Day 22 – Canterbury

Canterbury Cathedral

This is our last day in the UK and we are spending it in Canterbury to tour the cathedral. The Canterbury Cathedral is the oldest (founded in 597 but rebuilt in the 1070s) and most famous Christian structures in England. It is best known at the site of the murder of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was killed in the cathedral in 1170. Becket was originally friends with King Henry II but over the years a riff developed between the two and grew over a seven year period until Henry II is reported to have said "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" Upon hearing this utterance, four knights took it upon themselves to ride to Canterbury and killed the archbishop in a very brutal way.

Canterbury Cathedral (interior)

Following the murder, a kind of cult following grew from the murder and Becket was canonized and a shrine with his remains was placed in the cathedral, where it stayed for hundreds of years until King Henry VIII ordered it destroyed as part of his split from the Catholic Church.  Many pilgrims went from London to see the shrine and this is documented by Geoffrey Chaucer in his most famous text, The Canterbury Tales. There is an attraction in Canterbury dedicated to The Canterbury Tales recounting some of the more famous tales and of course we had to do that. I think it might be a bit dated, but it was interesting enough.

By the way, it was in the mid-70s today and easily the best weather we have seen on the whole trip. It was a day for short-sleeves and no need for a jacket.

Day 21 – Plymouth, Brighton and the White Cliffs

HMS Victory

Our first stop today was at the Historic Plymouth Dockyard to tour the HMS Victory.  The HMS Victory is a 104-gun sailing ship that was launched in 1765 and is best known for her role as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 against the combined French and Spanish fleets. The significance of Nelson’s victory meant that Napoleon would be unable to invade England as he couldn’t control the English Channel during the crossing, so England was spared an invasion. Nelson did not survive the battle, however, being shot by a French sniper on the main deck and in full view (where admirals traditionally stood) and there are spots on the ship marking where he was shot and below decks where he died. Nelson is by far England’s foremost naval hero. 

Deck with Twelve 12-pound Cannons (per side)

The ship was a surprisingly interesting tour as the audio guide made you feel that you were actually part of the crew during the battle of Trafalgar.

Royal Pavilion (Brighton)

From Plymouth we drove east along the English coast to Brighton.  Brighton is due south from London and a favorite spot where the English go when they want to go to the beach. However as it was mid-May and still very cool with a strong breeze off the water, we wonder how many actual beach days they would get. Brighton has two famous sights, the Royal Pavilion and the pier. The Pavilion was built by George III and used up through Queen Victoria’s time as a royal seaside resort.  It’s now open to the public, but it really didn’t interest us enough to tour. 

Brighton Pier

Brighton Pier is really very similar to any of the piers along the New Jersey shore with amusement rides and shops. 

Seven Sisters

From Brighton we headed further east and were surprised to discover that the famous White Cliffs aren’t only in Dover but actually extend from Brighton all the way to Dover in the east. The cliffs are formed by white chalk which gives them their white coloration. They are quite high and the cliffs at Dover are visible from France which is at the narrowest part of the English Channel. While the cliffs at Dover are famous from the song The White Cliffs of Dover, they are best seen from the channel and you can get a better view of white cliffs elsewhere and so we chose to see the cliffs at the Seven Sisters, located in Sussex just east from Brighton. It is a spectacular view and not crowded with tourists.

Day 20 – Stonehenge and Jane Austen Country

John at Stonehenge

In sequence, we stopped in Bath, Stonehenge, the village of Chawton to see Jane Austen’s house, Winchester to see the cathedral and are spending the night in Southampton.

Stonehenge is kind of a mandatory stop if you are in Britain and so we did the tourist thing and joined the crowd. They have a new visitor center and now they bus you out to the stone circle, but you still have the option of walking and viewing Stonehenge for free from a slighter greater distance. Of course it is about a 3-mile roundtrip walk, so we opted to pay. It was crowded but not really mobbed. It is really in a wide open area with nothing around except the A303 which is close enough to see the stones.

