Archive for the Category ◊ Places and Sights ◊

10 Sep 2009 Exploring Caledonia: Part I

A Week in Caledonia

I began writing this shortly before we left Britain, but then life caught up, and in the chaos of returning to the US, it got set aside. As I write these words now, it has been nearly a month and a half since we landed in the US and a month since we returned to Albuquerque.  Life has been…  Very good, but very busy since the return.  But the memories of Britain and Europe are still strong, and part of our hearts still live there, I think.

So now I flip back through my notes and the feel and scents of Scotland return to me.  I will do my best to transcribe some of them, but there’s a great deal to say, so this may take more than one post and some time to get out.  (Not aided, I know, by my incurable verbosity.)  Think of it as a slow-motion discovery for each of you — you’ll never know when another bit of it will pop up.  But I’ll do my best to at least finish up Scotland before, oh, say, Christmas…

One of the final tour targets for the great Rati-Lane British Isles tours was Scotland. We’d been hoping to hit all of the major regions/countries of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland), but we still missed Ireland.  Ah well — good reason to return at some point.  ;-)

We had to decide on something, and we had really needed a work-free vacation, so we packed our bags and headed North.  A lot happens in a week of intense vacationing, so there’s quite a bit to report.  We’ll start with:

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16 Jul 2009 Leaving the Shire, Mr. Frodo

As I write this, we’re sitting in the airplane at Heathrow, about to take off for the US.  For home and the end of a wild, wonderful, eye-opening, strange, and sometimes stressful year. more…

17 May 2009 Rocks Rock! More on Stonehenge et al.

I have been meaning to follow up on the Stonehenge/Avebury trip, beyond the teaser photos that we posted. more…

10 May 2009 Hiking in Wales
 |  Category: Places and Sights, Vistas  | 8 Comments

So I promised that we’d get back and chronicle some of our hiking trip to Wales.

(Warning: long and lots of pics behind the cut.)

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09 May 2009 Only in Britain…
 |  Category: Places and Sights, Random fun  | One Comment

… would the wiring instructions at a construction site come with etiquette:

Instructions to wiring crew at Tube rennovation works, drawn on a wall in Leicester Square tube station.

Instructions to wiring crew at Tube rennovation works, drawn on a wall in the King's Cross/St Pancras Tube station.

28 Apr 2009 Strange sights
 |  Category: Daily Life, Places and Sights  | Leave a Comment

Quick note on a strange occurrence the other day…

I was leaving home in the morning, heading for the bus stop to go in to the university. As I approached the end of our street, and the turn onto the more major cross-street, I was surprised to see a Victorian hearse pass.

Two beautiful grey horses in fancy tack and bridle (complete with the feather head dress) drawing an elaborate, gilded and ornamented, glass sided wagon containing what appeared to be a coffin. The whole affair was driven by two men in formal dress — coat and long tails, top hat, the whole bit. It was a vision out of a Dickens novel, for sure.

This surprising conveyance was followed by just two dark, limousine-style cars. (And then a red London city bus.)

I assume that it was really a funeral arrangement of some sort.  I was just surprised to see it trotting down a city street in what is not precisely an upper-class or elaborate area.  I think of horse and carriage as being something that people hire for weddings and other romantic occasions, not for funerals.  And there wasn’t a long line of mourners following.  (Though the tradition of a huge number of cars following a slow hearse and paralyzing traffic for miles around may be more of a US thing.  I don’t know.)  It just felt…  Out of place, I guess, in the middle of a neighborhood of early 20th century row houses filled with immagrents and making its way through dense traffic.

26 Apr 2009 Quick Stonehenge pic

Just back from a fantastic trip to Stonehenge and Avebury (courtesy of a couple of local London friends, who played fantastic tour guides for a day). As always, there’s much more to say, but in the interest of getting something up soon, rather than a thorough post later (or, sadly often, not at all), here’s at least a couple of pics:

Stonehenge, seen from the center of the circle

Stonehenge, seen from the center of the circle

Trilithon backlit by the early morning sun

Trilithon backlit by the early morning sun

13 Apr 2009 Royal badasses

A recent voluble tour guide was lecturing us about the history of York and, while telling us about the ruins of their abbey, he started a remark:

“And then, when Henry took the throne, he…”

I had to interrupt (being a loud and obnoxious American), “Which Henry?”

He stopped his flow of lecture and blinked.  “The Eighth, of course.  We’ve only had two monarchs, you know: Henry and Elizabeth.  All the rest were just placeholders…”
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10 Apr 2009 The view from the bus

So, Mom and Dad are visiting us for Holy Week.  We should have a post about Palm Sunday services in St. Paul’s Cathedral, but this post is not that post.  This post is about a bus tour.

Magdalen College Tower in Oxford

Magdalen College Tower in Oxford

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04 Apr 2009 Jesus’s beard and other mysteries
 |  Category: Meditations, Museums  | 9 Comments

Why does Jesus have shoulder-length, brown wavy hair and a beard?

One of my personal favorite bits of touristing is doing the museum tour, and there’s plenty to choose from in Europe.  The grand cities have some of the greatest art musuems of the world, collecting over a millennium of masterpieces (mostly from Europe and North America, granted, but also some from further afield).  In our time here, Susan and I have been privileged to explore the Prado, Reina Sophia, Thyssen, Louvre, d’Orsay, National Gallery, and Victoria and Albert.  And that’s not counting other art museums that we’ve seen on other occasions or the vast amounts of art accumulated in palaces, cathedrals, churches, mansions, and random other tourist destinations.  It brings alive all those dusty memories of art movements that (for me) date back to high school, making them vivid and setting them in context.  Still, with all of this art trekking, we’ve noticed a few other features that aren’t mentioned quite so often. more…