UK

Weeks in the World – UK – explained

I post my blogs after my travel, but still in reverse order, so this post is to summarize what you will read below. If you want to read from the beginning, scroll to the bottom.

This blog records and celebrates my first trip to the UK (I’d been to London a few times, but never further afield). Long planned but quickly taken at the end of April to beginning of May, I decided to fly in and out of London, travel up to Manchester/Liverpool where I met my relatives for the first time, visit the Lake District which is the home of my family name (Bowness), continue north to Scotland (Edinburgh, Glasgow), then take a ferry to Dublin, then down to Cardiff, Bristol, Bath, Stonehenge, then back to London for day trips.

Since this trip in 2013, I returned again with my mother in summer 2015, partly to ensure that she got to visit relatives and also to get her back to Europe after a 48 year absence. Also she’s a pretty decent travelling companion.

But these are the notes from the first solo adventure. Read on:

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Sunday, May 12, 2013

Bye bye UK

My day started early at quarter to six, catching a bus to Victoria Station then the train to Gatwick, then an eight hour flight. Again it was a giant airbus with three rows of three on each side but this time without personal televisions, which did not stop me from watching the cheesier family movies on offer via the universal screens but did allow me to get through a bit more of the novels I’d downloaded on my ereader. Also to reflect on my trip overall, leading to some RANDOM LAST THOUGHTS:

THE FOOD
Okay so bacon was obviously my top discovery of this trip and I’m not even particularly a zealous carnivore but now I understand why characters on Coronation Street are always ordering bacon baps and barms (sandwiches).

Of course, chocolate. I think my favourite remains the Mars bar but I also love plain Dairy Milk and liked most of the new kinds that I tried (as was my duty and mission).

I was intrigued by the variety of flavours of chips or “crisps” but thankfully got over my unhealthy experimentation fairly early. I also discovered I liked sausage rolls more than I expected considering sausages are not my favourite form of meat. Pasties are decent too.

Perhaps the most impressive (is that adjective taking it too far?) is the fact that the UK seems to have such a takeout culture much more so than Canada, in that you can go into a supermarket (Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer) and easily find a lunch that is not too unhealthy in the form of a sandwich drink and chips combo, which provides a healthier alternative to traditional fast food. In fact, I didn’t go to a hamburger joint or pizza place once, which was nice. I think my favourite sandwich was smoked salmon and egg with cress. Travellers tip: sandwiches are greatly marked down just before closing, a discovery I didn’t make until quite late in my trip but then made good advantage.

A WORD ABOUT HOSTEL SHOWERS
I may have covered this but is there a greater variant in life than the hostel shower? From my first night where the shower room was controlled by a motion detector light that kept going off and plunging me into darkness to a later occasion where the water itself was timed such that you needed to keep hitting the “on” switch to obtain water for more than 20 seconds, these moments made a predictable shower (of which there were many) something to be valued, and made me crave and appreciate the predictable, robust and private shower I enjoy at home.

AND HOSTEL INHABITANTS
If finicky showers are the downside of hostels, the upside is meeting people from all over, of all ages travelling for all reasons.

THE WEATHER
Okay so even the British say it’s a cold year but it is really cold in April. While the timing is what worked for me this year, I may consider scheduling my next visit a bit closer to summer. On the upside, almost every vacation I have taken has been at the end of the summer, so it’s nice that I’m returning to Canada with a full summer ahead.

THE SOUVENIRS
Yes I did go shopping. My philosophy on souvenirs is that I like to buy things that are not only commemorative but also useful in my daily life and in using objects I will remember my travels at random. This time my souvenirs included: scarves and earrings from Covent Garden, sheepskin slippers from a company in Ambleside just outside of Bowness that had been making them for 30 years (okay so the sheep EVERYWHERE are one of the most peaceful/calming/fun images of England and I do realize the irony of buying these slippers), a tea bag holder from the Lake District, a Celtic design necklace from Trinity College Dublin, a stained glass souvenir from York Minster, CDs of both Irish and Scottish pub songs, a souvenir program from Stratford, a silly potholder with cartoon sheep called Wacky Woolies that seem to be everywhere (see beside), and yes a couple of tea towels with variations on the “Keep calm and….” meme. Yes I did buy some fridge magnets including one of Edinburgh castle (a gift from Christina) and the best one, an “I heart BOWNESS” which of course I had to buy one of each of my family members. I also got some nice gifts from my relatives, especially a cute little teddy bear holding a British flag from my young cousin William which he generously offered up from his personal collection. Oh and a pack of four Mars bars which will be preserved in my freezer and doled out to me whenever I have a particularly strong craving for British chocolate (let’s see how long they last). I wished I could bring home some bacon for this purpose but I didn’t think that will survive customs or for that matter proper sanitation practices. Of course my best souvenir is the 700+ photos I took, and this blog!

NEXT STEPS
Upon returning from a trip, friends inevitably ask about favourite places, and of course I have to echo those who say it’s hard to pick a favourite, so I think about it in terms of places I would return or do more travelling.

