Wales and other parts of England, these dividers are hedges
  
An early day tomorrow to head up to Scotland --- perhaps a 3-hour drive.  We are looking forward to the city of Edinburgh and touring another castle!



The best surprise at the end of the day--- a WASHCLOTH!!!!!YA-HOO!

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Noah invades the blog space



Okay so this is Noah invades the blog.  So before you go shooting down at the comments and say anything about how it is different i warned you

      Today we started woke up and had breakfast in this beautiful castle. Our breakfast was good and we kinda did a mini adventure around the first level before we went on with our day because we had a hour later departure today. (Yay!) 

Ruthin Castle --- Our hotel
The gate through the stone wall of our castle/hotel --- You should see the bus, er coach, pull through this entry!

Liverpool: 
    Ah Liverpool what a awesome  place to be. I totally didn't expect it to turn out as amazing as it was. They where super huge into there soccer (futball) there. In Liverpool its either you root for Liverpool reds or Everton Blue.  Now there people who eat sleep and breathe soccer so it might be a bad idea to wear the wrong color with the wrong people... kinda like football in America. What Liverpool is mostly proud of is The Beatles. We saw quite a bit of awesome stuff like Penny Lane and what shops he explains that are there in the lyrics of the song "Penny Lane." Only places that are the same there is the Bank and Barber shop. we got  the story how The Quarry Men changed into The Beatles that we all know and love today. The last stop we went to in Liverpool before our free lunch was called The Cavern Club.  They closed for a little time for remodeling the re-opened and is still a music venue.  The Beatles played at this venue more than 300+ occasions. After The Beatles got big bands like Adele, The Wanted, The Who, Rolling stones,  and more came to play here. just the whole entire experience was stunning!!! I wish we had more time to wander around Liverpool. But we also had to go to Chester as well.  The time spent in Liverpool is something i will never forget.
The Yellow Submarine!

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes...
The barber shop on the corner of Penny Lane

The bank

The place where the Beatles got their start...



Chester: 

  Okay Chester was a quiet small town that if Disney designed a town this is what it would look like. It still had the tower walls that the romans built for protection where you could only enter at North South East or West   (the stories you hear about castles is correct).  It was pretty cool but it followed Liverpool and i don't think anything can really compare to the love we had for the city and to follow it up was not really fair. It was still pretty cool on its on with the way it was built and how it was set up with a statue marking the dead middle of the city.

Near the center of the town of Chester
Cheers! - Noah

Monday, June 27, 2016

Bath and Wales

We experienced a lot of traffic between Bristol and Bath, but it was well worth the trip.  We weren’t able to go inside Bath Abbey but were impressed by the outside!  The Roman baths were incredible!  We took a self-guided tour and spent a good deal of time looking at the artifacts.  I was very interesting.  We walked around a bit in the center of Bath and then re-boarded the coach.
Bath Abbey - side view

 Abbey entry

The Roman Baths - date back to around 56AD! No longer used but preserved.

Another view of the baths with the Abbey reflected in the water.

Another Bridge of Sighs in Bath




The long drive from Bath to Wales was made even longer by road construction/repairs and fairly heavy traffic.  Finally, we crossed into Wales and it is absolutely gorgeous!  Rolling lush green hillsides and sheep grazing EVERYWHERE!  Stopped briefly at a little Welsh town called Llangollen and then on to Ruthin where we will be staying in a castle for two nights!  You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for castle photos --- we need to charge our camera batteries!


River Dee flows through the town of Llangollen - had to get a photo of your river, Dee!

The row houses in town --- note the doors are painted different colors.  Legend has it that this is so that you are able to tell which house is yours as you stumble home from the neighborhood pub.

See what I mean?  Wales is beautiful!  (All the tiny white dots are sheep.)