Roman Baths and Bath Cathedral

In Bath we took the Hop-On Hop-Off Bus tour to maximize what little time we had in town. It was a good introduction to the city and we saw the cathedral, the Roman baths for which the town is named and the Georgian architecture of the city of which the Royal Crescent is probably the best example.

Jane Austen House in Chawton

Now some Jane Austen trivia related to our sightseeing today. Jane Austen was born in Steventon in 1775 and moved to Bath in 1800 when her father retired from the ministry. She lived in Bath for about 5 years, until her father died and we saw a couple of the places she lived in Bath. She was reportedly unhappy in Bath and then moved with her family to Southampton (where we are spending the night) in 1806 after her father passed away and her family had to be taken in by relatives. Subsequently she and her family moved to a property owned by her brother in Chawton in 1809 where she lived for 7 or 8 years. She had been working on her novels for years, but it was in Chawton where she finished her novels and published them.

Winchester Cathedral

Austen became ill and was under medical care in Winchester for about a year, where she died on 18 July 1817, at the age of 41 and she is buried in the cathedral.  The cathedral is a huge structure and had maybe the highest ceiling of any cathedral we have been in.

Although all this Jane Austen stuff sounds planned, we really just stumbled on most of it.

Day 19 – Wales

Steam Train in Wales

So what is different in Wales? For one thing, their signs are dual-language with both Welsh and English showing. For example: Slow and Araf. Other than that, not much is drastically different. Still lots of sheep, maybe a little more mountainous that England. One thing that is familiar to us are some of the Welsh city names which are common also in our area – Berwyn, Telford, North Wales, etc.

Langollen Train Station and the River Dee

Our first stop was a steam engine train ride starting in Llangollen (note: double-L is pronounced like “s” in Welsh, so something like Sangosen). 

Victorian Days

We happened to be there on Victorian Days so people at all the stations were dressed in Victorian clothes, tying back to when Queen Victoria came to Berwyn in 1897. It is a nice scenic ride along the River Dee.

Brecon Beacons National Park

After the train ride we drove south through a lot of winding roads, small towns and Brecon Beacons National Park to just outside of Cardiff where we spent the night. One interesting part in the National Park was that there was a section where the sheep roamed wild and were often in the road or near it, so you had to drive very slowly at any blind spots. 

We closed the night doing something typically European – after a nice meal at the pub, we watched the Eurovision Song Contest.

Day 18 – The Beatles

Magical Mystery Tour Bus

There are a lot of things to see in Liverpool but for those of us of a certain age, the Beatles are what we came for so the day was packed with a lot of Beatle-related activities. We started today with the Magical Mystery Tour which is a two-hour bus tour which focuses on Beatles sites. We saw the homes of all four Beatles, the spot where Lennon and McCartney met plus places mentioned in Beatle songs. The end of the tour was at the Cavern Club, which is much smaller than I expected. Only drawback was my umbrella got nicked at one stop (my fault).

Penny Lane

At Penny Lane: 1) On the corner is a banker with a motorcar – the bank is still there on the corner, 2) Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout – No longer a roundabout for public transportation but still exists across from the bank, 3) In Penny Lane the barber shaves another customer – same barbershop still there. What wasn’t there today: There beneath the blue suburban skies – gray, cloudy and misting rain. In the evening, it turned to full rain.

Beatles Statue 

Following the tour we took the “Ferry Cross the Mersey” which is another Liverpool song reference (Gerry and the Pacemakers). It could have been better as a fog had set in, in addition to the rain, which made sightseeing a little more difficult. After that we went to the Tate Liverpool, which is an excellent contemporary art museum. I actually like it much better than the Tate Modern in London, which is much bigger. I especially liked “My Bed” by Tracey Emin and photos by Cindy Sherman, who I had studied in my Art History class last summer. Pretty cool to see the works in person. 

Last stop was at The Beatles Story which is a kind of museum on Albert Dock which tells the story of the Beatles career. It was pretty detailed but really kind of just okay.

