Yesterday, we left Durham and made our way to York, via Whitby. We stopped off at Whitby Abbey, the site of an Anglo-Saxon abbey. When we left Durham, there were a few clouds in the sky. By the time we arrived in Whitby, it was wet and misty. Our first taste of true English weather! We were fortunate enough to be at the abbey at the right time, because when we had finished our exploration, more of the ruins were shrouded in fog. We then drove on to York in the afternoon. We did not do much. We visited the historic [View Full Entry]

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Today we visited the Norman cathedral and castle in Durham. Both building are perched above the town on a bend of the River Wear. The Cathedral contains the tobms of St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede. A very moving experience to visit both these tombs. The Norman architecture was very different to that of the Gothic cathedrals that we have visited so far. The castle is now owned by the University and serves as student accomodation. The only way we were able to see inside the castle was to be a part of a tour with an official guide. The castle [View Full Entry]

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Today was another big driving day with very little action in between. We called into Coventry on our way to Durham to see the tapestry of 'Christ in Glory' that hang in the Cathedral. The present Cathedral was built in the 1950s, after the original Cathedral was destroyed by incendary bombs during WWII. The new Cathedral still has a modern look and feel, given the date that it was built. We then drove on to Spondon, in Derbyshire, so that I (Terry) could visit where my grandparents lived before they came to Australia in 1914. Then we made our way (almost [View Full Entry]

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We headed off for our Shakespeare experience in Stratford-upon-Avon. One the way, we visited several beautiful villages in the Cotswolds; Lower Slaughter, Upper Slaughter, Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Camden, and Snowshill. All had their individual charm. We particularly liked Lower Slaughter and Snowshill. We arrived at Stratford-upon-Avon in the early afternoon and visited Shakespeare’s birthplace and his tomb in Holy Trinity Church. We also walked through Hall’s Croft, the home he gave his daughter and her husband, a local physician. We then had dinner in a pub where the [View Full Entry]

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We started the morning visiting Glastonbury Abbey. Although it is just ruins, you can really imagine what it might have been like in its time. It was a serene place. We then travelled to Wells. We saw the Cathedral there with its beautiful façade and its amazingly famous scissor arches. The Bishop’s Palace was equally impressive and the wells that the city is named after, which apparently produce approximately 1,000 litres per minute. The gardens of the palace were so stunning and so English that it wasn’t funny. We then drove on to Bath and visited the famous Roman Baths an [View Full Entry]

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We left Canterbury and made our way to Winchester. When we set the sat nav for the new route to Winchester, we realised the reason we were having trouble yesterday was because it was set for walking routes and not for driving. We encountered some difficulty on our way as there were road closures along the motorways, which set us back by about an hour, limiting our time in Winchester if we wanted to make it to Glastonbury by the end of the day. When we arrived at Winchester we explored the Cathedral and briefly looked at the Castle. We then [View Full Entry]

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Today we made our way from Spain to England. We arrived at the airport to find that our flight had been cancelled by AirComet, but that they had not provided us with seats on another flight. Fortunately, we were able to come to an arrangement which allowed us to leave at our scheduled time. We arrived at Gatwick and picked up our hire car to drive to Canterbury. Despite having a sat nav we circled the airport a number of times to try and find the right way to Canterbury. For some reason, the sat nav kept giving us a bum [View Full Entry]

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Today we went to Avila. It was a 90 minute trip, hoping to not only see the town and Cathedral, but also to visit the tomb of St Teresa. The fact that it is an UNESCO World Heritage listed site because it has the best preserved city wall also attracted us to the town. We only discovered once we got there that her tomb is in Salamanca. Nevertheless, we still made the most of the medieval city and its attractions. We spent a couple of hours exploring the Cathedral, but we weren’t able to take any pictures or video. One interesting [View Full Entry]

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Today we made our way to Toledo in air conditioned comfort, which was short lived as the temperature reached 36C today. Despite the heat, it was a most enjoyable and interesting day touring this medieval town that is a UNESCO heritage site. As we approached the city, walking from the station, we saw the remains of the town's walls and gates. We made our way to Tolede Cathedral, and spent the next two hours exploring its many wonders. We could have spend much longer there to appreciate its beauty and history. We even say the processional monstrance, the largest in Christendom, [View Full Entry]

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Started the day off travelling to Atocha railway station, the main station to go to Toledo. We arrived 30 minutes before the train was scheduled to leave. We discovered that we needed to take a number and queue to buy a ticket. Our number was 752 and they were only up to 698. As a result we missed the train that was to leave at 10.20 am, and the next wasn't leaving for another 2 hours. We ended up buying tickets to Toledo for the next day and for Avila the day after. Therefore we moved to Plan B. This entailed [View Full Entry]

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