London of course. The Lake District was really neat for walking so I could easily see returning for a hiking holiday. I really like seaside type cities so places like Liverpool and Bristol really appeal on that count. Returning to Warrington to see my relatives again before another 36 years passes seems like a good idea. And lots of other places I didn’t even get to–I would love to see more of Ireland, to fly to Dublin directly and take a bus tour to see more cities and the countryside. Ditto Scotland, particularly to go further north. And all those day trips from London that I still haven’t gotten to. Next time…

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Saturday, May 11, 2013

Last day in London

My last day in London. I decided to start with my last full English breakfast at the same chain where I’d had my first, only this time I asked for no sausages and double bacon. That’s right, bring it on. I am going to miss British bacon. I may need to start a lobby to bring it over. I bought an all-day pass for the Tube so that I could take some more rides in the double deckers, and did a drive by of the houses of parliament where I felt I had not yet taken enough photos.

Then I went to the Tate Britain, where in addition to the usual Rembrants and Van Goghs about which one becomes complacent there’s a neat commissioned video exhibit set in one of the great hallways celebrating the gallery’s own artworks called Phantom Ride by artist Simon Starling, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/simon-starling. Something I liked about the Tate is the exhibit that walks you through the history of British art by era so you can see the progression and learn about the history of its development. Apparently that is being redesigned and revealed on May 14th, two days after I will have left London so I had that little twinge of jealousy to be a resident and return at will. Another video installation that I thought was really interesting was a piece called Ghost Stories by Willie Doherty http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/doherty-ghost-story-t12957.

After the Tate I went to the London Museum which is an excellent history of the city! I spent so long there I was a bit later than I wanted in returning to Covent Garden where I wanted to end my trip, and some of the stalls were already closing up. However that may have been a blessing as I managed to spend many remaining pence on souvenirs anyway before hanging out to absorbing the atmosphere of tourists, sellers, and performers. Then I headed back to my hostel to pack and try to get some sleep before my early flight from Gatwick.

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Friday, May 10, 2013

Last days in London

At last I’ve decided that I’ve travelled far enough. Although I had a few more day trips in mind—to Oxford (which I visited several years ago to see friend studying there), to Canterbury, to Winchester, to Cambridge—I really needed a vacation from my vacation and so am choosing to spend my last couple of days just hanging out in London. And to take advantage of all the free museums, as my pence begin to dwindle. Today I went to the British Museum, the National Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery.

In the evening I went to St. Martin in the Fields’ Church near the gallery to hear Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” by candlelight http://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/music/concerts/ performed by the Lochrian Ensemble, music that though familiar was well played. I always imagine classical musicians must get just as tired as rock stars when the audience demands that they just “play the hits!” but this group did so with enthusiasm, even inserting a nice Pachelbel’s Canon and other pieces. A decent evening out for 10 pounds even if limited visibility (I splurged and paid the extra two pounds to be upgraded from “no visibility.” You know sometimes you have to say, damnit tonight I’m going to actually see the performance that I’m attending :)).

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Thursday, May 9, 2013

Visiting Shakespeare

Today I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon. Like Stonehenge, Shakespeare’s birth place is somewhere I probably only need to visit once, but I’m told it’s a cute town to make a pilgrimage and a nice day trip from London. That proved mostly true in spite of the on-again off-again showers that have marked this trip throughout.

The town is very walkable and very devoted to its main honoree, with shops and pubs in His name throughout, and a cheerful outdoor market with vendors selling everything from artisanal cheeses and breads to lunch and souvenirs.

On a mission as usual, I headed for the Shakespeare Centre and purchased the standard ticket that allows entry to Shakespeare’s birthplace, his granddaughter Elizabeth’s house, the home of his doctor son-in-law, and Shakespeare’s grave site at the Holy Trinity Church. While fun to see, like all things Shakespeare I feel frustration in how much is speculative and how few of things actually remain intact from his time, so while the sites were true to their eras and managed by able and enthusiastic guides there still seem like so many questions.

I thought one of the most interesting initiatives was a recently completed archaeological dig around the site of Shakespeare’s later home http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/visit-the-houses/latest-news/digging-deeper-for-shakespeare.html. Neat to see exploration still going on and would be fascinating to see more of that kind of thing in that town.

Another thing to know about Stratford as I discovered is that it really shuts down at 6:00 pm, so I found myself at the train station again soon after that to wait for the 7:15 back to London. My roommates tonight were a middle-aged teacher from Germany leading her class on a field trip to see a play at Shakespeare’s Globe, a young woman from China who was returning for a visit after having taken a term abroad a few years ago, and a girl from North Carolina on her way to visit her relatives in Italy.

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Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Back to London!

This morning I got up at the B&B in Brighton and had a small full English breakfast. Interesting having stayed now at two B&Bs to see the differences between them, this one was much more of a modest family house that felt like being a houseguest whereas the other was much more upscale. Just as friendly though.

In the morning I went out to Brighton Pier which is like an arcade with all these rides and gambling (yes I spent a pound or so on the two pence machines) and took some photos of the waterfront. Then I went to the Royal Pavilion which has an eastern feel.

