Posted in Culture, Food, Travel

London 2013

I do not want to be constantly late with new posts to my blog.  And I have also decided to try and be more regular in the posts, so those following me are not disappointed week after week when nothing new comes along.

I am not going to post something every week, but will try to do something at least monthly at the start.

And here we go with a short trip to London.  Since it was a short trip, I only took 4 cameras and not my big one! The pictures come from my little Casio Exilim and some have been “improved” in Photoshop with the treatment that I usually do with my regular photos.

Bee and I left work for the airport where we took a train to the Midi Station in Brussels and there caught the Eurostar to London. It was only my second trip on the train, and the first since the high speed rails had been opened in the UK.  It took us the better part of 20 minutes to go through Checkin, security and emigration – glad we were early.

We arrived in St Pancras and took the tube to Green Park where our hotel was.  Very nice location, but the hotel was a little dated for a Hilton.  We still had a nice room and it had all the amenities we would have expected.

As it was already late, we went to dinner in the neighbourhood and found a good Turkish restaurant.

The next day, the weather was not great so we decided to do museums.  We started with the Victoria and Albert Museum.  On the way there, we saw the Christmas Windows at Harrod’s which were quite nice.  V&A is a huge complex and it took us a while to get oriented.  We wanted to see the modern glass exhibit, but had to go through several others, very interesting sights just to get there.  We saw an exhibit of copies of famous statues and architectural pieces made in the 19th century.  Some of these were used to restore the original.  Also saw a great display of Chinese artefacts and clothing.

After a couple of hours we had enough so we went to China town for lunch.  Had one of the best Chinese food in a long time!

We bought tickets to the Opera – Mozart’s Magic Flute, tried to get reservations at Jamie Italian (they do not take reservations) and did our share of shopping at Kathmandu.  The opera was very nice, even though I was a little disappointed it was sung in English and not the original German.  However, now I understand the story a lot better and will enjoy it even more when I listen to it at home.  We tried Jamie Italian again – 45 minute wait at 9:40 PM so we went to another Italian Restaurant near Leicester Square

The weather on Sunday was great, so we went to Hampton Court.  An adventure to get there as the normal trains from Waterloo were cancelled due to maintenance work.  We took the Tube to Wimbledon then a replacement bus, which seemed to be taking forever.  I knew we were in trouble when the driver looked back and asked if anybody knew how to get to the station!  Fortunately, some one did and we got there in the end.  This is not the first time we had problems with drivers of replacement busses.

Hampton Court is really majestic and a great day trip from London. The main entrance at sunset!

When we paid our entrance fee, we were told that re-enactments would be going on throughout the day and the next one started in the main court at 11:00.  Since it was close to that time, we waited and sure enough a lady in period costume did show up and start telling us of her love story, not for the King but one of his aides.  However, the king was in love with her etc, etc, etc…

We followed along, and in the main dining room, we got the meet the king!

Of course, the story is full of intrigues and misunderstandings and political moves.

We stopped following it as the Royal Chapel was about to open.  In the chapel is a recreation of Henry’s own crown (the original was destroyed by Cromwell).  We had good audio guides so we continued the visit on our own.  We did the kitchen and we also did an exhibit on the life of Henry as a young man, up to his divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella who had reunited the crown of Spain and sponsored Columbus to look for an alternate way to India.  It was very well done as this also included the break-up of the Church of England when the English Cardinal who supported Henry could not convince the Pope to grant him a divorce.

We had lunch then spent some time in the gardens which are gorgeous as always in England

This swan came quite fast when he saw us – if he expected food, he was disappointed!

As I said, it was a beautiful day and the views of the palace were magnificent.  I was surprised to see palm tress in the garden! I wonder if they resist to the winter or have to be replaced every year? Continue reading “London 2013”

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Posted in Culture, Travel

Scotland – Part 3

This is part three of the Scotland trip – after the islands, we went to Inverness and the infamous Loch Ness, with a monster?

