In Bath, we immersed ourselves in history as far back as Roman times.  Then we left town and traveled even further back in time – back to the ancient peoples of Britain – mysterious societies who erected massive circles of standing stones that we may never fully understand.

Our first stop was Avebury, called “the connoisseur’s stone circle” by some.  Avebury Stone Circle is an impressive construction of standing stones, a quarter mile wide, encircling a small hamlet that grew up in between the stones. 

The stones were massive, and some of them appeared to be balanced quite precariously – but they were all standing very solidly.  Avebury is not nearly as well-known as its close neighbor, Stonehenge, but it was fascinating – not least because visitors were permitted to wander at their leisure amongst the stones and even touch them (unlike Stonehenge, which is fenced off from crowds for its own protection).  The people of Avebury have taken care of their stones – except for the time when they pulled them all down in a spurt of religious enthusiasm.  We took our time meandering around the circle.

You can get a good sense of the size of the stones – hubby is six feet tall, and this stone (which wasn’t even the largest) dwarfed him.  Pretty impressive! 

From Avebury we headed a short drive to Stonehenge.  Stonehenge is a wildly popular protected site.  Unlike Avebury, it’s touristy, expensive, and roped off.  But it’s completely worth a trip.  We wandered around the circle, snapping pictures from every angle and debating that age-old question: who put these stones here, and why?

Come back next Friday for the next stop on our tour of southern England!

Finally, finally I’ve got my pictures uploaded and sorted, and I’m ready to share all the details of hubby’s and my epic road trip through southern England this October!  It was a blast, and I took almost 2,000 pictures, so I’m planning to break this up into a series of posts and put up one recap a week from now until eternity.  (Just kidding about the eternity part.  I hope.) 

We started our trip in Bath, which was the perfect way to begin the journey if you ask me!  To begin with, it’s incredibly easy to get there.  Hubby and I landed at Heathrow Airport and took a bus directly from the airport to the center of Bath.  It was about as effortless and foolproof a way to get out of the airport zone and into the heart of England as I can imagine.  Bath was also a great, friendly place to sleep off a bit of jet lag and acclimate to the journey ahead of us.  It was a stunningly beautiful city, but also walkable and welcoming.  The friendly locals and the picturesque architecture charmed the bejeezes out of us.

Here’s the Circus, one of the more beautiful and exclusive sets of “Georgian condos,” as Rick Steves calls them.  We visited it twice – once on our own independent wanderings and once on the excellent free walking tour that Bath residents put on multiple times daily.

This building – now a workaday dentist’s office – was once the residence of one of Bath’s most famous temporary residents: Jane Austen!  I’m a diehard “Janeite” and obviously I had to see where my literary idol lived.  Jane actually had several residences in Bath, because she lived there a few times during her life, but this might be the most famous.  Just down the street is the Jane Austen Centre, which displays artifacts from Jane’s time (although not many of her own possessions) and large placards describing life in Regency Bath.  I dragged hubby there and he was a remarkably good sport.

The lovely Royal Crescent, possibly the most exclusive address in a city full of exclusive addresses!  It was a bit chilly, but I imagined strolling over the vast expanse of green and relaxing near the “ha-ha fence” on a bright summer’s day.

Stunning flowerbeds in the Royal Victoria Park.  Fun fact, courtesy of our tour guide: Queen Victoria detested Bath.  She visited once, when she was young “Princess Victoria,” and never again.  Local legend holds that when the Queen-to-be was descending from her train, someone pointed at her and laughed, “Look at the little girl with the fat funny ankles!” and she was so insulted that she held a grudge against the entire city for the rest of her life.  Whether that’s true or not is up for debate, but Queen Victoria wouldn’t even look at Bath for the rest of her life – when the royal train passed by, she would order all of her courtiers to draw down the shades of their cars!

The beautiful Bath Abbey Church, nicknamed the “Lantern of the West,” was graceful and welcoming.  The stained glass windows inside were incredibly colorful – it certainly is an apt nickname.

Bath was full of Roman history, and it was all centered upon the Roman Baths.  The site was fascinating, with plenty of information and artifacts galore.  We imagined the ancient Romans walking along the time-worn stones and debated whether we would ever be willing to step into the murky green waters of the baths.  (Answer: no.)

