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Published: December 28th 2009
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Leeds Castle
Lady Baily's Castle south of London To all the wonderful patient (and some impatient) people who were waiting for me to finish my blogs, here is the beginning of the end. Sorry for the extreme delay, but not having internet over the summer kind of hindered my ONLINE blogging, and the library internet just couldn't keep up. But now that I am settled at school and have the first week under my belt (and have internet in my apartment) I will try to get these up as speedily as possible, honestly most of them are already written, it just takes a very long time to upload photos, so hang in there, it will get done, promise.
My friend, Rebecca from KU, was taking part in a study program over spring break in London, so I went down for the weekend to visit with her and do some more sightseeing in the big city. I left Leicester super early in the morning for London by bus and arrived by 9:30. We met up by Buckingham Palace and then decided since we had seen several of the same things in the city; we should travel the length of the tube and experience Wimbledon. The tube ran all the
way out there so with our day passes we just had to get on and chat for 45 min. while we rode the train. (I LOVE the tube!!) Rebecca really likes tennis and is pretty good at it, so seeing Wimbledon was pretty cool for her. We mostly just walked around the grounds trying to see different things while getting yelled at by guards…they weren’t amused with us sneaking around. We walked around the outside of the complex and were able to see several of the practice courts and even a couple of the lower level competition courts. We spent the lunch hour in a Pub on Wimbledon high street then headed back into London to meet Madison my friend from Leicester. We went to see Abbey Road where the Beatles recording studio was and tried to take pictures in the crosswalk—it was difficult because the traffic was awful! Before supper we leisurely walked though Hyde Park along the Serpentine and watched the sun set, and then we headed for the theater district. Rebecca was planning to see a show that night and Madison and I wanted to see Mamma Mia. Unfortunately, Mamma Mia was sold out, but we saw
Les Miserables instead and it was a great show! Rebecca was supposed to leave the next day, so we said our goodbyes and went to the theater.
Madison and I spent all day Saturday on a day trip that took us to locations near London, or within driving distance at least. We started with an early morning hike to the bus station, which we misjudged the time and ended up having to take a cab part of the way. But once we found the bus we were able to relax until we reached the first destination of Leeds Castle…not to be confused with Leeds, England which is NORTH of London, the castle is SOUTH. The castle was B-E-AUTIFUL! It was used as a house and was richly decorated. There was an aviary on the grounds as well, and several geese and swans were in the surrounding lake. The most unusual museum was on the grounds - a dog collar museum! How funny! After leaving Leeds Castle we continued to the south coast to Dover where there are large white cliffs. We didn’t spend very long there unfortunately; just about enough time to take pictures on the beach looking at
the cliffs then we made our way to Canturbury to see the Canturbury Cathedral.
The town of Canturbury is bustling! There are many shops along the narrow streets and a large tourist population comes to see the Cathedral, which had intricately carved stones and beautiful stained glass windows. My favorite part of the Cathedral was the monument dedicated to modern-day saints. There was a statue to represent their sacrifice and a book giving explanations of who is considered to have martyred themselves in the name of Christianity. Madison and I went to eat lunch at the pub right outside the Cathedral gates. It was an interesting atmosphere; rugby games were on so the pub was crowded and everyone was excited. After a good meal we met back up with our tour group and headed back towards London. An added bonus to our trip was ending the day in Greenwich. I hadn’t been yet so I was pretty excited! The down side to going many places in one day is limited time in each place; Greenwich was no different. We only had about an hour, so Madison and I went into the Painted Hall and saw the Chapel of Greenwich.
I would really like to go back at some point to see the Maritime Museum and the rest of the Naval College at the site. The last thing we did was take a boat ride down the Thames through the heart of London. Here Madison and I got to see the last of the Tower of London, the London Eye, and the Parliament building. Goodbye London!! We then made our way back to Leicester for a couple more weeks before the big spring break.
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