May 31

First stop today was Glastonbury Abbey - what must have been a beautiful cathedral that was sacked by Henry VIII when he took over all the Catholic properties and is now a ruin.

 

 

It is said that Joseph of Aramithea came here after Jesus’ death, bringing with him a thornwood walking stick which he stuck into the ground near Glastonbury. It took root and grew, and this tree is supposed to be an offshoot of that tree, a variety of thorn tree which is native to the Middle East.

Next we went to Bath to see the Roman baths and the 18^th century neighborhoods around the baths that were built when the aristocracy came there to "take the waters." An amazing amount remains from the Roman era - a thousand years ago! As at most of the historic sites, audio players told us what we were seeing. At Bath there were also videos which overlaid what we see now with what it must have looked like then.

Tonight we are in Newport, Wales - for supper in our room we are having local Cheddar cheese, bread and mead from Glastonbury Abbey. Tomorrow we will drive thru South Wales on our way to catch the ferry to Ireland.

May 30

A day trip to Cornwall today. We drove thru beautiful countryside - mostly rural with lots of flowers blooming. The fields are divided with thick hedgrows made by piling up dirt then layering rocks on top of that, then letting hedges, flowers and vines grow over that. It makes a very effective fence but also helps break the winds since Cornwall has the ocean on both sides of this spit of land.

Our first stop was at Mount Bay, near Penzance, where Mount St. Michael rises out of the bay. At low tide, a causeway connects it to land but we were there at high tide and the causeway was hidden. The large building on top was a Benedictine monastery at first but then was bought by a noble family in the 1600s and they still maintain and use it.

Next we went to Lands End - the southwestern most point of England. John Wesley spent a lot of time in Cornwall preaching to the tin miners and was a big influence in this area. The largest building at Lands End is the Penwith Hotel, a temperance hotel built in the 1850s by and for Methodists.

Our last stop was in the very picturesque town of St. Ives, built on hills sloping down to the bay. We all got a Cornish pasty there - a thick pastry pie with meat and potatoes inside. Everyone seemed to agree that it was only okay - a lot of crust and not much filling. The miners used to take these down into the mines for their dinner.

Then back to the hotel in Plymouth for a nice dinner - for a nightcap we had Cornish Cream liqueurs that we bought in St. Ives.

May 29

Today we got to see Stonehenge - a place I’ve always wanted to visit. Of course there were hundreds of other people there, but we all were kept back from the stones so it was easy to look at them and imagine there was no one else around. The stones weren’t as tall as I imagined but still very impressive considering how far some of the stones were moved (from Wales) and how the lintels had to be raised by hand on top of the other stones.

Then we moved on to Plymouth, where we’ll be for two nights. We walked down to the harbor area, ate in a pub on the waterfront and checked out the Plymouth steps, where the Pilgrims boarded their ships for the new world.

May 28

Joined up with our tour group today and went on the bus to Canterbury Cathedral. We both felt that it was kind of nice to have someone else decide where we were going and how we were going to get there! Canterbury is a funny mixture of ancient and quaint buildings and modern shops and t-shirt shops, and the Cathedral is just as impressive as Westminster Abbey. Saw where Thomas a Becket was murdered and heard all about the pilgrims who came there - as in The Canterbury Tales.

Our next stop on the bus was Brighton on the coast. We had a tour of the Brighton Pavilion which is an over-the-top 1800's royal watering hole - Indian-looking on the outside and Chinese in much of the inside. Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos inside, but believe me it was opulent. Then on to our hotel for drinks and dinner and beginning to get to know our tour mates.

May 27

Took the Tube back to Westminster (we got really good at the Tube!) and got on a boat down (or is it up?) the Thames to the Tower of London. It rained pretty steadily all day but we managed to see most of the Tower in spite of it. That’s another fascinating place with soooo much history. We didn’t stand in line to see the crown jewels but did see the part of the tower that was a royal residence, the prison part, the green where Anne Boleyn was beheaded, and the oldest center part that William the Conqueror built in the 1070's. It’s now a museum of armor and weapons - the photo is Henry VIII’s armor.

