London….Camping behind a "leisure Complex"

We have had to redefine our concept of camping on this trip.  When we lived in Alaska camping meant driving off the road and setting up a tent.  When we traveled cross country camping meant setting up our tent-on-top-of-the-car at state and national campgrounds with many other people, but, in a sense, still living outdoors.  Now that we have a caravan things are very, very different.  Camping is setting up in what amounts to a parking lot, side by side with other caravans and disappearing inside our little house.  The criteria now are that the campground should have wi-fi (although many charge for the service), hot showers that are not creepy and dirty, toilets with toilet seats (although several campgrounds missed that essential) and toilet paper, a nicety but not a must.

The campground we stayed in outside of London had all of the above…however, it was part of an entertainment complex that had a giant movie theater, golf course, swimming pool and god knows what else.  Camping has become very, very strange.  But that did not keep us from going to the movies…twice!

London absolutely rivals N.Y….except that the food is terrible.  After my experience with inedible pub food, for our first outing in London I picked a German restaurant because I figured it wasn't pub food.  However, the potato sale was made with RECONSTITUTED DRIED POTATOES!!!! Give me a break!  So, no eating in London, but lots of great walking and sightseeing.  It rained, was sunny, hailed, was a little sunny but mostly cloudy and rainy the whole time we were there.

The funniest thing happened while we were watching the Changing of the Guard…in itself as exciting as watching paint dry, especially as it was raining and then started to hail.  But at one point a car with a man in a large feathered hat and black cape pulled up to the gate where we were standing and the guards (with machine guns) inspected his I.D. and then lowered the metal grates in the road to let him pass.  As soon as he passed the grates started to go up.  However, the big, black mercedes that was following the first car decided not to stop and the grates ripped the bottom right off his big, expensive car!  What a hoot, especially since there was a whole contingent of horse guards that had to get through the gate!

Westminster Abbey, where no photos are allowed, was as exciting as it is cracked up to be if, like us, you love to inspect tombs of the rich, famous and dead.  Kings, poets, scientists, etc.

And, of course, Big Ben

and Churchill

and Parlament

and the ferris wheel

The Rosetta Stone

We could have stayed in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert for days.  We have never seen such a collection of Egyptology including the Rosetta Stone, the Cyrus Scroll, mummies and sarcophagi.  I am not a great believer in taking photos in a museum, but in this case, the collections were so stupendous that here are a few:

Cyrus Scroll

The Stone Chess pieces (a whole set) found on Lewis

Our favorite

 

Harrods was a bit of a disappointment…lots of display and nothing I wanted to buy!  But the decorations were lovely and the outside display certainly added 

Goodbye Scotland….Hello England and Liverpool

We reluctantly left Scotland, driven out by bad weather and arrived just north of Liverpool.  Although I had visions of Liverpool as quite industrial and grim it was actually very lovely…except for the food.  One of the first places we visited was Crosby Beach, site of a very, very weird statue installation.  Dozens of artists had installed bronze statues of themselves…naked and all men onto the beach.  Some were far out in the water, some high up on the beach and some half in and half out of the water, depending on the tide.  So very haunting and unexpected!

The Liverpool harbor has been made into a place of restaurants and galleries and was a good example of restoration of old warf buildings.  

And then, in the town there was a very long street anchored at both ends by cathedrals, one very old and one very, very modern!

Side Trips from Edinburgh to several places all with terrible food

For a time this blog might be a little confusing because I am trying to catch up on all the traveling we have done since October.  Sorry.

Before we left Edinburgh we took a couple of day trips by train which were just greatQ  Public transportation is wonderful!  Our first outing was to Berwick on Tweed (even the name is perfect), an old, walled seaside town (with terrible food)

 Our next trip into the Scottish countryside from Edinburgh was to Roslyn Chapel…you know, the one made famous in the Dan Brown book.  Quite beautiful and the folks there, while dismissive of Brown's theories we quite happy that it tripled the number of visitors.

And then there was the lovely Melrose Abby.  These old places seem so full of the ghosts of the folks lived and prayed there in the past.

Our next outing was to Stirling Castle where we were lucky enough to see some experts working on a re-creation of a 14th century tapestry.  They were able to produce a piece 10 cm by 10 cm per day per person!

And then it was on to Duane Caste, the home of the Monte Phython movies! 

And here is a view of the lovely countryside we drove through!  Alas, no sun, but beautiful scenery.

And then it was on to the famous St. Andrews and yet another castle.  It is quite amazing how they just dot the countryside!!!! And, let us not forget the old golf course!  Even in the rain there were folks banging away at the little white ball!

And then on to the lovely Jedburgh Abbey.  Even though these are ruins, it is so easy to visualize the lives of the men who lived and prayed here hundreds of years ago.  And the English and Scottish people are so proud of their heritage.  So worry about knocking these guys down to put up malls and apartments!

One of the best parts of this section of countryside was Hadrian's Wall!!!!!  Those Romans were everywhere!

And finally, Craigmillar Castle, one of our favorites.  Again, notice the winter clothes and lovely countryside!  I think that, after living for a year in South America, we forgot what "winter" is and are constantly surprised that it is cold (and perpetually gray here in the UK)!

One of our most interesting trips was taken on the spur of the moment, veering off the road to follow a sign to Historic New Lanark when we had actually intended to go someplace else.  One of the great things about having so much time, a car and no real plan is the freedom to explore at our own whims.  New Lanark was an amazing mill town create by a man who was way ahead of his time. He truly believed that happy workers were more productive and that by taking care of them he would come out ahead.  So, he provided health care, fine education, an equitable store where the residents actually paid less than the surrounding village stores and good housing.  Actually some of the houses are still lived in today and one of the docents was a woman whose husband had grown up in the town. 
Someone in the town told us we should not miss the canal wheel that was right outside of town, so off we drove.  Then it loomed in front of us, but we could not understand what we were seeing!  It was the craziest thing!!!!  This giant wheel brought boughs from one canal to a higher one and then down again!

So, the boat comes floating down the canal, gets to the wheel, rides into it's trough and gets spun down to the lower canal.

Pretty Crazy!  David took the demonstration ride…in the pouring rain!