Day 17 – Scotland to Liverpool

Lockerbie Garden of Remembrance

We said goodbye to Scotland and started our four and a half hour drive south to Liverpool. We try to break up our trips so we stopped to see the Lockerbie Garden of Remembrance. This is a memorial to Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 killing all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground. Two Libyans were tried for the bombing and one was found guilty and the other found not proven guilty. The “Not Proven Guilty” is a third possible outcome for a trial under Scottish law and one that we don’t have. While it is technically an acquittal, it basically means we know you were guilty but it can’t be proved.

We passed into England and drove though the Lake District, which was the home to poets like Wordsworth. It is very pretty country but with fantastic weather today (sunny and about 70) the small towns were overrun with tourists and so we didn’t stop much.

View of Albert Dock From Our Room

We have a great room at the Hilton in Liverpool overlooking the Albert Dock and the River Mersey. We went to dinner at Albert Dock and saw a show at the comedy club there.  The first three comedians were very funny and we could mostly understand the jokes, except when they made cultural reference to things that we didn’t know like making fun of the people in Hull. No clue what that means.  The last guy was totally different. He was a last minute replacement and a local low-class Liverpudlian whose accent so thick it was amazingly difficult to understand. Some of that difficulty might have been part of his act, but we only understood about 20% of what he was saying. Everyone else was laughing, either with him or at him. It was hard to tell which.

Day 16 – Glasgow

George Square (Glasgow)

Steve left for his morning flight back to the U.S. and so Jeanne and I are on our own once again. We have been very pleasantly surprised by Glasgow. It is the largest city in Scotland but it is pretty well devoid of tourists, or at least ones speaking a different language. You hear a lot of French, Italian, etc. in Edinburgh but nothing other than English here. Glasgow has a reputation as a blue collar city with a rough edge, and you can see hints of that, but by and large we found it open and inviting. It is also a young city with three large universities and a thriving music and pub scene. Glasgow has a very nice pedestrian zone downtown formed by Buchanan and Sauchiehall (pronounced Sucky-Hall) streets. The Scots here are very friendly but also very hard to understand. I can understand about every other word and when they tell me the price of something, I can almost never understand it. Here is one good example. We went to dinner at one pub which was full, so the girl told us to try the Butterfly and Peg which was just up the street. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that Peg is how she pronounces Pig.

Tall Ship (Riverside Museum)

We tried to have a relaxing kind of day and pretty much succeeded. We took the Hop-On Hop-Off tour bus around the city and stopped at the Riverside Museum and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Pubic museums in Glasgow are free so you really can’t complain about what you see. The Riverside Museum is dedicated to transportation and is located on the River Clyde, which used to be the site of a large shipbuilding industry. They have one of the five surviving tall ships built in Glasgow docked at the port.

Kelvingrove Art Museum

We toured the Kelvingrove Museum and I would have to give it an A+ for the building but about a C for content. They have a large collection of Scottish painters who are largely unknown to us.

Dinner tonight was in a local pub watching soccer on TV with everyone else.

Day 15 – Culcreuch Castle, Stirling Castle and Glasgow

Culcreuch Castle

The first picture is Culcreuch Castle, where we spent last night. Culcreuch Estate was purchased by Robert Napier, second son of Lord John Napier of Merchiston, in 1632 and he then added the expansion on the right side of the picture where most of the bed and breakfast rooms are. Our room, the Napier Suite, was on the right side of the third floor and Steve stayed the floor above in the Baron Suite. The rooms look like they were either straight out of the Victorian period or a Scooby Doo mystery.

Old Stirling Bridge

Pardon the brief lesson, but I feel I should explain the importance of our next stop at Stirling Castle since most people don't know Scottish history. There were three or four major events related to the First War of Scottish Independence there. In the first the forces William Wallace (i.e., Braveheart) defeated an English force in 1297 at The Battle of Stirling Bridge even though the Scots were greatly outnumbered.  If you look close, you can see the Stirling Bridge in the center of the second photo in direct line with the William Wallace Memorial, which is the tower in the distance.

Stirling Castle

After that the war continued the forces of Edward I (“Longshanks” in the Braveheart movie but also called “The Hammer of the Scots”) and the Scots took turns holding Sterling Castle until 1315. After Edward I had died, his much weaker son Edward II tried to continue the fight but he was defeated by Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn and the Scots finally gained their independence. And of course the bottom line to this story is the Scottish only remained independent until 1707 when they were forced to join the Kingdom of Great Britain. You can see Bannockburn from the castle. 