 

The Tower Bridge

Again we were ready to sit somewhere dry so hopped back on a tour bus and got the complete tour of London before getting off near St. Paul’s Cathedral and walking back down Fleet Street where we had seen several very old pubs the day before. Stopped at the oldest, The Cheshire Cheese, but it had no tables available so continued on down the street to The George and had a great dinner. The George is in the Temple Bar and is across the street from the Royal Courts of Justice- Cody, you need to come here some day!

May 26

Sorry we’ve gotten behind on the blog - had computer issues and wifi issues. Hopefully we can catch up and do better soon.

We had heard good things about the Walking Tours of London from a couple from Texas whom we met at the Wesley Chapel, so decided to take their 2-hour tour of Westminster Abbey. Our guide was very good - she knew sooo much that our tour lasted 2 ½ hours! It’s a mind-boggling place - the architecture is unbelievable, especially when you consider it was built almost 800 years ago without the kind of tools and heavy equipment we have today.

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament are nearby - what a thrill to come up out of the Tube and see them right in front of us. (Sydney, this picture of Tinkerbell's clock is for you!)

After all that time on our feet, we were ready to sit for awhile so bought 24-hour tickets on a hop-on, hop-off tour bus and rode around London for more than an hour. It was pouring rain by then and we were hungry (no lunch!) so got off at a Pret a Manger and had dinner. (That’s a healthy and inexpensive sandwich, wrap, soup-type place that we liked a lot.) Then back to our hotel.

Sunday, May 25

This morning we braved the Tube for the first time and made our way across town to the John Wesley house and chapel, where we attended morning services. It was a very eclectic service with the baptism of children from Africa and Malaysia, music by the Ghana Fellowship and a sermon by a Korean pastor. Across the street was a wonderful old cemetery where Wesley’s mother Susannah, Daniel Defoe, William Blake and several other familiar people were buried. The house is interesting too, with several items from John Wesley’s day including an electric shock machine which he used to treat depression!

Then we walked south to the Thames River and crossed the London Bridge, which is just an ordinary bridge since they moved the famous one to America. On the south bank we walked past a model of the Golden Hinde, Sir Francis Drake’s ship, and the Clink Prison (now we know where we got the expression to "throw someone in the clink!"). Came to the Globe Theatre, a fascinating replica of the 1600's theatre where Shakespeare’s plays were presented. His plays are still presented there and we were going to see Antony and Cleopatra but the afternoon performance was cancelled - apparently Antony was ill. Instead we investigated a very well-done exhibit of what the area, the conditions, the theatre, the costumes, etc. were like, and then took a tour of the theatre itself. It’s an open-air theatre with wooden benches on several levels and a large yard where "groundlings" could stand and watch the play for a penny (still have groundlings but now it costs them 5 pounds!)

Walked back across the Thames on the new Millenium pedestrian bridge to the area around St. Paul’s cathedral and ate fish and chips in a pub called the Centre Page which apparently has been in operation on the site with various names since 1663 - one of the City of London’s "oldest Dickensian pubs." Then we made our way back to the hotel on the tube.

Saturday, May 24

We arrived at our hotel in London pretty tired after not sleeping on the overnight flight and having to wait at the airport for 3 hours for transportation to the hotel. Consequently we didn’t do much today but explore around the hotel a little and find some dinner. The hotel is in a predominantly Middle Eastern neighborhood so lot of the dinner choices involved dishes we’d never heard of! Settled for delicious salads and sandwiches at a place called Patisserie across from the hotel. As the name indicates, there were wonderful-looking pastries that we will have to go back and investigate.

The view from our hotel window shows that the area has lots of businesses and high-rise buildings, but just a block from our hotel is this wonderful neighborhood of flats and row houses that looks like something out of the 1700s.

Getting ready for our big UK trip

At Jade Travel with Pat getting our final trip documents - it's getting real now!