A trip into the past: We visit the UK
Please note that all the imbedded photos are linked to larger
images; just click on them.
Preface
In early July Frankie fell through a seat on the state ferry, and it
royally messed up her knee. This scotched our plans for a
bicycle tour through the UK, so as our departure approached we went
online and set up for the first & last week of our stay.
The first week we got a car, and for the middle of our time in the
UK we got a 15 day train pass. The last week, after my
conference, we got a hotel in London (we booked it this early in
case the hotels filled up, as we had difficulty finding a hotel for
the first week). Except as noted, Ray wrote this diary of our
trip. Please note that all of this (including images) is
protected by copyright.
Monday, 8/19/13
After a hectic day of work and an intense business meeting (where we
finalized plans & projects to be accomplished while I was gone)
we went home and packed. This time I pushed my packing even
further; my previous record was 15 minutes to pack for a month trip
to India, this time I packed in the 5 minutes after our ride
arrived!! Fortunately the rest of the family had previously
packed, and I had fairly complete list of what I was to bring.
Gene gave us a ride to the airport in his truck. We got there
around 6:30, checked in and got our boarding passes and then went
through security. Our meeting had been at Pizza Hut, so we had
eaten a large lunch, and thus weren't very hungry for dinner.
Frankie and the kids had a snack and then we wandered down to the
gate for our 8:30 flight. Which turned out to be 45 minutes
late due to a problem with their fuel gauge. Fortunately we
had a delay in Anchorage that was long enough to absorb this and
still give us time to get a hamburger (as everyone had gotten hungry
by our 10:30 arrival).
Tuesday, 8/20/13
Our flight to Denver was un-eventful. We arrived there having
spent a good bit of the night staying up (to start getting our hours
turned around). I spend some time working on preparing for the
conference, and the kids played on the iPhone.
We rented a car in Denver so we could go for a drive during our 12
hour layover. We drove through Denver, out I-70 as far as
Breckenridge and then we went south, down & back east to
Colorado Springs. We were a little concerned on time, so we
skipped the visit to Frankie's old school and headed right back to
Denver. Fortunately we arrived in plenty of time so we fueled
ourselves at a restaurant, and fueled the car at the gas station and
then back to the airport. We checked into British Airline and
then went to the gate, where I took a nap for an hour and then did
more work preparing for the conference while Frankie read and the
kids played on the iPhone.
Wednesday, 8/21/13
The flight was long, of course (nearly 9 hours), and we spent most
of the night watching videos. I slept a few hours, but was
still feeling pretty zonkered by the time we got to Heathrow
airport, just outside London.
There was a bit of confusion at arrival, and it took them half an
hour to get us stairs so we could exit the airplane (apparently they
didn't have a gate for us). Then it took another half an hour
before they could get Frankie off, as she couldn't go down the
stairs due to her bad knee. There was no problem with
customs, and we were soon looking for our rental car. We found
lunch first, so after eating what we'd gotten from the little corner
market we proceeded to the car rental via a van they ran to the
airport. I had previously downloaded directions to our hotel,
so once we rented the car we were on our way to Bournemouth.
With the lack of sleep the last couple of 'days' combined with
driving on the "wrong side of the road" I had to pay a lot of
attention to what we were doing. But we made it to our hotel
OK, except we got a little lost when we arrived in town. A
couple friendly locals pointed us in the right direction.
It was late afternoon by the time we had checked into the hotel, so
we walked down the street to a hotel that had a restaurant and ate
dinner. By then we were ready for bed, so we walked back to
our hotel and went to bed in our very comfortable beds--us in a
double, and the kids in bunk beds.
Thursday, 8/22/13
We spent the day in Bournemouth, mostly recovering from jet-lag. We
walked to a pharmacy and grocery. Then drove to Stonehenge (Right
& below). Finally, Ray took the kids to the beach (below) while
Frankie rested in the room.
Friday, 8/23/13
We checked out of hotel in the morning and drove to Salisbury.
