Ireland, UK 2017: 5/16 Day 14 - London (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles)

"My Lord, as this poor woman has no Counsel; will you permit me, as Amicus Curiae, to ask ... a question or two?"
~William Garrow, 1790. 

We awoke in a hotel in Oxford. After completing our morning preparations, we returned the rental car and boarded a train to London. We arrived in London at Paddington Station and then switched to the "tube" and took it to King's Cross. Harry Potter fans may remember that King's Cross is the location of platform 9 3/4 leading to the train that takes Harry and his friends to Hogwarts. The Harry Potter store in the shopping area of the station offers tourists the chance to use a prop and take a picture of what appears to be a trunk-laden cart disappearing through the wall. For us, it was a station that had a luggage storage service and a stop on the Hop on Hop off bus tour route.

We spent the next few hours seeing little bits of London using a hop on/hop off  bus tour. The pace was definitely very different from most of our travel up to that point. Traffic was heavy and noisy and construction was everywhere.

From our vantage point on the bus and appropriate "hop off" points, we managed to see the Tower of London,

the Old Bailey, (any Garrow's Law or Rompole fans?),

and the site of  the former Newgate Prison.

When it came time to wander around near Buckingham Palace, we noticed ladies and gents dressed in semi-formal wear.

Apparently the occasion was a Royal Garden Party.

Whatever the event was, it must have been pretty serious! 

After our wanders, we retrieved our luggage and then caught a cab to the London City Airport. We had plenty of time before our flight to Scotland, so we had dinner.

We noticed a guy in the corner that looked like Neil Oliver, the Scottish archaeologist with a popular series of history documentaries. Compare the picture on my phone with the guy in the corner and tell me that's not the same guy!

Our last travel mode for the day required an airplane to take us to Edinburgh Scotland.

Ireland, UK 2017: 5/15 Day 13 - Cornwall to Oxford

"I fell in love with Oxford, the quiet glow of its morning streets."
~Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches

Net distance traveled: 217 miles

Leaving Cornwall....

















Nice view from our breakfast table


















As we loaded up to make the drive to Oxford, Jeff asked about our proximity to the "magical waterfall." Try googling "magical waterfall Cornwall". The search returns St. Nectan's Glen--a point I had placed on our "maybe" list. Located very close to our departure point and more or less on our driving route for the day, we decided we could afford the stop.

St. Nectan's glen is privately owned land and the way is well marked. The signs direct you to a parking lot and then to the walking trail through the woods.









Along the stream on the way to the visitor's center we started to see rock stacks (cairns) or "fairy towers,"

bits of ribbon, 

and coins embedded in stumps.

Did I mention the path was well marked?

The always present rock walls were found even here. And the remains of a house that had burned and left to decay.

T

The visitors center has a gift shop, cafe with nice outdoor eating area, and a meditation room.

After paying the entrance fee, we were offered "wellies" if we wanted to keep our feet dry. We accepted and headed down the path to the waterfall.

The  wellies turned out to be a wise decision. It had rained the night before and the only way to see the waterfall was by walking in the creek and around a bend.



It was sooooo worth it!

Jeff decided to build his own cairn.

We drove through a little morning fog that didn't last long and headed to Oxford.

We eventually made it to Oxford and met up with my friend Paul. Paul is a PhD student at Oxford that I met when he was a Master's student at UW-Madison. I managed the Respiratory and International Health program at the Wisconsin Division of Public Health and Paul stepped in to coordinate the Refugee Health Program during the manager's maternity leave. I later served as a reference for Paul, and wrote a recommendation for him to receive a scholarship that took him to Indonesia where he met the woman that is now his wife. So, you might say I helped bring them together! 

Paul took us on a tour of the university.  So much history!

For example, Balliol College was founded in 1263. Adam Smith, an 18th century economist, attended there. (He's going to come up again in a later blog post.)

Trinity college was founded in 1555

Okay, this dude has teeth (and wild eyes). I'm not sure I've ever seen a statute with teeth.

The Bridge of Sighs  joins two parts of Hertford College.

The Radcliffe Camera is part of the Bodlein Library system. ("Camera" is the latin word for room. Sadly, it has nothing to do with cameras.)

Entrance to All Souls College (one of those featured in Deborah Harkness All Souls Trilogy book series).

We walked down a narrow street...

to The Bear Inn, Oxford's oldest pub (est. 1242).

Glad we had to opportunity to see the university and such good company while seeing it!

Ireland, UK 2017: 5/12 Day 10 - Southwest England

Net distance: 195 miles. Trying to find a bathroom in Exeter: an eternity. Lessons learned: Just because you take an exit into a town, that doesn't mean you'll find what you're looking for. Stopping for  fuel doesn't guarantee a bathroom. Instead, look for signs on the highway that say "Services" and include "W.C." (water closet) on the list of services. 

We left our hotel in Calne and headed southwest, toward Cornwall. Leaked photos from Poldark season 3 filming attracted us (okay, just me) to Wells, but it WAS the right driving distance for our first bio-break of the day. We learned after arriving in Wells that Simon Pegg's movie Hot Fuzz also filmed there. Now we have to go back and watch that movie again! 

We knew this building (the Wells City Council) will be in Poldark--watch for it in season 3 as the Warleggan Bank. 

Poldark aside, Wells is a picturesque city.

A big attraction in Wells is the Wells Cathedral.

Old cathedrals have doors in interesting places, often short doors. Apparently it was too much trouble to open the ginormous doors at this entrance, so the door is IN the door.

 No Magna Carta here, but the dead people have been dead longer (than at the Salisbury Cathedral).

We crossed the county line into Cornwall and drove through what the map said was Bodmin Moor. We're not sure we did it right because what we saw looked more like pretty heavy on the forest and light on the moor. We needed a break from driving and had failed to figure out where to see Dozmary Pool (said to be the final resting place of King Arthur's sword, Excalibur) so when we saw a sign for Golitha Falls, we decided that would work for us.

Bonus, there was a mineshaft warning. Keep in mind this was just as we began our tour of Cornwall, so we were excited to start seeing remnants of their mining history.  

We did find Warleggan, the name Winston Graham chose for his Poldark villian, George Warleggan.

Winston Graham borrowed a lot of place names in Cornwall for his characters. Demelza Carne is named after both Demelza and Carne. 

It had been a long day of driving, sometimes on wide highways, but other times on roads like this. At some points, we had to watch for sheep and cattle.

Our hotel (Camelot Castle Hotel) was a welcome sight!

And this is what we saw from our room when we checked in.

We had 3 days booked here, so after dinner, we went into Tintagel village to the coin operated laundry and washed our clothes.