Glastonbury and Wells

It was great to visit that place that was once called Avalon.  We stayed on the slopes with the Tor above us looking out at what was once the sea of Avalon!  There is so much historical and spiritual significance to the town of Glastonbury it begs the question; why so much in such a little place? It is beautiful and peaceful!

Lets start with the legend of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. They are reputedly buried at Glastonbury Abbey. Legend has it that the king and queen were brought to the Island of Avalon by boat after Arthur was mortally wounded in battle.  In the late 1100s there was a fire at the abbey and during the rebuilding two skeletons were apparently uncovered by builders. 

A plaque now marks this spot.

Jospeh of Arimathea, the uncle of Jesus, is said to have travelled to Avalon with his nephew and here they built a place of worship made from wattle and daub.  This was the first church built on the site of Glastonbury Abbey.  Whatever the real history of this site, it is beautiful and peaceful.  And even though Henry VIII destroyed the abbey during the reformation it still seems apropriate to walk around the ruins as if in a holy church.

Later, Joseph was given the Holy Grail, the mystical vessel which had been used to celebrate the Last Supper and which caught some of the blood of the crucified Christ as he hung upon the cross. After the Resurrection, Joseph returned to Britain with the cup.  Apparently for safe keeping, Joseph buried the Holy Grail just below the Tor at the entrance to the Underworld. Shortly after he had done this, a spring, now known as Chalice Well, flowed forth and the water that emerged brought eternal youth to anyone that would drink it.  Both Pauline and I drank from this well and the results are amazing!!

BEFORE



AFTER

Continuing the legend of Joseph, it is claimed that when he landed on the island of Avalon, he set foot on Wearyall Hill - just below the Tor. Exhausted, he thrust his staff into the ground, and rested. By morning, his staff had taken root - leaving a strange mediteranean thorn bush now called the sacred Glastonbury Thorn.  A descendent of this original bush has grown upon this hill ever since and also in the Chalice Gardens.  A cutting from this Holy Thorn Tree is sent to the queen every year for the royal dinner table. 

There you have it - Jesus, Joseph, King Arthur and Henry VIII!! And all in a small town that doesn't even have a supermarket!

As we left Glastonbury we paid a visit to Wells cathedral because everyone kept telling us we have to - Wells is the smallest city in England. The cathedral is beautiful, it contains a 600 year old clock and unique arches called scissor arches.  It was the first ever Gothic style building in England, so consequently it has amazing sculptures on the front facade.

From Avalon to Wells to Wales - stay tuned for further adventures!

Devon and Cornwall

Hiring a car was the best decision! Not a cheap decision but a wise one.

We picked it up at Heathrow and drove west through Wiltshire to North Devon.  We took two days to do this and stayed over night in Marlborough very near Avebury. North Devon was extra special to me as we were staying with my Auntie Margaret and Uncle Bill - two of the world's wonderful people - and it has been a long time since I have seen them.  We stayed with them for a week and had a glorious time! SO MUCH FOOD!

On the first day they took us to Clovelly a very old and very steep village. No cars can go down into the village so we parked at the top and walked - usually a landrover brings everybody back up, but to our misery not in winter.  Luckily at the bottom of the walk through the village is a pub - the Red Lion - of course we are in England a pub always comes to the rescue. The locals all have sledges to take down their groceries - it is so cute!! Margaret and Bill then wanted to take us to Hartland, but we happened to drive past an 800 year old church - so we spent the next hour walking around the graveyard and exploring the church.  It is so fascinating to think what that church has seen. We did reach Hartland finally after driving up and down and round and round very narrow lanes - VERY narrow lanes. And they had two way traffic - aargh! Guess what was at the bottom - a pub!

Our exploration of North Devon continued the next day with Appledore, Westwood Ho and Bideford; loved the first, ambivalent about the second and found the last cute.  In fact I loved Appledore (photo on the right) so much I want to live there. 