I visited the little Brighton Museum which had details about the history of the city, apparently has a reputation as the fun (naughty?) getaway town from London which comes through at the pier area. After the morning wander, I headed for London again.

Arriving in London, I asked if I could amend the arrangement I had made initially to spend two nights at one hostel and two nights at the next (all that had been available at the time) into FOUR NIGHTS IN THE SAME PLACE. A switch that had seemed like no big deal at the beginning of the trip seemed much more onerous to my wearier self twenty days in. Happily sorted, I decided to spend the afternoon shopping and riding the double deckers. With a hostel just a few blocks from Oxford Circus I was well positioned for these activities.

I find when I’m in a different place I’m most interested in the chain stores of that country and figuring out their equivalent, so I visited Marks and Spencer, Debenhams, and Top Shop. Bookstores too intrigued me of course so I went into Waterstones and W.H. Smith. Lots to browse but since I am travelling light I resisted temptation. This is the first trip where I’ve travelled only with my ebook and it has been a good experience since I did as usual and downloaded four new novels but have only gotten halfway through the second so if I had lugged four books around for three weeks and only read two of them I would have been mad at myself. Travel alone is the reason ebooks are here to stay.

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Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Bath and Stonehenge

Today I decided to use my last day on my train pass and since I found out Bath was only 10-25 minutes away depending on the train, I left my stuff in Bristol and went there early. I took the tour of the Roman baths which is interesting not only for its antiquity but for the fact that really not much has changed: human beings like spas and this seems like it would have been a great one. The attraction was quite well put together with a decent audio guide and lots of artifacts.

Then I went inside the Bath Abbey, again, beautiful stained glass, then took a wander around town up to their city hall and circus with its Georgian architecture. Got lost a little bit and popped out at midtown again, at which point I got an original Cornish pasty for lunch which is sort of like a whole roast beef dinner with beef, carrots, and unfortunately onions, stuffed inside a pocket. I also finally bought the exotic sounding Indian tonic water which does turn out to be just regular tonic water.

The town of Bath seems like a nice place to just hang out so I was a bit sad to get on the train a bit so quickly. But I did and ate my lunch on the trip back to Bristol. There I went to see the Nicholas Market and the Cathedral before picking up my stuff and heading to Salisbury. When I got off the train there, a bus sitting outside was about to take its last trip to Stonehenge for the day so that seemed a little serendipitous so I got on.

Turns out at the last run of the day I was the only one on the bus there at least from the first stop. You don’t really need longer than a couple of hours to see Stonehenge as it turns out. The tour had a narrated commentary which was quite good and took us by Old Sarcen, apparently what used to be Salisbury the original village, now a big green mound. Then we went to Stonehenge, where I finally saw what was already so familiar with from TV and books.

Unfortunately there had been nowhere at Salisbury station to store my big backpack and while I was sure there would be some way to leave my stuff at the entrance to Stonehenge, it was apparently a “health and safety issue” (blah blah) to do so. So me and all my STUFF, made up at this point mostly of dirty laundry and souvenirs, saw Stonehenge together. On the upside, our driver mentioned that Stonehenge was undergoing a renovation that would see the road removed altogether and returned to field, with a new visitor’s centre built but two miles away so you’d have to walk that in the future.

After the tour I got back on the bus and then our driver who was a bit of a speed demon roared through these back roads which is unnerving from the front seat of the top level of a double decker. I got off in the middle of town to see Salisbury Cathedral which was unfortunately closed by that point so I just took pictures of the outside. Then made my way back to the train station. Only to realize that Brighton where I had booked a B&B was not easily reached as it looked on the map. Luckily I had my rail pass that day so it was more my time than my money that was at issue. In the end I made it to Brighton, maybe not the smartest choice of my trip and even one that Dad had tried to warn me against.

By the time I made it to my second B&B of the trip it was time for a can of “Pimms with lemonade” which I had always wondered about and they sold at the train station, does NOT taste like Smirnoff Ice as I had imagined but was not bad either.

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Monday, May 6, 2013

Cardiff then Bristol

Today I went on a tour of the cute Cardiff castle which was had very early Roman origins but was mostly reconstructed and spruced up in the nineteenth century by the Bute family important to the city of Cardiff. In the morning before I went to see the castle, the hostel reception guy was telling me that wealthy people in Cardiff actually maintain apartments there so it becomes a private residence at night.

Today was the first warm beautiful day where I didn’t need to wear all my sweaters so that was nice too. Lots of people out enjoying the sunshine as it was also a bank holiday.

I then went to the National Museum of Wales which combines a natural history museum, archaeology museum, and art museum. I was really interested to find out more about the Welsh people and origins as I find their nationalism and official bilingualism policy on the surface to be rather strongly parallel to Quebec. Unfortunately I didn’t find a whole lot of that history in the museum as it was more of a standard natural history museum with Welsh landscapes as its basis. The visitor centre where I left my bags had a more extensive exhibit about the people of Cardiff, which had been important at times for its ports and a strong labour values.

