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Published: June 11th 2008
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England Baby!!!
Day 2: So, after a lot of trouble, I am here in Lugwardine, Hereford in the U.K. Luckily, it only took getting stuck in Chicago for the night and losing all my luggage in the process but, at least I learned something very valuable out of all this... ALWAYS take a day or two change of clothes with you, in a carry on, when flying internationally. Definitely would have come in handy...
To start off the day I went out around some of the towns and country side and got to take in some of this great scenery. We drove around Hereford a little bit and then split off toward Ledbury, up into the Malverns, through Wyche and the historic pass cut out by the Romans, and then circled all the way back down and into Ross-on-Wye. We pretty much just got out and enjoyed the beautiful weather we've been blessed with having and drove around enjoying the scenery. It is such a different place around here then anywhere in the states and I can't wait to see more of it tomorrow.
After going into Ross-on-Wye we went south west into Wales and The Royal
Forest of Dean. Monmouth was a gorgeous area and we ended up turning around just before getting into Brecon Beacons National Park. Really wish that I had the camera with me today to get photos of all the areas we've been, and of the great country side, but with no luggage I haven't had the chance. Supposedly the luggage has been located and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have it within the next couple of days... Once I get the camera up and running I'll get as many photos as I can up on here to show how nice it is... Well, that's all for now...
Day 3: So, I still didn't have my luggage but I used one of my friends Camera's while we were out visiting Croft Castle, just north of Leominster. This castle has been around for over 700 years and the land has been in the Croft family for over 1000 years. It is actually small for castles out here and it is really more of a home with a thick stone wall built around it, but it was still quite impressive. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any photos from inside of
the home though, because of secuirty issues. Didn't really do too much else but after returning to our hall I was happily surprised to find I had recieved my luggage. It is 10x nicer now that I have clean clothes and hygiene items... Tomorrow I will take photos of the Hall I am staying in and if I'm done early enough I will take photos of some of the really cool buildings just down the street. Talk about some nice mansions. Check back from time to time and I'll probably have more photos.
Day 6: Now that I have my camera up and running I went out into Hereford and got some pictures of the cathedral downtown. Also got to go check out a really cool old library they had inside and Mappi Mundi, the oldest map in the world, which is on display inside as well. Unfortunately, as like most places here, you can't take photos inside of the building so I couldn't get any photos of the map itself... really wish I had more covert of a camera... but I did post some photos of the cathedral and also and old church (the Yarkhill church) that I
just happened to pass while driving down some country lanes out here. The big mansion is a mansion that is just down the road... talk about nice. Probably worth a pretty penny too. Well, that's about it for now. I'm going to try to get to London soon and should have lots to post then. Oh, and check out the video, it is just there to show you how small these roads are out in the country. Talk about crazy, the roads have a 60 mph speed limit! Can you imagine trying to do 60 through these with the hedgerows on the side and a bunch of blind corners, let alone you can't even fit two cars past eachother in lots of areas...
26 June 2008 Alright, so I finally made it out to London and got some photos up on here. It was a great trip and I wish I would have had more time to spend there. We still have a two day weekend coming up soon though so I might go back after trying to get to Stonehenge. Hopefully, if I can make it back, I'll go to Buckingham Palace and get some good photos there
as well.
The London Eye is pretty cool. It is the tallest ferris wheel in Europe, standing at 443ft. tall. It was built in 1999 and at the time was the largest ferris wheel in the world (there are two larger now, one in China the other in Singapore.)
It was nice to go and tour the Tower of London. I have always wanted to got there and am glad I got the chance. The original building (The White Tower) was built in 1078 by William the Conqueror. It has held many uses over time, to include being the home of the medievil kings of London, their families, and their court. Now it is used to show off a large collection of brittish arms and armour from different times in history. Along with the White Tower you have the Jewel House, which serves as the home of the Crown Jewels and has since 1303. The Tower and it's surrounding village houses are all surrounded by heavy defensive walls and originally a large moat. If you look at the photos, all the long vertical slits in the walls are for longbowmen and the smaller + shaped slits (mainly around
the entrance ways) were used for crossbowmen. The tower was also home to many high class prisoners (kings, queens, princes, and other higher class people.) One that stands out is Sir Walter Ralegh, who was imprisoned for 13 years before being beheaded.
Big Ben and the Parliament building were pretty impressive, and of course across the street on the lawn you had the Iraq War protestors out. Seems you can't go anywhere these days without running into them.
West Minster Abbey was pretty cool from the outside, but I really didn't feel like paying to go inside and and look around and get soem photos. Everything is pretty expensive out here and I decided I was only go to pay to tour one place while in town. That ended up being the Tower of London.
The Cabint War Rooms builing was interesting, I didn't even know it was there until I was driving by and saw a crowd of people out taking photos in front of the guards. You can see in the picture that there is one guard who stands on foot in front of the main gate entrance, and then there are two guards on
horses, one on each side of the gate. That has to be a pretty crappy job... it looks like the one guard on the horse is sleeping :-) (of course he's not though.)
I also went to the London Bridge, as you can see in the photos, but not really anywhere else... After walking around downtown, central London all day I was ready to go home. Wasn't really looking forward to the three and a half hour drive though. Did get to see some cool stuff on the way back though. I crossed over the Mouth of The Severn (crossing into Wales) not knowing it was coming up though, so it took me by surprise. On the map it showed a small bridge crossing over into Wales and then I came across the bay that is shown in the photos. It was huge. Pretty cool to come out of no where. Then, while driving back through Wales, up into Monmouth and back to Hereford, I came across an old Abbey that has fallen into disrepair. It looks like someone is started to restore what is left but it looked cool how it was. You can imagine what it must
have looked like before.
Anywho, nothing else has really gone on besides that. I'll post more when I go more places. Bye for now.
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Gary
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Very cool indeed. Great pics!