On the way we stopped by the Old Rectory (which took a little
searching as it was tucked down an alley) where we took a couple of
photos (below left & left center). Then we went to the
Salisbury Cathedral (below, right 2 photos), which has an original
of the Magna Carta. This is the founding document for English
Law, from which the law in all the countries that were members of
the British Empire stems. It was kept in a crypt in a
carefully closed environment, with a bit of a line to get in, but it
was worth it to see such an important document (unfortunately
pictures aren't allowed).
Photos below: Left: the stained glass in all these Cathedrals
is really terrific. Middle: the inner keep had very ornate
stonework. Right: the exterior was just as ornate!
After we left the Cathedral we drove the 30 miles
to Tring where we'd found an old manor house to spend the night
in: Pendley Manor (left). For dinner we had a fancy one at the
hotel--very, very good, but also very very expensive ($160 for the 4
of us).
Saturday, 8/24/13
Went swimming at the hotel pool in the morning. Then drove to
Arundel, but got there too late to visit the castle. Walked up
the street, saw cathedral but didn't go in. Walked down the
street and got a ice cream cone. We didn't think it would be a
good idea for Frankie to walk back up the hill to the car, so
Richard and I walked back to the car and tried to return for Frankie
and Karen. Unfortunately, due to the fair that was going on,
we didn't make it--but at least we found a place to park where
Frankie didn't have to walk up the hill. Went to Crawley and
checked into our hotel. Ate fruit for dinner which we bought
from a roadside stand.
Sunday, 8/25/13
Went back to Arundel and spent 4 hours going through the castle
(below). Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos
inside the castle, so the really great library and many other neat
things aren't included in our pictures.
We ate a terrific lunch in the castle and after a bit more wandering
around we returned to hotel in Crawley.
Monday, 8/26/13
We got up rather late, so we were late checking out of hotel.
It was 10 by the time we were under way to Canterbury. When we
got there we missed the turn into our hotel so we tried the next
exit, but were then lost trying get turned around to return to the
hotel--but it turned into a good thing as we wound up 3 blocks from
Canterbury Cathedral--the reason we'd come over here. Since we
were there anyhow we parked in a car park (right where we sighted
the Cathedral!), had lunch in the car and then walked the last few
blocks to the Cathedral. Then we returned to hotel, which was
a bit complicated as we had to go several miles past the hotel
before we could turn around and come back to it since it was on a
restricted-access road. After checking in and getting settled
we ate dinner in hotel and then we watched TV until rather late
(midnight).
Left: Canterbury
Cathedral 
Right: Stained glass windows
Below: a graveyard in the inner keep:
Tuesday, 8/27/13
I got up at 6 am and spent a couple hours working on the
computer. Then I went and got Frankie and the kids up and
while they were dressing I packed my stuff. Then, on the way
down for breakfast, I took my bag to the car. After breakfast
we finished packing, checked out of the hotel and headed for
Heathrow to return the car.
We got to Heathrow about noon, due to some traffic jams (it is only
about 90 miles). We dropped off the car at the rental agency
and they gave us a ride into the airport. We took the Heathrow
Express train into London Paddington, had lunch there of food we'd
bought the day before. Then we found the subway to Euston, but
I wound up having to go all the way back into the station proper to
buy tickets with cash, as their machine by the subway didn't take
cash (!!).
The subway ride was short, and we had perfect timing because the
train was boarding as we walked in. It was a nice train ride
to Tring Station, where we caught a taxi to Pendley Manor (we'd like
it so well there we were returning for a couple of days).
After we checked in I took the kids swimming while Frankie took a
nap. Then we caught a cab to the Grand Junction Arms, a pub
I'd eaten in 2 years before. After dinner the kids played in
the playground, and then we walked down the canal a bit. Then
a little further. Soon we were hooked, and decided to walk
back to the hotel. The mile and a half back turned a bit
complicated as we left the canal and it got dark (complete with bats
flying around), and we wound up crossing a corn field. So we
were glad to see the Pendley Manor sign when we got out of the corn
field. By this time it was quite dark, so we were glad of the
lights of the hotel as we walked up the drive.
Karen and Frankie and gotten into nettles, so they took baths and
then we went to bed.