In the later afternoon I went to Bristol which turned out to be less than an hour away and this is a cute town! I think I really enjoy a seaside vibe, again helped that the nice weather meant everyone was outside enjoying it. I took a nice walk around, saw the Cathedral which dates back to the 1200s and this outdoor market to which I hope to return to tomorrow before heading to Bath.

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Sunday, May 5, 2013

Last morning in Dublin then a train to Cardiff

I started my day a bit unfortunately by correcting my fourth major goof of the trip: the night before I accidentally locked the key to my luggage lock inside my locker. Sigh. Fortunately I’d gotten everything I needed for the night out before the incident so I didn’t have to rouse my roommates, although I did go down and confess my stupidity to the front desk who said it happened all the time and yes they did have lock cutters which they made use of for me the next morning.

In more positive news, I did make the most of my final morning in Dublin by seeing the two major churches, St. Patrick’s and Christ Church, and then taking an excellent tour of the Kilmainham gaol http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/dublin/kilmainhamgaol/ which again was very tied up with the history of revolution in Ireland so was quite moving and led by a rather passionate tour guide who greeted and dismissed our group with words in Gaelic.

My overly optimistic view of how long it would take to retrieve my stuff and make it to my ferry meant another taxi to the docks. This time I took the “Swift” ferry rather than the Ulysses, which completed the journey in two hours rather than 3.5 hours. HOWEVER the speed was a bit unnerving: you could hardly walk without falling over. I think I like cruising better. So much for roaming the ship, but I had anticipated the ride so invested in sampling some more newspapers: this time the Irish Times, Financial Post Weekend, and the Guardian weekend. Great weekend magazines in all the papers, we need those in Canada!

After the ferry I took two long train rides to finally arrive in Cardiff late and took a taxi to the hostel which turned out to be much further than usual from the city centre, where I landed in a 20 bunk room with only one other roommate.

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Saturday, May 4, 2013

Suesday

Okay so Christina was telling me she actually did go to Dublin for Bloomsday (June 16 which is the day that Joyce’s Ulysses is set as one big odyssey around Dublin) a few years ago and the celebrations were not quite as big as she expected, so that tempers my disappointment at missing out. Instead, here’s what happened on Suesday (I know: eye roll): my big day in Dublin.

I began it by hopping on a double decker tour (hey when a form of transportation is handy, you use it!) and taking a ride around to get my bearings and see all the sights. It was helpful because my guidebook stops at Great Britain and so it was interesting to get some of the history particularly about the political history of Ireland. Gaelic is everywhere here, just like Welsh in Wales, although more on the signs than spoken.

After taking the full tour loop, I hopped off first at the writers’ museum which had a good audio guide tour and covered the major Irish writers including Beckett, Joyce, Yeats, and some others that I wasn’t familiar with but who I now want to read. Also heavy emphasis on the ways that literature ties with Irish independence movements so that was interesting to learn more about.

After that I went to the National Gallery, and then took a tour of Trinity College Dublin given by an enthusiastic and well spoken fourth year undergrad majoring in modern Irish history, who told us about its history and buildings. The tour ended in a visit to the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript from the ninth century which was created by monks as an illustration of four Biblical gospels and is Ireland’s national treasure. There’s quite an extensive preamble exhibit to the book itself, and actually they only show two of the gospels at once so it’s a limited show at two pages but you can see why they are so highly regarded with the craftsmanship.

After the visit to Trinity I went wandering and shopping a bit around St. Stephen’s Green.

I wound up my day with one of the more exciting splurges of my trip, a ticket for a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession http://www.gatetheatre.ie/production/MrsWarrensProfession. I thought it would be exciting to see a play by a Dubliner at one of Dublin’s renowned theatres, The Gate, and it was also great acting so that was a bonus.

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Friday, May 3, 2013

To Dublin

Ever since my favourite course as an undergraduate at UofT where all we did was read Joyce’s Ulysses, I’ve wanted to visit Dublin. Today I took the train to Holyhead to catch the ferry, having realized the Liverpool crossing takes eight hours! Initially I thought I might take a train south through the Irish countryside and cross back at another location called Rosslare, but that ferry only sails in the morning or at night! Totally impractical if you want to get anywhere at one end or the other. Puzzling to make it a challenge for tourists. So now I think I will return here via ferry to Holyhead on Sunday.

Again I can feel the love for writers in this city, already everything on this “Ulysses” ferry is related to James Joyce, from Boylan’s brasserie, a Molly Bloom section, to a big wood engraved picture of Joyce at the entry. The ferry was a pretty leisurely cruise, and probably the biggest boat I’ve been on with three levels including the outdoor deck, restaurants, a bar, and a cinema. Three hours sail gave me reading the weekend UK papers I’d picked up: The Times and the Telegraph this time around.

This evening when I arrived after finding my hostel which is neat as it is an old convent, I went out walking and found the Temple Bar neighbourhood of Dublin which is really lively, with lots of Irish music and people just dancing their feet off, fun. I also bought some souvenirs and started to fulfill my quest to buy some Celtic jewelry.