In the afternoon, we drove to Glasgow where had afternoon tea at the Willow Tea Room, walked around and did some shopping. Nice time.

Day 14 – Castles and the Lochs

Urquhart Castle

Stop one today was at Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness. The castle dates back to the 13th century and was destroyed in 1692. In addition to the great view of the lake, what we are going to remember most, however, was how cold and windy it was.

Nessie?

Of course everyone wants to spot the Loch Ness Monster and it hadn’t been seen for eight months until yesterday when a girl spotted it off Urquhart Castle and took the photo shown here. We listened to a guide who also saw it yesterday and he said it was the first time in all the years working there that he had actually seen something that could have been it. He said it stuck 10 feet out of the water and was shaped like a serpent. How much of this is true? Who knows for sure?

Kilmahew Castle (side view)

For lunch we stopped at the Lochleven Seafood Café (on Loch Leven of course) and had a wonderful meal of shellfish, which Scotland is famous for. The oysters were the best in my opinion, but the clams, mussels, and scallops were also very good.  Following lunch, we headed south along Loch Lomond. Loch Lomond is featured in the song "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" and is now part of the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park (our fourth National Park on this trip, if you are counting). Loch Ness and Loch Lomond were both beautiful and it would be hard to pick a favorite. Loch Lomond is the biggest lake in the UK but Loch Ness actually contains more water as it is very deep in parts.

Inside Kilmahew Castle (Steve and John)

Just outside of Glasgow in the small town of Cardross , we stopped to visit Kilmahew castle which is the ancestral castle of our branch of the Napier clan. The lands were granted to the Napiers in 1290. The castle itself was built sometime in the 16th century by the Napier family, who owned it for 18 generations. The castle today is in ruins but actually in a relative decent state. It lies in a woods just off a golf course and we walked through a cow pasture to get to it, then found there was a walking path not much further up the road. In its day it must have had a beautiful view of the River Clyde and the land sloping down to it.

We are spending the night in a second Napier castle, Culcreuch Castle, which is now a bed and breakfast in Fintry, Scotland. In 1632 the Culcreuch Estate was purchased by Robert Napier, second son of Lord Napier of Merchiston, who expanded the castle which was in the Napier family for five generations.

Day 13 – St. Andrews and Scottish Food

University of St. Andrews

We started today with an approximate one hour drive to St. Andrews and sightseeing at the University of St. Andrews, which is Scotland's first university, founded 1413. This is another “Napier” highlight as Lord John Napier went to school there in 1563 but it much more famous as the meeting place for Prince William and Kate Middleton when they were both students there.

18 Hole at the Old Course

Next was a walking tour of the Old Course at St. Andrews. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews is one of the oldest golf clubs in the world and generally recognized as the “home of golf.” It has been the host of many great British Opens, the last one in 2015. It was pretty interesting to walk up the 17 and 18th holes and to see the course from a player’s perspective.  As today is Sunday, we got to see another aspect of the course that I wasn’t aware of. The Old Course is closed on Sundays and the townspeople come out and use the course as public land and have since the course was constructed in the mid-1700s. We got our picture taken on the iconic bridge on the 18th hole and afterward  Steve and I played a round on their 18-hole putting course. It was windy and cool, but still fun.

Deep Fried Mars Bar

We then took a really quick tour of the Dewar’s Aberfeldy Distillery.  I say “really quick” because they were in the process of closing up but were kind enough to let us take a look around even though the official tour had completed. It also reminds me to talk a little about the Scottish food we have tried. I have a list I’m trying to taste while here and in no particular order:  1) Haggis. Haggis is available at almost every meal but is particularly good with potatoes (called “tatties” here).  I like Haggis but am not sure everyone else does. It’s a little like a lamb version of scrapple. 2) Irn Bru soda. To me it tastes like cream soda, but Steve says it is more like medicine. 3) Cullen Skink. I had it yesterday on the yacht. It is a soup of smoked fish, leeks and potatoes, all blended to a creamy texture. Everyone liked it. 4) Deep fried Mars Bars. Scotland has a reputation of deep frying everything and candy bars are no exception.  Had one tonight and it was okay, but I won’t be craving it later. In the photo, Mars Bar on the left and ice cream with a chocolate "flake" on the right.

