London- England & Cardiff- Wales


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Europe » United Kingdom
June 10th 2012
Published: June 20th 2012
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Good old London.

This is our gateway to Europe. And what a couple of weeks it has been.

Public transport was pretty good I must say. Very easy to understand (although when a bunch of asian tourists asked Kristy for directions she accidently sent them in the total opposite direction, was really funny), and if you buy this oyster smart card its relatively cheap. We purchased a 7 day pass and it worked out to be about $7.90 each person per day. Not too bad when you think of getting out of Sydney airport by train. You nearly have to take out a personal loan.

There is so much to do in London and with so little time here we did our best to do them all. Now when people say it is expensive here well they’re not wrong. The admission fees are massive. Anywhere between $25 and $40 per person. So when you have a very tight budget to stick to you need to be prepared for a lot of study to decide which attractions are worth the money and which ones aren’t. Luckily the pound is not too bad against the Aussie dollar. It’s not that great either, were averaging about 63 pence to the dollar which is almost half!! Thankfully Kristy and I were prepared and did everything that we wanted to do. The one saving grace with budget travelers is the fact that most museums in London have free entry. This is such a bonus as London’s British Museum is probably the best museum that I have been to. The enormity and the number of pieces on display is unmatched. Another great Museum is the Natural History Museum. The building alone is well worth a look as it’s a great example of the Gothic era of architecture. We also visited Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street, Kensington Palace, Albert Park Hall, Hyde Park, London Bridge, The London Tower, Bath, Windsor Castle and of course the 3000 yr old Stonehenge. Windsor Castle, what a place. You can see why the queen likes to spend majority of her weekends there. We got to enter and see how dignitaries were received back in the day and also see some beautiful antiques. Another place that was really good was the city of Bath. We visited the ancient roman baths. Its such a beautiful place and when we head to Wales we’ll be heading back over the border to visit Bath again. Wasn’t to sure what to think about Stonehenge. It’s a good experience but spend more than an hour and you get bored, unless you’re a hippie I suppose. When they find out exactly who built it and why then I guess it’ll be more interesting. But for now it’s just a mystery.

We got to take part in the Queens Diamond Jubilee celebrations (along with about 1.5 million others) which was quite an experience. Kristy and I stood on a wall for 2 hours behind a row of about 20 porta loos. Was just charming eating our packed egg salad sandwiches with the stench of you know what. We did have a great view of the Queen though. It was surreal to know that we were taking part in a history making event. The poms sure do know how to party that's for sure and they absolutely adore their Queen. I guess I’m turning into a bit of a monarchist.

We took part in a Jack the Ripper tour where we walked the areas in Whitechapel that the serial killer took to murder his victims. Was very interesting to hear the myths and facts about the infamous murderer.

In regards to budgets we have surprised at how far our little amount of money has gone. But remember four cities in Australia have recently been voted dearer to live than London. So Kristy and I are ecstatic that we are even. We met up with an old friend from the rock Marianne and went out for dinner which was good and also ate London’s number one prized and renowned dish…. Curry. Besides India itself, London has the most curry restaurants in the world. It’s a very multi-cultural city.

So then we travel 3 hours west by train to Cardiff. Here we were thinking that Wales was just a country with people that had funny accents and yeh it has exactly that…. And much more. The countryside has rolling, lush green hills and fields that go on for days. It really does have some of the prettiest landscapes I have ever seen. We only got a few days here but we crammed in as much as we could. Cardiff in particular is renowned for its different types of medieval castles. So we knew we would be kept busy.

The first one we visited was the Cardiff Castle right in the city centre. It is a huge castle complete with air raid shelter which was used in the wars against Germany. Was scary to walk down the dark, cold halls where the soldiers would have spent hours preparing for attack. The second was a fairytale type castle, located on a huge hill overlooking the old town of Tongwynlais. It even has a dungeon for which I almost imagined a fire breathing dragon to pop out. This one has been restored a little inside, to exactly replicate what it would have looked like all those years ago. There is Caerphilly Castle which is completely falling to bits but it was so nice to see it in its natural state, after all it is over 800 years old. This castle is absolutely HUGE!! Equipped with a large moat surrounding the fort.

What was unusual for Wales is that the shopping was surprisingly good. Unfortunetly we cant buy much due to lack of space in our bags but it was still good to look around. The people here, athough they are hard to understand (due to their thick accents) are so friendly. And unexpectedly, alot of the Welsh still speak in their native tounge. A very strange language to hear....

There is probably only one other country that can drink more than the English and it would have to be the Welsh…. The city streets are often noisy with men drinking in bars and pubs. Actually not too uncommon for women either. All in all it was a great trip here, a hidden treasure.

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