A road trip was then necessary to explore Cornwall - we stopped firstly in Redruth to do some family research for me and then stayed the night in St Ives. Redruth was where my great great grandad was born and worked as a copper miner.  Pauline and I spent a couple of hours (a cold couple of hours) in St Uney cemetary looking for a Trevena grave! Don't know if we found it, but we found the house that he lived in 1850! Bit mind blowing. The following day we drove around the very bottom tip of Cornwall and visted Land's End where the Royal Navy were practicing life saving (the free show was great) to end up in Penzance.  We both had such high expectations of Penzance, but it was nothing but a shopping centre - NO PIRATES! On this drive around the coast we came across another stone circle - the Merry Maidens - it was just there in the middle of a farmers paddock!  After an adventurous two days we headed back up north to Bideford through Truro, apparently it is the oldest town in Cornwall. The navigator (me) was rubbish on the trip north and the drive took at least an hour longer than it needed to, but we would never have seen those endless hedge-lined narrow nail-biting lanes otherwise. 

Obviously we are gluttons for punishment and the next day we decided to head back to Cornwall to Bodmin Moor to check out more stone circles! And took Uncle Bill and Auntie Margaret with us - they now have the stone circle bug as well.

We have said goodbye to the lanes, the pasties and relatives (alive and dead) to spend a few nights in Somerset before heading to Wales.  There are a few stone circles in wales for us to find!! 

Avebury and Stonehenge

Our trek round the stones of SW Englamd continued with Avebury and Stonehenge. Up and out early (always challenging) we made it to the prehistoric site of Avebury early to give us time to walk around it – and it was well worth it.  Avebury is 14 times bigger than Stonehenge, which makes it the largest stone circle in Britain with a circumference of 1.5km and predates it by 500 years.  And you can walk freely among the 17 kms of stones which made it a great experience.  There are still some stones standing that form the ancient walk up to the stone circle and of course we walked up it trying to imagine who had walked up there and why.  It was brilliant, an amazing experience!  What was more amazing was walking into the circle of stones - the energy changes a lot - inside the circle the air was more electric.

From Avebury we drove South to Stonehenge.  Stonehenge was an equally amazing experience, but different. The biggest difference being that you can’t actually touch the stones or go near them. But wow! These huge prehistoric stones standing upright with other stones balancing across the top – amazing!  The whole experience left me quite speechless.

Construction on this great monument began 5,000 years ago, but the stones that still stand today were put in place about 4,000 years ago.  Unfortunately, the current site is only part of the original Stonehenge because the original construction has suffered a great deal from both weather damage and human pillage of its rock over the millenia including close contact with tourists.  This meant I couldn't enter the stones to feel the energy within the circle, but it was still unforgettable!

Bodmin Moor

Auntie Margaret, Uncle Bill, Pauline and myself took a one hour drive to Bodmin Moor - took us two hours after we got lost in Launceston.  We couldn't find the way out!  Bodmin Moor is of one the last great unspoilt areas in the South West and much of its prehistoric and medieval past remains untouched by the passing of the centuries - 2000 prehistoric sites are still visible.  We climbed to the summit of Stowe's Hill near a little village called Minions where for more than 6000 years man has lived, worked and farmed.   On top of the hill we came upon a Bronze Age stone temple known as The Hurlers, which consists of three large aligned stone circles, but we only saw two.  It was so cold we couldn't walk any farther. Legend has it that men where turned into stone for playing hurling on top of the hill!!! Well it is a theory anyway!!

Unbelievably we found a tea room that served cornish pasties and cream teas - yum yum! And we had both!! We went from there to Trethevy Quoit. Well I say went, we struggled to find it and drove around the tiniest hedge lined lanes, when we did get there we only had 5 minutes of dim daylight left!! But we saw it and it was magnificent. This quoit is known locally as The Giant's House.  The capstone is 3.7m (12ft) long and, in its half-fallen state, 4.6m (15ft) high. There's also a natural hole piercing its highest point, but noone knows the function of this port-hole, some experts speculate that it was used for astronomical observations.

Time team have been to Bodmin Moor if you want to check it out; http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/2007_bod.html

Pauline and Jane are in Paris!!