We are spending the night in Cairngorms National Park which is the start of the Highlands region of Scotland. We are starting to see mountains now, some with snow on them still.

Day 12 – Britannia, Holyrood and Arthur’s Seat

Formal Dining Room (Britannia)

Our original itinerary had 4 events for today, but logistics and timing dictated that we skip the Hibernian F.C. football match with St. Mirren.  It would have been fun and the streets were packed with people wearing green and white supporting the Hibs, but it was just not doable. However,  the three activities we did squeeze in were really good. We started with a visit to the Royal Yacht Britannia which is the former royal yacht of Queen Elizabeth II from 1954 until 1997 when it was decommissioned as part of a cost cutting measure by Tony Blair, ending a tradition of centuries of royal yachts. It is now a major tourist attraction docked on the north side of Edinburgh and all three of us really enjoyed the tour and stayed longer than expected. We even stopped for a spot of tea in the ship’s upscale tea room.

Holyrood Palace

The next stop was Holyrood Palace which was the residence of the Kings and Queens of Scotland since the 16th century and even today Queen Elizabeth spends one week in residence at Holyrood Palace at the beginning of each summer on official business. It is one of the four official Crown Residences reserved for the Queen’s usage (Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Holyrood Palace in Scotland and Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland). It’s most famous resident, even though briefly, was Mary Queen of Scots.

Arthur's Seat (Halfway up)

The final activity was an ascent to the peak at Arthur’s Seat. First photo is about halfway up. Arthur's Seat is the peak in the middle with yellow Gorse at the lower levels.

Arthur's Seat (Three quarters of the way up)

It is an imposing peak overlooking Edinburgh. View is from about three quarters and Edinburgh Castle is just to the left of the lower rim in the foreground.

View from Arthur's Seat

In my opinion, the steepness of that climb makes it pretty much a young person’s game but that said, Jeanne made it halfway, I went about three quarters and Steve got to the summit and gets photo credit for the attached photo. In his photo you can see Easter Road Stadium (football match in progress) and where the Royal Yacht Britannia is docked (extreme left on the Firth of Forth)

Day 11 – Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

Today was the day we looked forward to – Steve arrived here in Edinburgh!!! His flight was early so he even made breakfast with us. And after that, we headed to the downtown part of Edinburgh to do some touring. We rode the Hop-On Hop-Off bus with the first stop at Edinburgh Castle. The castle sits on an extinct volcano high over the city of Edinburgh and has been a royal residence from the 12th century until the middle of the 17th century.

Cannon Facing the Firth of Forth

The castle overlooks the town and the Firth of Forth to the north. We stayed to watch them fire the one o’clock gun, which since 1861 has signaled the time to ships in the Firth of Forth.

Steve and John (Merchiston Tower)

We did some Scottish shopping along the Royal Mile, which is the street that runs from the castle to the Holyrood Palace, toured the John Knox home, finished the Hop-On Hop-Off tour and took an Uber to Edinburgh Napier University. Part of the reason for our visit to Scotland was to see some sight of our Napier ancestry and Napier University is the site of Merchiston Tower, which was the home of John Napier (1550 – 1617). John Napier is best known as the discoverer of logarithms. He also invented Napier's bones and made common the use of the decimal point in arithmetic and mathematics. Not sure if we were allowed, but we took a self-directed tour inside the tower, which is now part of the university.  It was pretty cool to see our family insignia on the tower, the John Napier Conference Room and a bust of John Napier.

Napier Road (Edinburgh)

Afterwards we walked a block away to take a walk down Napier Road.

