Thanks for reading along.
Next trip: ?
|
|
Yes it is.
The photos for the entire trip have been updated and posted, links to hotels and some attractions added, and the corrections made to the blog posts. Look back by choosing the country from the CATEGORIES list ----------------------> or simply click the button below to start back at the beginning. Thanks for reading along. Next trip: ?
0 Comments
Well, you live and learn, and sometimes the best way to learn is through experience. We have spent a little over two weeks in England, and in that time discovered that we don't like it as much as other parts of Europe. You should note that I didn't say we hated it, we just don't prefer it.
The English we met have been very polite, chatty even. We did not have to worry about language differences this trip, though the truth be told, sometimes they had trouble understanding us because of our accent, and we, them; that problem was always solved by just slowing down. Or having a second beer, which helps to focus the mind. The countryside is cute and quaint, but to us, not beautiful. England is not the Europe of late nights outside at the cafe, drinking and people watching, wandering the streets late at night, seeing sunrises over the mountains and sunsets over famous monuments. At least for us. It is a place where you need to be prepared for rain every day, you really really appreciate an hour of blue sky, and you sit in a warm pub or afternoon tea. Which is a problem if you prefer wine to beer, coffee to tea. The best sight? Stonehenge, hands down. Best hike? The Catbells in Keswick. Best meal was at Maggie Jones's, near the High Kensington Tube stop. I cannot remember any other truly memorable meals off the top of my head; ask me about Turkey, Greece, France, Italy, Germany, hell, even Albania, and I can tell you about meals and restaurants. But England? The food is forgettable. Gail says you can always count on good soup and bread, which she enjoyed after the the cold days. So all in all, England is not on our list of places to return to. But we are glad to have visited. After all, even on the worst days, we are still on an adventure, we are still exploring; we are still traveling! Today, we are looking forward to Scotland. 2 July 2013 After breakfast we drove about an hour north-east to a good section of Hadrian's Wall. The wall was built across England, 73 miles long from sea to sea, marking the northern boundary of the Roman Empire, keeping the northern barbarians in their place and controlling movement of people across the border. It was built in AD 122, out of stone, about 14 to 20 feet high and ten feet wide, with forts and towers and a huge ditch running along on each side. It took 20,000 troops to build and defend it. So we came here hoping to walk along this section of the wall, one of the best preserved parts, and wonder about the Romans. Out the window of our guesthouse is the chicken coop, the chickens are running free right below our window. Just behind the coop, maybe twenty feet away, runs the vallum, or ditch. Hadrian's Wall crests the ridge about 200 yards behind us. It is cloudy, but not raining, and the wind is blowing, but it's not really cold. So we set out from our guesthouse on a six mile hike, up to Winshields Crag, the highest point of the entire wall. The wind is fierce up there, and it's a little colder. We continue on along where the wall is built on top of some cliffs, passing a tower near Steel Rig, a fortress at Milecastle 39, down through a dip called Sycamore Gap because of the huge tree there (A Kevin Costner, 1991 Robin Hood movie featured this tree, but I haven't seen it). We hike up and down along this rock cliff ridge fighting the winds. The wall is still thick in some places, fitted rocks about six feet high. Other places the rocks were hauled away by the locals to build their houses. Up and down, a slow motion roller-coaster. We walk through tall pine trees, they amplify the sound of the wind. At Milecastle 38 we turn off the wall, around a lake called Crag Lough and out across golden rolling fields of buttercups, north of the wall (in Barbarian territory now) to loop back to our guesthouse. The wind is blowing so hard I am deaf. We hit the Once Brewed ranger station slash information office slash youth hostel, and walk over to the Twice Brewed Pub. We kind of blow in the door to warm smiles and laughter of other walkers and locals who are gathered there, and have some local beers: Scottish Borders Brewery Foxy Blonde for Gail, Twice Brewed Bitter for me. I order a hot roast beef sandwich, Gail gets scrambled eggs. It is the only pub in miles, just a hundred yards from our guesthouse, and we will return for dinner. This little area, guesthouse, hostel, pub, park headquarters and a few farms, is all together the hamlet of Once Brewed. The pub name has to do with some too-weak beer that had to be made over, thus it is twice brewed. The town name comes from a lady who started the hostel and said the only drinks served there would be once brewed (tea, coffee). Well, by now it is getting to be later in the afternoon, and right on cue it starts