Bonjour de Paris!
Temps pour un autre blog.
Pauline and I have been in lovely Paris for four days and we have seen everything a tourist should see. In fact we have been ticking the sites off our list as we have been ticking the menu items off a corresponding list.

As soon as we arrived at the Waldorf Madeleine we headed up the Boulevard Malesherbes to our first bistro for Champagne cocktails, pâté de foie gras, omlette and quiche. Tick tick tick!

Day One

Our first day saw us walking to the Place de la Concorde then to the Eiffel Tower and finally a walk up the Champs de Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. Tick tick tick!  We wanted lunch at the Eiffel Tower, but there was very little information around so we found a nice little bistro - and there are millions of them. Today's choice from the food list was Croque Monsieur and Croque Madame!! The first thing that struck me in Paris was that information was so hard to come by - I had to google every night to discover the history of a lot of the places. The other thing that struck me was the Eiffel Tower is very ordinary, by contrast the Arc de Triomphe is stunning.  One of the facts I discovered through googling is that the Nazi's head quarters in WWII where in the PLace de la Concorde.

Day Two

To maximise our sight-seeing and coverage of the city and to get more information we decided to buy a two day ticket on the hop on/hop off bus. Great idea - but it's bloody cold on those open top buses in the winter.  We had four routes to choose from; our first choice took us up around Montmartre (Sacre Coeur and Moulin Rouge); our second around the main city, but we only went as far as Notre Dame before we had to jump off. Amazing place!! I have always wanted to see this Cathedral since I studied French at school and I have to report it delivered.  A nice bistro near the cathedral also delivered something amazing, French Onion Soup and Choclolate Mousse!  We continued our bus tour with a tour around the Bastille region - again my thirst for historic knowledge was left wanting, but some of the sites were simply breathtaking.  

Day Three

Our bus trip continued as our list of sight seeing and food experiences continued to shrink! Croissants for breakfast! Magnifique! Firstly we finished the tour of the main city sights which didn't add much from our day one walking tour, but it was nice to see them from a different angle and to learn a bit more.  There is a separate lift for the restaurants in the Eiffel Tower! Now we know!! The main city tour was followed by our fourth and final tour around Montparnasse and we rounded the day out at the Louvre. OMG!!! It is the biggest friggin' building I have ever seen - I would need at least three days to see it, but then I could stop whingeing about the lack of knowledge around the place!!! If you look at the photo that I have included on the left you can just see Pauline in the entrance and if you look at the photo on the right you can see the size of the glass dome to the rest of the ancient palace. 

Day Four

The final day was by far the best day - Sacre Coeur. The most peaceful and beautiful cathedral ever. I could have just sat there and soaked in the waves of serenity forever, but I didn't.  Instead we walked up 291 steps to the top of the Dome. Something both Pauline and I observed - the old monks can't possibly have eaten croissants!!!  What a climb, but what a reward at the end.  And as an additional reward as we sat at he top of this dome staring out at the spread of Paris in the gorgeous sunlight we heard a busker singing "One Love, One Voice, We have to carry each other..." Bono would be proud.

The day finished perfectly with Grand Marnier Crepes and Cognac. Back to London tomorrow where we have hired a car to start adventure number three!! 

Au Revoir! 

ADP - another damn palace.

I have decided that you can't move around London without tripping over a palace - and pubs. They all have their own magnificance and their own stories and so do the palaces!!  Hampton Court Palace is the last of the palaces on our list of 'must sees', we have enough now, and we saved the best till last.  This one offered us a double whammy; the old tudor palace of King Henry VIII fame and a newer Georgian palace for joint sovereigns William and Mary.  And if that wasn't enough it has fantastic gardens including the infamous maze.
We started in King Henry's section with a tour of his kitchens complete with smells and fake meat - yuk! But it had the required effect of taking us back in time. The tour of the kitchens included a wine cellar which once held ale, cider and wine - 600 people twice a day ate and drank in this palace!!! The remainder of the Tudor Palace was a bit bland to look at, but the atmosphere and the history made up for this. I walked along a corridor that King Henry VIII would have walked along - wow!!