Day 10 – Scotland

Hadrian's Wall

Our first destination today was Hadrian’s Wall. The wall was built starting in 122 AD during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian as protection from the “barbarians” to the north, mostly Picts and Britons whom they had displaced. At one point the wall stretched across all of Northern England, but only scattered segments remain. We visited at Housesteads Roman Fort, which is located in the middle of Northumberland National Park and which was recommended by my “cousin” Chris Napier.

Baby Lamb

The area and the wall were spectacular but Jeanne’s favorite part was the new baby lambs which were still nursing.

Sheep Gate

I mentioned these earlier, but here is an example of a “sheep gate.” We passed through maybe five different versions of sheep gates and it’s a good thing they were there  as there were hundreds of sheep in the immediate area of the wall and former Roman fort on the site.

Mary Queen of Scots Home

From the wall, we headed north into Scotland for a quick stop in Jedburgh to visit the last home of Mary Queen of Scots before she escaped to England, was imprisoned for 18 years before ultimately being beheaded.  It is a small museum but it tells the story of Mary’s life quite nicely.

One last comment. We are in Edinburgh tonight and we decided to eat Chinese as a break from British food and I had a most unusual dish - Salt and Chilli Haggis. It was actually very good!!!

Day 9 – Traveling North

North York Moors

Today was mostly a driving day as we drove about 250 miles from Coventry to Newcastle-On-Tyne where we are spending the night.  We had two planned stops along the way. As we like to see the US National Parks, we thought it would be nice to see some of the ones in the UK and have several on our list. Today we drove through the North York Moors National Park. The UK parks differ from the US parks in that all of the land in the parks are privately held and not held by the government as in the US. Therefore you can see homes, farms and small towns in various parts of the park. The moors were not at their peak condition as the heather doesn’t come into bloom until late summer so it had more of a “brooding” look today, although there was some yellow Gorse in bloom in various places. By the way, we learned that the moors are actually man-made, caused by deforestation before the Roman times.

Durham Cathedral

Our other stop was Durham Cathedral.  The cathedral was started in 1093 at the direction of William the Conqueror and was completed in about 40 years. It is a massively large church, considering the time-frame in which it was built. It is also the final resting place for St. Cuthbert (c. 634-687) who is regarded as the patron saint of northern England. One interesting sidelight is that the church was closing for several days for filming some scenes from the next Avengers movie and you can see some of the set-up (trucks, tents) outside the church in the photo. There was a lot of green screen material being spread out inside and some kind of large floating balloons being inflated inside.

Day 8 – Stratford-Upon-Avon and Warwick Castle

Trinity Church

Stratford-Upon-Avon is the birthplace and also the final resting place (Trinity Church) of William Shakespeare. The town is a quaint, small town located on the River Avon and filled with Shakespeare sites including the house where he was born, the cottage of his wife, Anne Hathaway, the farm where his mother was born, and the church where Shakespeare is buried. There are also still a number of half-timbered homes and even a few still with thatched roofs dating back to the 16th century.

Shakespeare's Home

Shakespeare’s father was a glover (i.e., maker of gloves) and also a bit of a scoundrel as he dabbled in the black market for wool because he bought and sold it without a license. He also added some rooms on to the Shakespeare home that he let out. By the time we got to the Shakespeare family home where William was born, it was mid-morning and the tour busses had rolled in and it had become quite crowded. They also had a couple of performers putting on segments of Shakespeare’s plays and they performed Romeo and Juliet just for us.

Anne Hathaway Cottage

Anne Hathaway’s cottage is located about a mile away from the Shakespeare’s and on the outskirts of town. The cottage is really more of a large farmhouse as her family was in the wool trade and relatively wealthy. Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, grew up on a small farm about 3 miles outside of town, which we also visited.

Warwick Castle

After Stratford-Upon-Avon we drove to Warwick Castle. Warwick Castle was originally built by William the Conqueror in 1068 and is also located on the River Avon. The Earls of Warwick and the castle itself have played significant roles in history, especially during the Wars of the Roses. The castle today is owned by an entertainment group which has turned it into a kind of Disneyland type property which was actually kind of nice. We saw demonstrations of archery, birds of prey and a giant Trebuchet, which is a version of a catapult used to lay siege to castles.