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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Edinburgh-Glasgow-Liverpool

Today I took the train from Edinburgh to Glasgow to look around until the mid afternoon before jumping on the train to Liverpool. I got off at 10:00am and went to Glasgow Cathedral which is impressive but much more run down than a lot of churches even inside with dank dark coating on some of the stone. Then I walked through the middle of town, and a bit out of the way to the art gallery and museum.

In the gallery I discovered a new-to-me group of artists called the Glasgow Boys who painted at the 1890s and whose style I really like. Also famous from Glasgow is the design style of an artist called Charles Rennie Mackintosh who designed things in an art deco type style, including tea rooms.

Later in the afternoon I hopped on the train and passed again through the infamous Penrith, then down to Liverpool again where I arrived in the evening somewhat relieved to know how to get to the hostel already. Tonight at my hostel I met a woman from South Korea who is living in London working for her family business and travelling around the rest of the time. She’s been all over the UK and just returned from a month hiking trek in Spain, gave me lots of suggestions on things to see in Dublin.

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Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Second day in Edinburgh

On our second day in Edinburgh we went to the museums, evidently picking things to do in the right order as this day was a bit more rainy. We went to the National Gallery then the National Portrait Gallery then the National Museum of Scotland. The last museum seemed really modern and was really an excellent overview of the history beginning from the early peoples to the present, on five floors.

The portrait museum included specific collections such as one looking at various portraits of people in tartans, another looking at the Stuarts, another looking at sport in Scotland (apparently curling was the most popular in the nineteenth century) and another at Scottish modernism where I lost Christina as she tried to learn more about that for her work. In the National Gallery they also had a whole gallery devoted just to Scottish art which was interesting, alongside the usual Turners, Constables, Reubens, etc.

For dinner we went to the Elephant House Café apparently where J.K. Rowling wrote most of Harry Potter (the bathrooms are a SHRINE to her, filled with gratitude graffiti including comments like “Harry Potter changed my childhood”. Wow.) I had a smoked Salmon and beetroot salad which was really tasty and a little bit healthy.

Tonight Christina is headed back to St. Andrews and tomorrow I’m headed to Liverpool via Glasgow, then Dublin. But not before taking care of some laundry tonight, time to give my three hardworking sweaters a bath!

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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

First day in Edinburgh

Today we travelled from Crail to Edinburgh, and took one of those double decker city bus tours as recommended by a resident who I met at the train station on my way to Edinburgh. We went to Edinburgh Castle in the afternoon which is huge and hosts the Scottish crown jewels, the royal apartments, a great hall, and a dungeon. We took a short guided tour of the outside buildings of the castle before going inside to the various rooms.

Wow is Walter Scott ever popular here, from Waverley Station to the giant statue in his name. I should read more of him.

For lunch I tried haggis fritters plus a ploughman’s sandwich which is made of cheese plus something called Brinston pickle. For dinner we went to Wagamama (an Asian chain in the UK where I had been before with Hazel and Mark, and for which Christina had a craving). Then we went to a bar that our hotel receptionist (a Canadian! As was our server at lunch) had recommended where they were playing live music.

At the bar I asked the bartender for two decent-but-not-too-expensive shots of Scotch whiskey that were different to contrast, as far as I can figure out from writing the name phonetically when I got back to my seat, one was Laphroaig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laphroaig and another was Auchentoshan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auchentoshan_distillery (apparently just outside of Glasgow). Of course they could have handed me the dregs as my whiskey palate is not refined enough to know the difference, but these did fit the bill of tasting very different: one smooth and the other quite smoky.

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Monday, April 29, 2013

To St. Andrews!

On my way to visit Christina in St. Andrews! I took the train to a place called Leuchers and then the bus to St. Andrews to meet her at her office. Which is right across the street from a castle (!).

We then had lunch in a place that advertised it as “where Wills and Kate met” (oooh!) and then to see the town’s two major attractions, the castle and the cathedral, both in ruins.

We had dinner at a local restaurant where I had steak pie which was very tasty. Then we took the bus to the little town called Crail where Christina lives, which is cute and about 25 minutes away.

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Sunday, April 28, 2013

A Bowness in Bowness (and then Edinburgh)

Today I spent the morning looking around Bowness for souvenirs. What a cute little town.

Then headed up towards Edinburgh on the train.

I arrived late afternoon and did a long walkabout down the Royal Mile to orient myself.

By the time I got finished it was getting dark, which here is about 9:00 pm, so I took a bus back to the hostel via the harbourfront.

Still wearing three sweaters.

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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Leaving Penrith for Bowness

Being in the middle of nowhere in Penrith (actually Glenridding), I decided to take a walk early in the morning to at least sample walking in the Lakes. It was beautiful. The mountains are so different here from others like the Rockies, so rounded and worn down.

I took a trail called Whiteside, up mid-mountain via the upper part of the hostel and past a couple of herds of sheep who watched me very attentively.

Apparently the trail would lead all the way to the nearby mountain/town of Helvellyn, and I kept walking around the next bend to see how far that next bit would be but in the end did turn around before I got myself too far along. At various points it also started to rain and lightly snow again. Quite impressive.