Wednesday, 8/28/13. Foggy with highs in the low 70's
I got up at a bit after 7, and went out into a lounge area and spent
nearly an hour working on preparing for the conference. Then I
went back to the room, where I found everyone up and dressed so we
went to breakfast. Which, like the previous time we were here,
was a very fancy buffet style (mostly fancy due to the very nice
table settings). As usual, we had the full English breakfast.
After breakfast I took a bit of a nap while Frankie and the kids
went swimming. After my nap I resumed working. I worked
an hour and then we took a walk, going down to see the bus stop time
schedule, to decide about taking the bus. It didn't run very
often, so we kinda gave up on the idea. At 2 we took afternoon
tea in leu of lunch, which was very nice in their gazebo style room,
complete with half a dozen finger sandwiches, scones, cake and (of
course) 2 pots of tea. We even discussed putting a similar
gazebo on the roof of our house.
Mid-afternoon I took the kids outside and they played (mostly taking
photos & videos of peacocks) while I worked on conference stuff
and Frankie took a nap. After Frankie's nap we caught another
photo of her and the peacocks (below).
We had promised the kids 2 times of swimming, so in the late
afternoon we all went swimming. We stayed in the pool for
about an hour, and then they had an aerobics class so we left.
I spent awhile getting this caught up and then we ordered room
service for dinner.
Thursday, 8/29/13.
We got up and had a leisurely breakfast. Then we headed for
the train station to take the train to Telford. The places we
wanted to see were out of town, so we rented a car, and this one
came with a built-in GPS, which turned out very handy as we went in
search of ancient ruins. We drove to Wenlock Prior and spent half an
hour wandering around the ruins (below left 2 photos). Then we
drove to the Iron Bridge (the first iron bridge every build--below
right), where we ate a very late lunch/early dinner.
Friday, 8/30/13. Sunny & fair with temperature to 74
Today was a mix of taking it easy in the hotel, going swimming in
the hotel pool, and visiting 2 more tourist sites. The first
one, Stokesay Castle, is a small medieval castle that has portions
of in in reasonable shape (ie the wood still remains). The
photo below left is a diagram of this shows the general
layout. Inside the fireplace mantle had very elaborate carved
mantle (middle). I also took a photo from the top of the
tower, looking down into the yard (right).
Wroxeter, our next stop, are the ruins of a fantastic Roman
city. We spent quite awhile going over the grounds and through
the museum. The Romans were great engineers, and (at least the
wealthy) had standards of living approaching those we have
today. The image in below left show an artist's rendition of
what the site looked like around 400 AD (with some text discussing
it). Center left is the outline of some of the buildings;
center right is the largest example of a hypocaust heating system
I've ever seen (the "piles" of rocks you see here supported the
floor, and then off to the side of the building you made a fire that
vented through the area under the floor--around these piles of
rocks--and then up chimneys built into the walls)...I've often
wondered how many people these systems killed from CO
poisoning? Or were they just good enough so they didn't?
The museum even had surgical instruments dug up from the Wroxeter
site.
We got back to the hotel in the mid afternoon, and after a nap we
went swimming and then walked down the street to a restaurant for
dinner.
Saturday, 8/31/13. Sunny-cloudy, 70
(by Ray) We were up early, but discovered that the restaurant didn't
open on weekends until 8! (Normally it opened at 6:30).
So we were late eating breakfast. Then we ran into problems
with the GPS getting us to the right place, as it took us to the
town of Stafford, instead of the road Stafford. By the time we
got to the car rental place we only had 20 minutes until our train
left, but fortunately they got us there in time and we managed (by 3
minutes) to catch the train to Edinburgh.
As usual, I had spent some time in the morning searching the
internet for our hotel and "downloading" maps & directions (I do
this with most of the directions we need, generally downloading them
by just taking a picture of the map on the computer screen) on
getting to the hotel. I found one in Edinburgh that was within
walking distance from the train station.
