Saturday, June 21, 2008

Our Wonderful UK Excursion Part D

We took a train back into London and spent our last 24 hours there. The first bit was spent in our hotel room with a bag of ice on Elizabeth's knee because she tore her ACL (not a complete rupture). However, we were up to be around London enough to see Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and a few pieces of art by Leonardo di Vinci and Michelangelo on the National Gallery.

p.s. the last picture is of the "oldest door in Enlgand" circa 500 A.D.






Our Wonderful UK Excursion Part C

The third and my favorite part of this trip was our 3-day hiking tour of the Wye River. Our friend, Melissa, recommended this part of the trip to us and it was quite striking.

Our first day in the countryside was in Brockhampton. We stayed in the Ladyridge Farm Guesthouse and we HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who wants to take a taxi to a remote area of the English countryside...where there are no grocery stores because everyone buys their produce from the surrounding farms. Here are pictures from the farm that we stayed on. In the picture with the llama, there is a thatched-roof church in the background that is one of 3 remaining thatched churches in England.









In the edge of the farm's property line was the "Golden Valley" (as popularized in the movie "Shadowlands" depicting C.S. Lewis' life). Amazing. Also amazing was an ancient Roman encampment across the way that was used by the Romans from 500 B.C. to 200 A.D. The Roman encampment picture has the partridge in the middle of it. The final picture of this segment is the view from our guest room.






Our first day of long hiking involved near 17 miles, 7 hours, and no sitting. We started our hike along the Wye River at the cathedral of Hereford. We hiked through cow, sheep, & horse pastures, through apple orchards, and farm fields. Here are pictures from that magnificent hike.







Sign posts became our angels and guides on not-very-well marked miles of path. As you can see, by the end of our hike, we felt pretty victorious that we conquered the hike. :)







Our second day of hiking was just as beautiful, albeit repetitive as we got turned around a bit. Here are some pictures from that 2nd day of hiking.








We spent our last day in the countryside in Hay-on-Wye, Wales...a little town known for its 39 used bookstores. Here are pictures from that town, a view from our guest room, me eating my favorite: scones and devonshire cream, and the amazingly elvish Welsh language!




Our Wonderful UK Excursion Part B

So...after we spent time in lovely, cultured, intricate Oxford, we took a train to Manchester, England. Manchester is most likely to be known to us Yanks for its football (soccer) team Manchester United. We were there for Shea to work at a conference for his work. I (Elizabeth)spent a lot of time in the museums there and just resting. The most memorable part of being in Manchester was that the UEFA cup final took place in Manchester's football stadium. This included 250,000 Scotsmen invading the city to cheer for their team.

Here are some pictures from that "industrial capital". The last picture is taken at the top of the Imperial War Museum of the North.