Thoroughly enjoyable and so much fun. It was fantastic to see the folks again and see some great sites while doing so.
Care for a play by play? of course you do, everyone likes to live vicariously right?
So we started in Cambridge where I actually did some of the things I've been meaning to do since I got here, like actually go and visit some of the other colleges, and go up on the roof of King's college chapel, and punt. Punting, by the way, is tricky but very fun and I can't wait for the weather to warm up a bit so we can just punt at random. Maybe next time I'll actually move forward rather than side to side.
From there we went up to York. I am now officially jealous of the Tudor Rose. A very very cool city with both Roman and viking undertones. The shambled was a neat little street of Georgian architecture that looked like it should already be falling down the beams were so warped. York minster is my new fascination in it's oddities and jumble of seemingly random things (like the clock that chimed by two knights that would twist and hit a chime with their axes, the cloister with a large number of seats with intricately carved images of faces, some paganistic, many with demon-esque creatures, some with birds eating their faces, but all different, a tombstone for a woman who had something like 26 children and died at 40...). It was also built over top a Roman principia, where they believe Constantine was proclaimed emperor.
Next stop, Wales. What an interesting language. I would love to learn their alphabet since it looks like ours, but it most definitely is not the same and I have no idea how to pronounce the names. I mean, really, how cool would it be to live in a place called 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch'. That's an extreme case of course, but still. We walked around Conwy Castle, which was very well preserved.
That night we stayed above a pub that was reputedly haunted. Didn't see any ghosts though so I fail to be convinced.
On towards bath, but along the way we stopped and went hiking in the Cotswalds. Stunning landscape and we wandered in and out of farmers fields. This included encountering many, many sheep (I thought a lot of that zombie movie that crafty bean blogged about and was relieved that none of them tried very hard to eat me), an uncomfortable closeness to a (fortunately lazy) bull, horses, partridges, and other random animals. We thought the walk would take around 2 hours of walking and another hour or two of sitting in local teahouses/pubs but, alas, it was 4 hours of pretty much straight hiking in the hills.
The best thing in bath was, surprise, the baths. The roman hot springs was very built up, but still, I like the idea of healing spas and the emphasis placed on bathing as a social aspect of life. I think we could do with more naked hot spring bathing here (though I have a feeling that Big Round Head may disagree?). And let us not forget the whole process of the cold room, the hot room, and the oil message afterwards eh.
I have a feeling this is getting too long, so see the next post for a continuation...
1 comment:
There are sheep named after the Cotswolds. My Cotswolds had grey tippy wool that was about 7" in length and kind of course but shiny...Oh wait...the homework is done and in the mail...so sleepy...
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