WALES

 Cyfarchion o Gymru!  Or, as we would say in the good ol' USA, greetings from Wales.
As has been the norm for our trip so far, the day we arrived in this beautiful part of the world it was raining.  Unfortunately, it also continued to do so throughout the majority of our first week.  

So, no pictures from our first week, but here we are enjoying tea on the patio of The Old Vicarage where we stayed in the Coach House.  This truly is breathtakingly beautiful country and we were glad that the rain stopped and the sun peaked out from behind the clouds occasionally during our second week so we could show it to you.


This is the view from our living room and even when it was overcast and raining it was a joy to look at.

I mean what's not to like?  The greens are vibrant (think lots of rain), the sheep and cattle are grazing . . . pure heaven.

And the gardens of this place are truly amazing.  They were designed by an award winning landscape architect and it shows.

Here is a picture of part of the front gardens.









And, here is a picture of part of the back gardens.

That is our Coach House that you see in the picture.  








So, back to what we did in Wales.  We had planned on doing a lot of hiking and golfing.  With rain the majority of the first week the hiking was greatly curtailed (read no hikes).  However we were fortunate that the days we had planned on playing golf the rain either just spit at us or just threatened.  


The golf courses here are quite interesting.  We had three within a half hour of us, one being the highest golf course in all of England.  

Here is a picture of the 3rd/14th tee box of the course closest to us.  As you can see, you have to share the fairways with the grazing sheep.  Really gives new meaning to the term "hazard" not only for the sheep but also for the little presents they leave all over the place.


We actually ended up playing at one course that we really liked.  We had scheduled a lesson with the pro there and not only liked him (he did a great job of tuning us up for Ireland) but we loved the course.  It really is hard to show you in a small picture how beautiful it is but here are a couple that give you a little glimpse of the panorama we had on almost every hole.

These courses aren't easy but were really fun to play.  On Llandrindod Wells Golf Club, which became our "home course", there were no bunkers but if you hit a shot in the rough forget about it as the grass was knee deep.  And, on most holes you had at least one blind shot and very few flat lies.  I'm hoping that this time in Wales has gotten us a bit prepared for what we are going to face in Ireland and Scotland.





Two days we decided to take road trips since the weather wasn't conducive to golf or hiking.  The first trip was to one of our favorite English towns, Ludlow.  It is an old market town and it has great antiques in addition to food.  Here are a couple of pictures of it.














As you can see, the architecture is very different from what we've seen so far on our trip.  










Our last road trip was to see an old Victorian Dam project.  There were a whole series of reservoirs with these great stone dams - all hand constructed.  We had planned on hiking around them but unfortunately it was raining so we just stayed in the car and drove.  Though we didn't get any exercise we saw some gorgeous countryside.

So, this brings us to today, our last in this idyllic part of the world.  We woke to bright blue skies and decided to take advantage of the good weather and go for a good long two hour walk.  This picture is of our little town, Norton.  As you can see, the sky is no longer blue  (this is what the English call "white clouds") and about fifteen minutes before we got back home it started spitting at us.  We just made it in the door when the rain really started.  So much for bright blue skies!

Weather notwithstanding, we have thoroughly enjoyed our two weeks in Wales.  We had spent a couple of nights in this country back in 2002 and wanted to come back and see more of it.  We are glad we did because it is as great as we remembered it.

I am going to leave you now with a common sight throughout all of the United Kingdom - sheep.  They are everywhere and I think a picture of them is a fitting end to this post.

Keep your fingers crossed for us that we don't get too drenched in Killarney, our next stop.  We have pre-paid for our golf there so if, as is forecast, it rains you will get to see in my next post a couple of drown rats with golf clubs in hand.

Ffarwel ar hin o bryd (don't you just love this language?)

Dale and Rhen

ON OUR WAY TO ENGLAND

Our first night on our trip from Spain to England we stayed in a town just north of Madrid because it was the right distance and they had a Parador there.  We love the Paradors of Spain.  They are a chain of hotels owned by the government and are all historic buildings that have been renovated.  Some of them are from the 1500's. 


Here's a picture of the inner courtyard.







Anyway, we arrive in La Granja de San Ildefonso to find that there is a castle there.  And, not any old castle.  One used as a summer palace since the reign of Philip V.  It's uniqueness comes from the fact that Philip was the grandson of Louis XIV and he wanted to create a Versailles of his own in Spain.

So, not only did he build this huge castle but he also created gardens that rivaled Versailles, encompassing over 1,500 acres and incorporating hundreds of fountains, walkways and even a maze.

Our Parador, just down the street, had been the Prince's Palace and was lovely with very comfortable rooms, a great restaurant and even a spa.


So, after a lovely afternoon which started with a great lunch at an outdoor cafe and ended with a stroll through the gardens, we felt we had been given a great farewell from Spain.

The remainder of our trip thoroughly enjoyable.  We saw many storks sitting on their nests with their young peeking over the edge, fields of bright red poppies (no pictures as it's difficult to get a picture when whizzing by at 80 miles an hour) and many, many fields of mustard (these I could get as there were so many of them).  

We ended up in Calais where we spent the night.  We then took the ferry to Dover in the morning to start the next leg of our adventure.  On to London!