But first we went to Elgin and on the way stopped at an old distillery turned into a museum. Great visit, but boy was it hard to find… The Dallas Dhu Distillery was shut down about 30 years ago and has now been turned into a museum.

The nice thing about being a museum is that you can get closer to equipment, and even peer inside – this is where the hops are mixed with hot water before they are allowed to ferment.

They have restored and preserved several Fermentation tanks.

There are two stills, made of copper as always. Scotch Whiskey is double distilled to get to about 70% alcohol before it is aged. In some cases, we were told that the product of the distillation process has no flavour at all; all the flavour is gained in ageing in oak barrels. However, if this were true, why use high quality grains and water, and where does the “peaty” flavour of some whiskeys come from?

Continue reading “Scotland – Part 3”

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England 1 – The Lake District

I had often heard of the Lake District in England without ever knowing why it was so popular, or exactly where it was.  When I made my plans to go to Ireland and realised that I would be finishing somewhere in the North of Ireland, I started to look for something to do in England on the way back South to the coast.  The Lake District became the number one candidate and am I glad I stopped there.

From the very first sight of it, the drive from Ullswater to Windermere across the Kirkstone Pass, I was mesmerised by the scenery – I never expected the type of terrain and vegetation that I was seeing.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  I need to link this back to the last entry in my Ireland series.  I had taken an early ferry from Belfast to Stranrear in Scotland and therefore I needed to drive about 200 km South to the Lake District.  It was an easy drive, a lot of it on motorways.

I finally arrived in Windermere and found the Rayrigg Villa where I had booked a room for three nights.  As always, I received a very long and thorough introduction to the area and what I could expect to do while I was there from the host Wills – extremely helpful in every way.  The best advice he gave me was the directions to the beginning of a short walk that leads to the top of a hill overlooking the whole area called Orrest Head.  I immediately headed that way and spent the next two hours getting there (it only takes 15 minutes), looking around (90 minutes) and coming down (15 more!).  It must be one of the best places for sunset in the area, unfortunately I was too early and did not want to wait until 9 PM when the sun would actually set.

Even on the way up to Orrest Head, I was taken by the view and could not resist a shot or three.

Such a typical English countryside, with the hills, trees and old fashion stone walls. Once at the top, the view gets even better, especially with spectacular clouds all around to increase the perspective in the distant hills.

Any direction I look is picture perfect.  the South of the lake with Windermere and Bowness in the foreground.

Continue reading “England 1 – The Lake District”

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Posted in Travel

England 2 – Brighton and the South Coast

OK – you are right, where is England 1?  That will cover the Lake District and will come later as I do  not have the information I need with me to cover that area.

I finished my tour of Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England in Brighton where I spent the last night before taking the ferry back to Brussels.  It is a convenient stopping point between the Lake District and Dover where I thought I could spend an interesting evening and morning.

I stopped at the Hilton, located right on the beachfront.  I will spare you the photo of the room I was given – it was impressive – especially since I only spent less than one hour in it since the local connection to Internet did  not work.  I had to make a choice between Internet and being moved to a smaller room! Internet won…

However, I did catch the view of the beach from the room, first looking East with the still functioning Brighton Pier.  At this time, about 17h, the beach is still very crowded at the end of a gorgeous Sunday.

Next looking West towards the remains of the Western Pier which burned down and was abandonned in 2003

I went jogging along the beach later in the evening, a very pleasant jog.  I can see why this is a popular place to come for the day or just a few days.

As I was there at the end of May, the evening is very long and by 20h, the sun is still up in the sky, but most of the people have left the beach. The Eastern sky is already turning colours from the sun getting closer to the horizon.

Towards the West, about an hour later, the sun is gone and the sunset colours are at their best.

The ruins of the Western Pier are a magnet for birds, most of them, I expect, will spend the night there. Continue reading “England 2 – Brighton and the South Coast”

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