Next up: tea at the famous Pump Room!  We enjoyed a pot of the Pump Room Blend tea with afternoon treats – scones, tea sandwiches and pastries.  (I can personally take or leave pastries, but I love the sandwiches and especially the scones.)  After tea, we tried a glass of the famous spa water.  I was expecting it to taste absolutely horrible, since I’d heard that it was “good for you” but tasted like poison.  But I was pleasantly surprised – it tasted fine to me! 

Thanks for a relaxing couple of days, Bath!  It was the perfect way to start our trip.  Come by next Friday for our next stop on the southern England tour!

A while back, I started a blog for friends and family to keep up with hubby’s and my doings.  The blog was short-lived – I only put up five posts before I realized that I really didn’t have time to maintain two blogs, and I started to think about giving myself more room for creativity here instead.  Here’s a selection from one post that I liked from that blog, though.  It’s just a collection of pictures of some of my favorite hikes, but it’s certainly fun for me to look at and think back on some of our favorite excursions.  Enjoy!

Castlerigg Stone Circle, outside Keswick, Lake District, England

Near Keswick, Lake District, England

Buttermere, near Keswick, Lake District, England

Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Great Falls, Virginia

Point Reyes National Seashore, California

Our final stop on our 2008 tour of England was the only stop in the south of the country: London.  We spent our last few days exploring the city before boarding our flight back to D.C.  It was a whirlwind couple of days (we’re excited to having more time in London on this trip, so we can explore more fully but not feel as rushed).  We packed an entire city’s worth of sights into just a couple of days…

First evening in London: we strolled across the Thames to visit Tate Modern and check out the Milennium Bridge.

The next morning, we headed straight for the Tower of London.  The skies were blue, the Beefeaters were hilarious, and the Crown Jewels were goooooooorgeous… but it was still a pretty imposing, scary place.

Tower Bridge.  I’ll get a better pic on this trip, promise!

Over to the British Library – one of my personal “musts” for any trip to London!  The highlight for me was seeing the words “Reader, I married him” written in Charlotte Bronte’s own handwriting.  Experience. Of. A. Lifetime.

This gentleman would like to welcome you to the British Museum.  Funny story: we hopped a cab on our way there.  When we told the cabbie where we were going, he said, “Ohhhh, yeah, we’ve stolen some marvelous stuff.”  That British humor, that just slays me.  (Later in the cab ride, we somehow got on the topic of Harry Potter.  The cabbie took an appraising look at hubby – who was wearing his glasses that day – and said quite seriously, “You know, you look not unlike Harry.”)

Here’s my Potter lookalike himself, taking a break on Trafalgar Square after a closing-time race through the National Portrait Gallery.  (I really wanted to see the Jane Austen portrait and rather outstayed the museum hours looking for it.  Fortunately, the museum guards are friendly and helpful, and I did get to see Jane.)  This is one of my favorite snaps of hubby – I have a 5×7 copy framed on my desk at work, so I can see my favorite guy and one of my favorite cities whenever I want.

The graceful Christopher Wren-designed church of St.-Martin-In-The-Fields.  Lovely church.  (Sorry no pictures of St. Paul’s, here, Wren fans.  We visited at twilight, which was beautiful, but not good for picture-taking.  I have some shots, but they’re so blurry they’d make you seasick.  I’ll try to do better this time.)

A grey morning at Parliament.

Well hello there, Ben.

We meandered through Westminster Abbey, which I loved – Queen Elizabeth I!  Mary Tudor!  Chaucer! – but hubby called “a cluttered monument to human vanity.”  Someone has no appreciation of history.

They’re changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace.
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
Alice is marrying one of the Guard.
“A soldier’s life is terrible hard,” says Alice.

Another personal “must” in London – high tea at the Orangerie at Kensington Palace, a.k.a. Queen Victoria’s greenhouse.  Champagne, sculptures, miniature orange trees on each table, meringues, and… oh, right… delicious tea.  Not to be missed.

The Lady herself: Queen Victoria outside Kensington Palace.

And the gorgeous Sunken Garden, where I could have sat for hours.