(by Frankie) The hotel in Edinburgh was actually a 2 bedroom
apartment. We went out to dinner at a yummy Italian restaurant. We
also each had fancy ice cream desserts after dinner (left). Then we
stopped at a small store and bought cereal, milk, laundry
soap. The kids each bought a pair of fuzzy gloves. After returning
to the hotel, I figured out the laundry machine (it's a combined
washer/dryer which doesn't work very well for either function) and
did a couple of loads.
Sunday, 9/1/13. 50's, Rain showers
In the morning we took a tour of Edinburgh. We started out by
walking around for a while, and then we found a hop-on hop-off
bus. It was rather a rainy morning so we didn't get off
anywhere, just stayed on the bus for a tour of the city. Then
we returned to our hotel, check out and went to the train station
where we got lunch and caught our train to York. When we left
the train station we found a Ferris Wheel which we took a ride on
for terrific views of York (below left). Afterward we caught a
cab to our bed & breakfast. In the late afternoon we went
to the York Ministry (which was really like a Cathedral) and took a
tour of it (below right). These buildings sure are impressive!
Wendy met us at the Ministry, and she & Nigel led us down
several small, winding (ie neat) streets to a restaurant where we
bought them dinner.
Monday, 9/2/13
Wendy picked us up and we did a tour of the surrounding countryside,
including a stop at a lavender farm where the kids played in a maze
(below), after which she & Nigel had us over for dinner.
Tuesday, 9/3/13
(Ray writes) I went south to Cambridge and Frankie went north to
Inverness. For the next 4 days (starting at 16:15 this
afternoon) I was immersed in the SENS6 conference from the time I
got up until the time I went to bed.
(Frankie writes) The first train to Inverness was running late which
would have made us miss our connection in Edinburgh, so we took a
different train. It was also late, but it was still soon enough to
make our connection. The rest of the trip went fine. We arrived in
Edinburgh around 530. We found our inn, but they weren't ready for
check in so we ate dinner at a nearby hotel before returning to
check in. The room had a double bed and bunk bed.
Wednesday 9/4/13 (Frankie & kids in Inverness) windy,
mostly cloudy
(Frankie writes) We walked to the bus tour place downtown. I got us
a city tour then a boat trip to Loch Ness via river Ness and the
canal. It was about 3 hours long.
Thursday 9/5/13 (Frankie & kids in Inverness) mostly sunny
AM, cloudy/showers late PM
(Frankie writes) Today was our big bus tour up to John O'Groats at
the north end of Scotland. I wasn't sure how the kids would behave
since it was a 10 hour trip, but they did great! There were enough
stops for them not to get too restless sitting. Lunch was at a small
seaside restaurant around 1 pm. After that we went to the end of the
road at John O'Groats for pictures. Then we started back to
Inverness. Along the way we stopped at a place where we walked
through this field to see sea birds nesting in a narrow canyon then
some natural pillars. Further back, we went by the shortest street
in the world. Basically it's the front of a triangular buiding in
Wick that's 6 feet 9 inches long. It started raining off and on
after that. We had a nice chat with the elderly woman next to us on
the bus the rest of teh way into Inverness. Dinner was at a cafe in
the grocery store near our inn.
Friday 9/6/13 (Frankie & kids in Inverness)
(Frankie writes) Took train down to York. Our reserved seats on the
first train (from Inverness to Edinburgh) had us all in different
places in the same train car, so I found a crew and asked about
re-seating us. He not only found us seats together, but they were
even at a table. Upon arriving in Cambridge, we found the hotel was
not pre-paid as I had assumed. That caused a lot of trouble since my
credit card was having problems. My knee was hurting quite a lot
tonight too. Luckily, they let us stay and we paid the next morning
after Ray arrived.
Saturday 9/7/13, mostly cloudy
(Ray again) I got up and had a hasty breakfast. Then I packed,
checked out of Queens College where I'd been staying and took a cab
to the Travel Lodge hotel where Frankie had come to the night
before. I met up with Frankie and the kids and we went back to
Queens College for punting (boating--below).
Sunday 9/8/13
We went from Cambridge to Bournemouth, getting there at dinner
time. We didn't feel like walking so we took a cab to the bed
& breakfast, and then walked about halfway back to an Italian
restaurant for dinner.