LONDON

We arrived in England, and yes, those are raindrops on our windshield.  So far, every new place we've arrived at has greeted us with rain and London was no exception.  Even with the rain, however, the drive was spectacular.  The mustard fields continued from those we saw in France and set against the green of the English countryside . . . . gorgeous.

We are in London for one month and hope to not only reacquaint ourselves with some of our favorite places but to find some new favorites - really get to know it intimately.  


Our first day we walked over to the Borough Market which is one of the best in London (nice to have within walking distance).  It was everything it was cracked up to be.  Produce, meats, cheeses, breads plus so much prepared food to eat there or take away.  It really was an experience.

There are any number of markets in London, some mostly food markets like Borough and then others like Bermondsey (two blocks from us) and Portobello where there is everything from antiques to arts and crafts and food.  We tried to hit them all but Borough ended up being our favorite and the one we returned to.


While we had Oyster cards that gave us "touch and go" access to the bus, rail and tube services we walked everywhere we could and averaged six to ten miles a day.  We only saw blue sky about five days out of the entire month but were lucky enough to only really get rained on three days so, while it was brisk (high 50's to mid 60's) with "white" (weatherman's term for dull grey skies) or "grey" (weatherman's term for dark stormy skies) clouds, we hoofed it.  The tube (and buses) are convenient but walking really lets you see and get to know the city.

We obviously saw all the major tourist attractions but I'm not going to bore you with pictures of Big Ben, The Eye, Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, etc, etc, etc.  Instead, here is a picture of the sitting room of Dennis Sever's house.  It is an actual house that was turned into a museum (though he also lived in the house until his death in 1999).  It is reconstructed to be exactly like it was in the 1700's and it was very interesting.  Tucked into a small street it was like going back in time.

In addition to Sever' house we visited two other "house" museums.  One was the home of the Punch cartoonist, Edward Linley Sambourne and the other was Leighton House.  The Sambourne house, 18 Stafford Terrace, still has all of it's original furnishings and decorations for it stayed in the same family up until the 1960's when it was turned into a museum.  Not too far from 18 Stafford is the Leighton House.  It was very fashionable in the eighteenth century for well known artists to have large studios/homes where they not only painted but lived and entertained.  The best example of this is Leighton house, home to one of the well known Victorian artists, Frederic Leighton.  Both were very interesting to see and we would highly recommend them if you are planning on a visit to London.

We went to a number of art galleries also, most of which we had visited previously.  One new one for us and one we would highly recommend is the Courtauld.  It has an excellent collection of Impressionist paintings.

One of our few sunny days, we took a day trip to Portsmouth to see the newly opened Mary Rose museum.  The Mary Rose was Henry VIII's flagship built in 1510.  It sank in 1545, discovered in 1971, raised in 1982 and since then has been going through massive conservation.  It was just opened to the public so we had to see it.  No pictures to show you as it really is just half of a wooden hull but the history and the fact that they could save it was very interesting to see.

What we were able to take pictures of though was the HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship on which he died during the battle of Trafalgar.









This ship was completed in 1765 and is the only surviving warship that fought in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars.

The last ship was saw was the one on the left, HMS Warrior, also known as "The Black Snake".  It was built in response to the aggressive French ship building program and when commissioned in 1861 she was the largest warship in the world.
She was the new ironclad and was powered by sail and steam.  She was not only the largest but also the fastest.



On our only other really sunny day we took a drive into the Cotwolds, one of our favorite regions of England.  Here is an example of a typical road that one "poodles" down in the English countryside.  Believe it or not this is a two way road.

Here's another example of the beautiful scenery and, as you can see in the distance, more mustard fields.

Our favorite thing about the Cotswolds, in addition to the gorgeous scenery, is the architecture.  The area is famous for it's butter-colored stone and most of the old houses are built using this stone.  To maximize the charm, these old butter-colored buildings are dripping with wisteria.  I mean, really, what's not to love?  

We also took a day trip to Sussex.  Unfortunately it was not one of our few sunny days so I have no pictures of the prolific red, purple and white rhododendrons set against the red brick buildings of this region.  We would find ourselves "poodling" through tunnels of rhodies but the rain and low fog made picture taking an effort in futility.  So, you will just have to imagine it.

When not "poodling" or going to museums and art galleries we went to movies and plays. The one thing I'll say about movies in London is that they are bloody expensive.  You can easily spend between $60 and $100 for two tickets, a box of not very good popcorn and a medium drink!  So, needless to say we spent more time going to plays.  We saw Jersey Boys (great), Billy Elliot (not so great), The Book of Mormon (fabulous), Sweet Bird of Youth at the Old Vic with Kim Cattrall (great) and To Kill a Mockingbird with Robert Sean Leonard (of House fame) at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park (very creative and fabulous).  We had our fingers crossed with this one as it was out of doors.  We saw a glimpse of blue, a lot of fast moving dark grey clouds, a sprinkle of rain and a lot of wind but the show went on and it was one of our most enjoyable outings.

While researching events in Regent's Park we came across the World Naked Bike Ride and we had to see that!  It's a race that has taken place in London along with a number of other cities for the last few years.  It takes two and a half hours and winds all through London and, yes, most everyone is stark naked.  We caught up with it in Trafalgar Square and I will close this missive from London with one last picture.  Who would have thought?

So, that's it.  We've had a great time getting to know this grand old city but are ready for some country.  So, it's off to Wales for two weeks of hiking and golfing (weather permitting).  Are we ever going to see summer?