After I returned to the hostel I walked the twenty minutes down the “road” (I use that term loosely) I had been driven up the day before and caught a bus that drove through the winding and sometimes very narrow roads of the Lakes to Bowness. From there I found my hotel and deposited my stuff before leaving to explore the town. When the landlady at the B&B http://www.denehouse-guesthouse.co.uk/ (checking out this link makes me realize I really got a deal through booking.com) greeted me with a nice cup of tea, homemade ginger bread and shortbread, I gave a deep sigh of gratitude. How nice to be able to relax after a bit of an exhausting 24 hours.

Finally in the land that I had long imagined, where everyone knew how to pronounce and spell my last name! I went into town and photographed every sign that said Bowness, and then took a nice ferry over to the neighbouring town of Ambleside across Bowness Bay where I strolled around and did a bit of touristy shopping.

On my return by ferry I walked around Bowness and Windermere which are separated by about a 15 minute jog, and then returned for an early night in my B&B which was nice just to have some privacy and a real bed. At the grocery store earlier I bought myself a little bottle of wine, some bread, and some English cheeses to try so had Gloucestershire with herb and chive and Wensleydale with cranberries, the latter of which I bought of course because it is the kind Wallace and Gromit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_and_Gromit are always eating. Spent the evening also sampling some British telly, particularly Britain’s Got Talent (okay don’t judge).

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Friday, April 26, 2013

York, the Lake District, and…snow?!

Today I used another of my rail pass days to take a slight detour to York before heading up to the Lake District. York hadn’t been on my original itinerary but at least two or three people had already asked if I would be stopping there and compelled me to see the Minster http://www.yorkminster.org.

I hopped off the train and stored my stuff, then went to see the huge gothic cathedral. The admission was a bit steep at nine pounds, but I got a good tour by a very knowledgeable guide who told us about its history and the stained glass.

Unfortunately I arrived there a couple of weeks before the lower gallery was to be reopened to see the Roman parts under the church. Furthermore the famous East window has been under repair since 2010 not to be fixed until 2016/2018 (so at least I didn’t miss that by a hair). They did have in its place a huge image of what the window looks like, and a very interesting exhibit about the restoration process.

After that I walked around the little town of York which is very cute, old world mixed with touristy. I decided not to go into the York Museum or Jorvik a Viking seeming museum, in favour of getting back on the train in order to continue on to the Lake District. I felt like I would return to York sometime anyway.

Getting back on the train I continued on to Penrith, the town to the north of the Lakes where I had booked my next hostel. Alighting in the town, I went to grab some dinner from the grocery store as usual only to discover…the buses out to the hostel, which turns out not to be in the town as I assumed but 22 km outside it, stopped running at 5pm. On top of that, it had started to SNOW. One of those travel panic moments.

I considered taking a place in the town but then decided instead to get what turned out to be a very expensive 30 pound taxi in the sleet out to the middle of nowhere, then paid another 10 pounds to a local taxi to drive me up. Hopefully this represents the only 40 pounds that I will fully waste this trip. On the upside, I don’t think I could have appreciated how beautiful the mountains or “fells” are and it made me definitely want to return here on a hiking holiday. However I did make a decision to treat myself to a B&B in Bowness so I wouldn’t have to make a return trip. I am officially wearing all three of my sweaters, one on top of another, with my coat on top of that.

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Manchester

My day in Manchester started with just a first taste of travel fatigue in spite of a decent hostel room and sleep. I started out the day by going to the National Football Museum (when in Manchester…) http://www.nationalfootballmuseum.com/ with its distinct imbalance in terms of the gender of its visitors. Sort of a neat building with a sloped elevator and besides a ton of sports memorabilia also had interactive activities you could buy into like computer programs where you could practice virtual goal keeping, another where you could be the commentator on a game. The guy in the booth when I walked by was really giving it his all. I probably enjoyed most what I assume to be a nod to female visitors, about football and fashion, where I learned about dress styles like mods and skinheads.

After that I went to the Museum of Science and Industry which is massive, featured elements like a train barn, a building with all the machinery for making cotton, a bunch of exhibits about computers (apparently a big mainframe called “Baby” was developed at the University of Manchester), and a pretty good history of the city of Manchester. A bit in need of an update by comparison to the Liverpool museum, but still impressive in size. I took a break at a Costa coffee shop for a latte and some free Wi-Fi, and then went to the Manchester Art Gallery which was nice with again with a seemingly strong Pre-Raphaelites collection.

Then I walked by the Town Hall, beautiful old building and the library also old under renovation, and took the free bus again in a loop to grab final photos. Today is one of the first days it was actually raining rather than just overcast, although luckily I missed quite a bit being inside at museums.

Also quite cold still, makes me a bit nervous to be going even further north to Scotland—there’s a good possibility that I will be wearing all my sweaters at once by the time this tour is over. Tonight my roommate was an undergrad finishing a fine arts degree who had travelled to Manchester to do research for her final school project and has been to the Canadian Rockies on holiday.