And of course, no visit to Kensington Gardens is complete without stopping to say hello to Peter Pan.

On our last morning in London, we stopped by Piccadilly Circus… both so we could check it off a “want-to-see” list and so I could visit the enormous Waterstone’s bookshop to pick up reading material for the flight home.  (I ran out of pages on that trip.  Won’t happen this time.)

Cheers, London!  We’ll be back soon!

And so ended our 2008 trip to Great Britain.  Thanks for coming with me on this trip down memory lane!  The next travel series will be a recap of our 2011 circuit through southern England.  Stay tuned…

Edinburgh Castle

After the Highlands, we drove down south to Edinburgh.  Like the rest of Scotland, Edinburgh combined evocative old buildings, brilliant green grass, and friendly people. 

The new Scottish Parliament building – some controversial architecture, certainly, but hubby and I were happy for the Scottish people that they finally have their Parliament back!

The brooding Palace of Holyroodhouse, the royal family’s official residence in Scotland.  (No, it’s not Balmoral.)  We took the tour and enjoyed imagining the current royals wandering around the Palace and the grounds on one of their official trips to Scotland.

Haunting ruins of Holyrood Abbey.  I love meandering around these old structures and trying to picture how they appeared when they were new and in use.

City views.

I could have stayed forever.

Back to recapping our 2008 trip to Great Britain!  We left off in Scotland on the Isle of Skye.  From Skye we traveled to the mainland Scottish Highlands.  Skye had given us a taste, but the mainland really drove it home – it’s a different world up in northern Scotland.  We loved the bagpipes, tartans, and all the Scottish pride.  Hubby and I listened to traditional Scottish music in a pub called Hootananny in Inverness, which served up Scottish ales and pad Thai.  Yes, you read that right.  Highlights of the Highlands follow…

We visited Culloden Moor, site of the famous Battle of Culloden in 1746.  The Scots did a beautiful job preserving the battlefield – they laid out paths with red flags to mark the English lines and with blue flags to mark the lines of Highlanders, with mini-monuments to show where each Highland clan stood on the battle lines.  They marked the mass clan graves with poignant tombstones etched with just the clan name.  (I had to look for Clan Fraser, being obsessed with the Outlander novels at the time – total guilty pleasure – and I found it.)  There was also a state-of-the-art museum explaining the Highlanders’ rebellion and “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” and showing off battle memorabilia and artwork.  As one of hubby’s friends quipped when he saw our pictures after we returned, “Leave it to the Scots to make their most glorious battlefield monument to a defeat.” 

After Culloden, we explored some more Highlands high points.

Cawdor Castle.

Beautiful gardens on the grounds of Cawdor Castle.

The Clava Cairns, a prehistoric burial ground (interesting, but pretty eerie).

Loch Ness (no Nessie sightings, unfortunately).

And finally, lovely Inverness.  We loved the wild, fierce pride the Scots have in their country.  Nowhere was it more evident than in the untamed Highlands.

Continuing our journey north from the Lakes, we drove up through Scotland, stopping for a brief overnight in Oban and then hopping a ferry to the Isle of Skye.  (No ferry pics – sorry – there was a driving rain and I feared for my camera.)  Skye was – like everything else on this trip – completely breathtaking.  Before going there, I had this idea that Skye was remote, wild, and romantic.  After seeing it in person… I was spot-on.

The highlight of Skye was the Old Man of Storr, a stunning rock formation that was as tall as a skyscraper.  We had to hike an hour uphill to get there (in a chilly mist, natch), but it was completely worth it.  We met a fellow hiker who grew up in Australia and was now living on the Shetland Islands.  Cool, how people can bond over being cold and wet in one of the most beautiful spots on Earth!

The Kilt Rock, named for its distinctive “pleats” and because… well… this is Scotland.

“Car hiking” in the Hebrides… a few impressions: WOW gorgeous countryside, heated car interiors are the best invention ever, and nothing tastes quite as good as grilled cheese with jam on a chilly day.

Mist rolling in over Portree Harbour.  We snapped this picture and then dashed off to eat the freshest fish that ever did roll in a cup and a half of peppercorns.  Zing!

Lips a little blue, but still in love with Scotland.