to rain. We go back to fetch up Buddy and tear off to see a couple museums built where some of the Roman forts are, but as the rain picks up we are not too keen on getting out to look at piles of wet rocks, so after short visits we return to the guesthouse to read and drink hot cocoa. This is such a rural place that it just reeks of sheep. All day the smell of sheep has been heavy in the air. The rain has cleaned it out some, but you can still smell them. Our room is cool, they are not running the radiator heat and there is no fire in the fireplace in the lounge area. Back at the Twice Brewed it is warmer, but again no fire. Gail is puzzled, why is no one, from Wales now up to the Scottish border, why doesn't anyone have the heat on? No mystery to me, it's summer! Who runs the heat in the summer? Never mind that everyone is in their wraps, it is glorious summertime! Back at the Twice Brewed had a hearty chicken and bacon pasta, Gail had fresh cod just over from the coast. Good, hearty walking food. Around 22:00 the sky is fading from grey to black; this is the English sunset and we have seen weeks of them. Tomorrow is our last grey English sunrise, as we head north into Scotland for the next week. 1 July 2013 After breakfast we hiked out of Keswick and down to Derwentwater Lake. We paid a couple pounds to catch a long, wooden boat that shuttles you around the lake to six or seven stops. It was windy, cold and cloudy as we set out; we got off the boat at Hawes End, and started walking through the forest. The trees are not that tall, but they are huge and spread way out, providing such a thick canopy that when it suddenly started to rain, then pour, we only heard the drops, but none actually made it through to hit us. So we hung out under the trees until the rain passed, then set out along a rock fence to the trailhead. This hike is the Catbells High Ridge trail, following up a bare ridge that rises to a prominent summit at about 1500 feet. As we started up the trail the clouds broke, the sun came out, and about the first switchback we took off our coats until the summit. The entire hillside is lined by ferns, waist high ferns, more that I have ever seen. A few scattered bushes left here by mistake, one or two trees that got lost, but the rest is rock, grass and ferns. There are a few sheep grazing, lots of people out hiking, and we just walked right on up, a little over a mile in under an hour. We just enjoyed the views and being out in the warm sun. We put our coats on at the summit and tried to hunker down out of the wind, sit and enjoy the view for an hour or so. Then we hiked on past the summit, down into the next saddle and took a little unmarked side trail dropping back towards the lake. We caught the boat for the return trip at High Brandelhow Pier, and were back in Keswick by 13:00. Well, to celebrate the hike, the sunny day and our good fortune, we ended up at the Dog And Gun pub for a beer and snack: lasagne and soup. I had a pint of the Cumbrian Legendary Ales "Loneswater Gold," a light golden bitter ale served at 12 degrees. It was a nice way to end the walk. We went back to the room to pick up the car keys and a map, and we set out on a slow, one lane road drive up the Newlands Valley and over the pass. I almost got run over by a huge tractor pulling a fully loaded wagon of manure. Boy, that would've been the shits. We stopped in the scenic village of Buttermere and I had some tea, we sat in the sun and just enjoyed the quiet. Sheep wandered across the road, or right straight on down it. We jumped back into Buddy, headed around the Buttermere Lake and up over Honister pass. There is a green slate mine there, still working, which explains a lot. Most of the houses and buildings in Keswick are made of green slate, with the doors and windows framed in some orangish rock. It looks striking in the sunlight, depressing and moody in the rain. Isn't it interesting that the cheapest, most available building material here is slate? Though the elevations are low, the grade on the road over the pass was 25%. Switchbacks up the head of the valley? Switchbacks are for fowkin' wankers. The road curves a little but just basically goes right straight up and over. We took an even narrower, one lane side road up to see Ashness Bridge, a really typical type stone bridge over a creek. I could barely fit Buddy across it. We made it back to town in time for an hour of rest before dinner, and spent much of the time sitting in the late sun, on a bench in front of our guesthouse. We ate dinner at Casa Bella, which was absolutely packed. It was pretty good: smoked salmon pasta for me, spinach tortellini for Gail. It was really good, perfect after such a nice day. Tomorrow we head to the Scottish border, to hike Hadrian's Wall. |
I have switched my recent travels to InstaGram, simply because it is easier to post photos and videos.
Click the button below to follow. Archives
January 2024
Categories
All
AuthorThis is me, at home in Northern California. like the photos?
Please credit me, and link to my website. please note:
This website is best viewed on a desktop or laptop computer. |