In contrast the Georgian Palace was magnificent with painted ceilings and amazing art work. There were two main apartments to see here -William III apartments and Mary II apartments - both amazingly colourful. Both apartments had a series of rooms and the more important the visitor the further into the seris of rooms you would be allowed to enter.

We finished the day with a stroll around the magnificent gardens!! I really enjoyed that modern day families were joyously running around the gardens of a 500 year old palace.  Amazing! This place was definitely haunted and we have some amazing orb photos - but you will have to read all about that in my other Blog - From the Diary of a Medium!

A Day in the Tower

But they let us out!!!
We picked a wild and wet day for our trip around the Tower of London, but every sniff, sneeze, runny nose and broken umbrella were worth it. What an amazing place. We started as we meant to continue - in the armoury restaurant having a bite of something and a cup of tea. We then met up with a very stern Yeoman for a guided tour, you wouldn't want to be arguing with them. First interesting site was the spot were King Henry VIII waited for the arrival of his beloved Anne Boleyn when she was to become his Queen, the next interesting site was Traitors Gate.  This gate is where prisoners accused of treason arrived at the tower and this is where Anne Boleyn made her final entrance to the Tower. And they call Somerset House "Hatch, Match and Dispatch"!!
There are way too many fascinating tales around the Tower to be able to do justice to them in this blog; so I'll just share a few of our favourite parts of the day.  The number one attraction has to be the Crown Jewels kept deep in the heart of Waterloo Barracks since 1967.  They left us both quite speechless, not only because of the beauty and opulence of the jewels, but also because of the historical significance woven around every gem. We did spend some time wondering which crown William will wear when he becomes King.  I had two personal favourites (only because I watch the Tudors starring the gorgeous Jonathon Rhys Meyers) King Henry VIIIs armour and  the Duke of Suffolks jousting lance.  Here is an interesting fact - the space suit invented by NASA was modelled from Henry's armour they even visited the Tower of London!

Another joint favourite was the Bloody Tower built in 1220 where Edward IV's two young sons were incarcerated and never seen again. The skeletons of two young boys were found in 1674 hidden under a staircase and in 1933 they were forensically examined and it was concluded the skeletons belonged to two young boys about the same age as when the princes' disappeared.

Typical Australian Tourists

Actually, probably more like typical tourists.
Sunday and Monday were spent on the hop on, hop off bus around London which included a river cruise and a ghost walk and because it is winter we got a second day free. It was excellent value for money and allowed us to see a lot of London from a lot of different angles.  Starting at Green Park, we headed around Wellington Arch, along Park Lane so we could see Hyde Park, around Marble Arch, up Baker St to Madame Tussads then to Oxford Circus and along Regent St to Piccadilly Circus.  And then everything was suddenly there - Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, House Guards, 10 Downing St, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, The Eye and then we had to get off for a rest. Why? Because the tour bus was open top, the outside temperature was about 1 degree when the bus wasn't moving and as typical tourists we sat up there!! It was freezing!!
I have to say Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament are magnificent! Just the mere sight of the place makes me all warm inside. Just think how much influence that place has had in not just England, but all round the world. No not all of it was good, but decisions have been made there for centuries. And it makes you realise just how damn insignificant our little worries are.
After our break the tour continued with the Royal Courts of Justice, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Tate Modern and the Monument - oh and a 90 minute break to walk around the London Dungeons.  We had earnt another break, this time a double brandy break in the Sherlock Holmes beforing walking to Traflgar Square (and another look at Big Ben) for a quick look at the National Gallery and then meeting up for the ghost walk. Really lame ghost walk.

Day two saw us getting off the bus more often to explore some of the famous landmarks; firstly Westminister Abbey where we saw the tomb of Elizabeth the First (just get your head round that for a minute), a better walk around the Houses of Parliament, the Horse Guards and Downing St. Of course you can't actually get near anything in Downing St.  An interesting observation of the horse guards - the police guard them; so the police guard the guards that are guarding the Queen!!! To finish the day we had our photo taken with Prince William and Prince Harry who were very obliging - maybe cause they were made of wax!