Monday 9/9/13
Frankie had a severe allergic reaction to something at breakfast,
but was OK by the time we checked out at 10. We took a cab to
the train station and took the train to Dover. We took a cab
to the hotel and had dinner there, though it was quite expensive we
weren't feeling up to searching for dinner.
Tuesday 9/10/13
After breakfast we went to the Dover Castle (below), where we spent
most of the day going through the castle and the tunnels. We'd
left our luggage at the hotel, so we hired a cab to take us back to
pick it up and then to the train station. We took the express
train into London (below), which is our final stop in the UK...our
train pass is expiring. When we got to London Frankie and I
got week-long Oyster (subway) passes. Karen is free since she is
less than 11 years old. Richard couldn't get a weekly pass so he got
a daily pass every day, even though the person at the ticket counter
said he should just say he is 10 this week and avoid paying. This
accomplished we took the subway to Hammersmith and walked the half
mile to our hotel.
Wednesday 9/11/13
HMS Belfast tour (below left), which is a WWII battleship.
Then we walked across Tower Bridge (below center and right
photos).
At the foot of the London Bridge there was a ferry running down the
river, so we took boat ride down the river & saw the London Eye
(Ferris Wheel, below left & center) and Big Ben (below right).
It rang 5pm while we were on the boat.
Thursday 9/12/13
Today we took the subway to central London and took a ride on the
London Eye, where we got several nice photos (below left looking
across the wheel when we were about halfway up, center is a shot
from the top of the city of London).
After we left the London Eye, Frankie took Karen for a ride on
a merry-go-round while I took Richard to a spinning elevator thing
that he went up in. Then we took the underground to the
closest stop to the London Zoo, where we stayed until closing time
seeing all kinds of neat animals, including monkeys (below left) and
penguins (below center). One of the exhibits was an 'open'
cage, where we were walking around with the animals, including the
monkey (below right) who tried to steal Richard's glasses!
Friday 9/13/13
We had been seeing ads for Build-A-Bear during this whole trip, and
we'd promised Karen to take her there while in London. We
hadn't managed it and were running out of time, so the first thing
after breakfast we went to the nearest Build-A-Bear Workshop where
Karen, Richard and Frankie all had teddy bears made. After
lunch, we went to the Greenwich Royal Observatory. They have a
laser beam shooting out from their building, right down the Prime
Meridian (you can see this if you zoom in on the photo below, in the
gable area). The red line on the building above Frankie's head
is the Prime Meridian ('0' Degrees longitude). This location is also
the determinant of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT--I am still unhappy with
the US government for deciding to 'rename' GMT to be
CUT--coordinated universal time). Unfortunately we were too
late in the day to see the planetarium, but we did manage to see a
lot of the observatory, including some really neat old clocks and
the telescopes used to measure star angles that were so important to
early navigation. I was a bit surprised they did not mention Bowdich
when talking about nautical navigation history since he was
important to revising the tables and sextant method so much that
they are still used today. We'd taken a taxi from the subway
station to the observatory, but there weren't any around when we
were ready to leave at 5, so we walked the mile or two back to the
subway.
Saturday 9/14/13
Unfortunately Frankie's knee was hurting a lot last night, so she
stayed at the hotel while I took the kids out for the day. We
went to several museums, including a science museum with a lot of
hands-on stuff. When we got back the kids noted these signs,
which are rather contradictory on how to get out of the train
station!
Sunday 9/15/13
Today we packed up and checked out of the hotel in the late
morning. We took the subway to Heathrow airport, so we would
be close to the airport the next day, and so we wouldn't have to get
up extremely early.
Monday 9/16/13
Flew from London to Chicago. We were pretty wiped out by the
time we got there, so we went to a hotel and spent the night.
Tuesday 9/17/13
Flew home.
After we left the Cathedral we drove the 30 miles
to Tring where we'd found an old manor house to spend the night
in: Pendley Manor (left). For dinner we had a fancy one at the
hotel--very, very good, but also very very expensive ($160 for the 4
of us).
Left: Canterbury
Cathedral 