Side note: Upon researching my trip to the UK I was disappointed to learn that the former tour of the Coronation Street studios was shut down in 2001! As a 20 year viewer it was definitely on my radar. However I did happen by this building seeming to belong to Grenada Studios?

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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Liverpool

Today I spent the day seeing Liverpool properly or at least as properly as you can in a short time. Went to what is apparently the largest Anglican Cathedral in the UK, where the huge high ceilings remind me of the Vatican and again there’s beautiful stained glass. Then to the Walker art gallery, featured lots of famous standards including the pre-Raphaelites, Reubens, Turners, etc. You know you’re a spoiled brat overindulged in the masters of the art world when you summarize them with “etc” 🙂 Also modern arts winners of the annual John Moore prize. One that struck me was by an artist Bill Viola, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_viola, a video installation called Observance where that captures the shock on the faces of people finding out about bad news. I love that about going to art galleries when someone new comes on your radar.

Afterwards I went to the wharf and to visit the excellent Liverpool museum apparently opened in 2011, with exhibits about the port’s development and people involved in different parts of the city, including an exhibit very focussed on the history of its labour issues. The museum is also designed with a stunning window view of the buildings by the water, and you can tell it is newly designed because it includes not only exhibits but video stations with characters from the city relating their experiences.

Also visited the Merseyside Maritime Museum with an interesting exhibit on the Titanic from the perspective of Liverpool residents. Within the museum complex was a good museum on the slave trade; apparently Liverpool was most involved in the early slave trade so a positive I think that they own this history. At the museum’s centre is a very arresting 360 degree video screen of the experience in a slave ship. Also went to Tate Liverpool adjacent.

Apparently Liverpool residents are called “Scousers”, accents seemingly both mocked and celebrated by “translation” books found in many tourist shops.

At the end of the day, hopped on the train to Manchester where the hostel is quite modern. My roommate was a psychologist who worked in town but lived an hour away so sometimes stayed over for work. Interesting who you meet and what they can tell you about where you are.

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Meet the relatives!

Meet the relatives day! But before doing so I had breakfast at nearby McDonalds of all places but with my German au-pair roommate who told me about things I should see in Dublin. Then I went walking along the water in Liverpool taking pictures, nice docks with lots of seagulls and old buildings especially the iconic Royal Liver building with its cormorants on top.

I got on the train to Warrington about 10:00am, and after a bit of a delay due to a signal problem I arrived at the station I called John to pick me up. He did 10 minutes later at the train station and it was the first time I’d ever seen him! Also I rode for the first time in an English car as a passenger on the “wrong” side of the car, where I had to force myself not to hold an imaginary steering wheel. A couple of times when we were driving John asked if I was okay so I realized I must have looked more than a little tense. We drove to their bungalow, and I met John’s wife Glenis (Glenis’s mother Doris was my grandfather’s sister, and I find it hard to calculate relations so I think of them all as cousins).

John and I then went to get “the best” fish and chips (see shop above: in fact the fish was excellent, nice and tender, also I got to taste “mushy peas” for the first time). Then Glenis and John’s daughter Karen came over, her eleven-year-old son William who emails me regularly in Canada, and then my other cousin Robert and his wife Karen. We had a great long visit.

Karen took me on a drive around Warrington to show me some places where relatives used to live and give me a sense of the town. Robert and Karen took me to see the church where my grandfather was baptized and where Karen is now the vicar.

We also spent quite a bit of time just hanging out and chatting. Karen brought over some photo albums with photos of other family I hadn’t seen. By the time I got back to Liverpool it was pretty dark but it had been a good full day.

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Monday, April 22, 2013

To Liverpool via Manchester

Today I left London to take the train up to Manchester/Liverpool area via Birmingham. The rail services leave from different stations in the city apparently so I went Euston to catch the northern lines. Birmingham took about an hour to get to, and I was able to hope off, store my big backpack in a service called Lost Luggage for about a pound an hour, and look around. I saw their impressive city hall, and toured their art gallery http://www.bmag.org.uk/ which was in a cute old building and seemed to have a focus on the Pre-Raphaelites.

Then I got back on the train and stopped in Manchester, they have a free bus that takes you around the centre of town! So I took two of the three routes to get oriented. But ultimately my destination is Liverpool tonight which also seems nice and old, by the sea.
The Royal Liver Building in Liverpool

As I went along today I continued my quest to taste all British snacks. So far I’ve had chips, full English breakfast, steak flavoured crisps, sandwiches (egg and cress, prawn salad, and my favourite, Scottish smoked salmon). I’ve also had a cloudy lemonade, ginger beer, a Double Decker chocolate bar and a Crunchie, both great. I went into a sweet shop yesterday and bought some gummies but they are the same or worse than in Canada. (And the same overpriced weigh-by-the-grams that you have to watch out for, only this time in pounds!) In search of something that was not potato- or bread- based, today for lunch I also had a bag of vegetables and hummus.

