Thursday, August 21, 2014

York Minster, Vikings and other historical experiences

Up and early for another day in York; my first destination was York Minster, the huge church in the middle of town that I'd seen the outside of yesterday. It's (yet another) fascinating old building with a ton of history within/beneath it.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Eboracum, Jórvík and York

Firstly, the title is a joke; they're all the one place, not three places. We call it York, the Vikings called it Jórvík and the Romans called it Eboracum. But they were that was my next destination - after what would be my longest drive on my UK trip as I travelled there there from Cambridge.

I don't remember much about the journey, but one thing I do remember before I left was collecting the laundry I'd put in to be washed the previous morning - for which they charged me £12.60, an amount so much lower than I'd expected given my previous experience of laundry service charges in London than I happily gave them £15 and told them to keep the change.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Cambridge at a low ebb


I woke up feeling somewhat less than 100%, which was more than a little disappointing as I had a big day planned in a town with a lot of places to go. But my first destination was the tourist information centre where I'd be joining a walking tour (the one that I hadn't gone on the previous day because it had already sold out) that would take me around and into what I hoped would be some interesting parts of town.

Oh, but before that I had to deal with a minor crisis, the problem of laundry. The single most significant lesson I've learned about travelling is that you need to plan around when you're going to need to get yourself to a laundromat (or, as they call them in the UK, a launderette) or locate someone who'll do it for you. I'd made it through London without having to do any - a blessing, because the prices for the in-house service at the hotel were staggering) and done some myself in Oxford; this time I'd located a service, so that's where I went, mostly because I didn't want to have to try and collect the volume of one pound coins I'd have needed to do it myself.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam and not eating sushi at a sushi bar

I once again wanted to see a bit of the countryside, so I set off from Stratford fairly early and headed south (I think) for a while, taking my time driving around enjoying the pleasant countryside. After a while I realised I had better get on with it, so I reprogrammed the TomTom so it would take me to Cambridge.

We took what seemed to me an odd route to get there, but in this part of the UK the roads don't run especially straight east-west (or vice versa for that matter); this meant I ended up going a ways south towards London (almost all the way to Milton Keynes) on the M1 before turning north-east and heading towards Cambridge.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Shakespeare's Houses, Warwick Castle and the RSC

Up bright and early because I wanted to get around to the inside of the three Shakespeare houses in Stratford and then head out to spend a few hours at Warwick Castle before getting back into town to have dinner and then go see Henry IV part 1 at the RSC theatre.

As I noted yesterday, there are three 'Shakespeare houses' - his birthplace, new place/Nash's house and Hall's Croft. First up was his birthplace, which has a museum attached to it that's got some interesting stuff in it. Oh, the swan statue isn't at the house; it's on the bank of the river.

Friday, August 1, 2014

Shakespeare Country

I'd gotten a little annoyed with how little of the countryside I was seeing from the motorways, so on my way back to England from Wales I decided I'd take a slightly more scenic route. This mean (roughly) going north to Monmouth first before heading east into Gloucestershire and then north again into Worcestershire (I didn't see any sauce factories, which seemed odd) and then east again to Warwickshire, which is the county where Stratford-upon-Avon is.

And now I've remembered I meant to buy some Stinking Bishop (it's made in Gloucestershire) in Cambridge and I forgot, dammit. Maybe I'll find some in York.