For the past two days we have been out and about on foot to fill in some of the gaps that we missed on the bus tour - Buckingham Palace, a ride on the Eye (great view of the Houses of parliament and Big Ben), the Natural History Museum and the Tate Modern Gallery. I learnt something very important during all this - I don't like modern art, I really don't like modern art! To top the day off yesterday we took ourselves on a ghost tour around Newgate where the infamous Newgate Prison once stood.  Creepy, but that's the subject of another blog!

Seeing in the New Year in London

What a decision!
Where to spend New Year's Eve in London?  We knew we wanted to see the fireworks over the Thames, but where to see it? And how to get there?  It was all too hard!  Information was not easy to come by, so as always Google came to the rescue.  Finally the decision was made - a river cruise.  What a great decision that was. The cruise went for 5 hours and included champagne, food, music and dancing and the best bit, an open top for firework viewing. And viewing at it's best.  The boat - Millenium Peace - stopped near Houses of Parliament and the London Eye for an experience of a lifetime.  It is impossible to describe what happened from there because you just have to experience it.  It's life changing and unforgettable.

Whilst googling for firework information, I discovered the existence of a New Year Day Parade through London, it happened to be the Silver Jubilee of this event. How lucky were we? And it started just round the corner from our hotel - even luckier.  It was recommended to get to the parade an hour before the start because 500 000 people were expected. So like good little tourists, we did as we were told and got into position outside the Ritz on Piccadily at 11am and the waiting started. Thankfully we were opposite a Starbucks (yipee!) and we waited.  We could see all the floats getting ready and hear the bands warming up and we waited.  At noon just as we turned into iceblocks the parade started with the first of many marching bands. And for the next 2 hours we watched wave after wave of marching bands, blow up characters, marching bands, car enthusiasts, various floats and did I mention marching bands. It was fantastic and all free - well apart from the massive amounts of money we kept putting into the charity collection tins as they passed by. The Lifeboats got a lot of my money cause they were CUTE!  However, I felt a bit guilty when an elderly lady in a wheelchair came past shaking a collection tin for a hospice and I'd given all my money to the cute lifeboat man.  Luckily Pauline saved the day!

If you have to ask you can't afford it

AKA: A walk around Mayfair

Day one in London, Pauline and I decided to take ourselves on a Walking Tour of Mayfair. Our hotel is in Mayfair so it was a good 'day one' activity. First stop was Grosvenor Chapel and Mount Street Gardens which are public gardens off Mount St in the north of Mayfair created in 1889. They were created out of a former burial ground, despite this they were very peaceful.  Grosvenor Chapel was built in 1730, but it's claim to fame came in the Second World War when men and women of the American armed forces were welcomed to the Chapel for their Sunday services.   Our next stop - well that was for lunch! A girl has to keep her energy up. We went to The Audley, which is where Michelle Obama and girls ate lunch when they were in town. Obviously good taste abounds!
Setting off again we walked around the embassy district and played spot the country. However, we didn't find the Australian Embassy, we figure that's in a cheaper part of town.  We walked along a lot of little streets with old buildings and cobblestone roads - so quaint and so atmospheric especially as it got later in the day and the christmas lights came on.  In fact as it got later and darker (err about half past 3) it also got colder, a stop was needed in the form of a Hot Spiced Cider in the Hog in the Pound.
New Bond St, Old Bond St, Saville Row and Sackville St were all shopping streets on our route which enabled us to do a lot of window shopping. Pauline finally gave in and went into a shop to price a handbag -mmm - if you have to ask the price you can't afford it!!! When we came across Tiffany's and Cartier we walked right past.
Next historic viewing was St George's Church in Hanover Square built in 1721-1724 to the designs of John James, and it's claim to fame is that George Frederick Handel was a regular worshipper there. While we were looking at the shops we noticed a plaque saying that William Blake lived there - you can't help but fall over history in this city!!! It's wonderful.
Finally we made our way back to our hotel via Berkeley Square so Pauline could sing that little song for her mum. The walking tour brochure estimated a 1.5 hour walk, 5.5 hours later we were crawling into the local pub for a mulled wine.