The hostel here in Liverpool is a bit worse for wear than the last but I already met a Czech woman who does contract work with the elderly and a student on her gap year from Germany who was working for the past year as an au pair in Dublin.

Tomorrow I’m going to meet my relatives who I’ve only ever known by Christmas card!

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

London Day 2: Full English Breakfast!

My second day in London and I started it with a walk along the Thames in the morning, a full English breakfast at what I think is a chain called Garfunkels’ (yep: http://www.garfunkels.co.uk)Two eggs sunny side up, two pork and leek sausages, a slice of back bacon, baked beans, a little tomato, and a Portobello mushroom.

Then I went to church in the morning at St Paul’s Cathedral, visited the Tate Modern, and later to evensong at Westminster Abbey. I walked back along the Thames as runners were finishing the London marathon, to join those cheering the stragglers at the end.

Since my brother runs marathons most of my experience is cheering him on and since he is pretty fast I have never gotten to see the heroic late finishers, some of whom looked in serious pain and grateful to be rallied by all these cheerful Londoners.
Go marathoners!

After I did more touring via double decker: through Piccadilly, along Regent Street near all the fancy shops, and then another that took me quite a ways out of central London before I realized I should probably change over and get myself back to familiar parts before I got lost. With daylight already lasting longer than in Canada it’s easy to think it’s earlier than it is.

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Saturday, April 20, 2013

First day in London

Bumpy flight. Huge new Air Transat plane, squished between two nice seatmates, one a first year law student at Oxford, the other a young business guy from Birmingham who owns mixed martial arts gear shops and married a Canadian so is now opening one in Oakville. I’ve never been on a flight with such drops in altitude, or so many announcements that the seatbelt sign would be on for so long. Birmingham guy who takes this route often confirms this is indeed unusual. We didn’t get dinner until midnight, then breakfast just a couple of hours later. Contrary to my plan to sleep for the whole flight, I ended up just taking a rather ceremonial nap between the two meals. On the upside, I watched Anna Karenina and The September Issue, two movies I’d been meaning to see.

When I arrived I went immediately to find my hostel near Earl’s Court tube station, then because I couldn’t get into my room right away (it was only 8:00am), I left my luggage went taking double deckers since I had a day pass coming from Gatwick.

One of the deckers took me to the Victoria and Albert Museum http://www.vam.ac.uk/ which I was planning to go to anyway so I hopped off. Love their material culture exhibits especially the ones featuring jewelry, theatre costumes, fashion from different eras. All the national museums are free here which is AWESOME.

Then I hopped back on the double deckers but kept falling asleep on them (reminiscent of my first overnight flight to London way back when) so went back to my hostel for a shower and a nap.

Just a couple of hours but I felt much better and went out again, this time to Covent Garden where I bought a great scarf and earrings, then wandered along and ate a bowl of chips near Piccadilly Circus just watching the crowd. I had the strangest thing happen when I was looking at a map, a guy came up to me and said “Excuse me I just wanted to say you have the brightest aura I’ve ever seen, I just started taking meditation classes and you have a childlike presence about you. Are you a creative person?” To which I said I was a writer, trying not to be too cynically suspicious that he was either trying to hit on me or steal my bag. He asked where I was from and I said I was a Canadian touring the UK for three weeks and he said he thought the trip would really change me. Then just walked away. Interesting! The evening then took a turn for the worse since thinking about whether the guy was going to steal my camera made me aware that I didn’t have my camera on me so I went back to my hostel and met my roommates by being the crazy girl who tears apart her bag having lost her camera. Found it and introduced myself more calmly to a Finnish girl visiting friends in London, a middle-aged Australian woman on a trip-of-a-lifetime eight-week tour of the UK and Europe, and an Italian girl visiting for the weekend, all very nice. At that point I went to bed early at 10:00pm and slept for 11 hours.

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Friday, April 19, 2013

Toronto-Gatwick, April 20-May 12

Although I’d been to London a handful of times (and once for a long visit staying with friends in which I got to do all the tourist things: thanks Hazel and Mark), I’ve long wanted to see more of the UK. This impulse was boosted even further when I was doing my PhD in English and increasingly reading even more writers from all parts of the UK (I’ve long found it funny that when we study literature we study English literature when all countries create literary works – okay, maybe that’s a different blog? Suffice to say my interest was increased to see Wordsworth’s Lake District and Joyce’s Dublin). I had been mulling over going in May, when in mid-April I realized that many of my editorial projects were about to wrap—-could I really sneak away for three weeks without much notice or juggling of deadlines?

The plan formed: fly in and out of London, go up to Manchester/Liverpool where I could also meet my relatives for the first time, go to the Lake District and visit the land of my family name (Bowness), continue north to Scotland to visit my friend Christina in St. Andrews, drag her out to tour Edinburgh, then continue to Glasgow, then ferry to Dublin, then back to Cardiff, Bristol, Bath, Stonehenge, then back to London with possible day trips from there. I bought a plane ticket, and a rail pass. And here’s what happened.

*Note that this trip was not live-blogged, but captured onto my trusty netbook and later edited and transcribed to this format.