Our Three Day Tour Around England

Hi Everyone,

In my last blog I finished by telling you that I'd write about how our three day weekend around England went, so here it goes. After Kathleen got home from work on Friday we walked to the train station and caught the train to Ipswich and then transferred to a train to London from there. When we got to London it was getting pretty late so we booked into our hostel, went for supper, and then went to bed. The next morning we got up and got ready for the beginning of our three day adventure.

We caught the bus from the nearby Hilton London Paddington Hotel. That bus took us to Victoria Coach Station and we caught the tour bus from there. We found that our tour guide was very informative and gave the tour in both English and Japanese. Our first stop on the tour was Leeds Castle. The castle that they call "The Loveliest Castle in the World" lived up to it's name and was very beautiful. We learned that many people through time had lived there from as early as King Edward I of England in 1278 to as recent as Olive, Lady Baillie who bought the castle in 1926 and owned it until her death in 1974. After her death the castle was left to the Leeds Castle Foundation and officially opened to the public in 1976. After touring the castle Kathleen and I also tried out the castle's hedge maze and its bird aviary. When we were done there we jumped back on the bus and headed to our next destination which just happened to be the Canterbury Cathedral. When we got to the cathedral I was amazed by how big it was. It had the main sanctuary and then a whole bunch of individual chapels situated around it. It also had the crypt of past Canterbury Archbishops and other important clergy. After leaving the cathedral we toured around Canterbury for a while, had lunch, and then got back on the bus. Our final stop of the day was Dover, famous for it's white cliffs and Dover Castle. Dover wasn't to long of a stop so Kathleen and I spent much of the time taking a few pictures of the cliffs and also sitting on the beach. If you looked over the English Channel you could just barely see France on the other side. When we were done at Dover we headed back to London and had supper at a nice little Italian pasta and pizza place. We then headed back to our hostel and couldn't wait for the next days tour.

The next morning we caught the same bus from the same hotel to the same coach station. When we met our next tour guide I found that he was very good at telling stories and jokes, like one joke that I found very good was, "What's the difference between a tourist and a hitchhiker? About three minutes." Anyway, our first stop of the day was Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle has been used by many monarchs and is the longest occupied palace in Europe. The castle was amazing to see and had portraits and statues of almost every British monarch in history. After exploring the castle we took a tour of the rest of the grounds and even got our pictures taken with one of the Queen's Guard. We then had lunch at a place called "Eat." After eating we went back to the bus and were on our way to the second stop of the day. Our second stop was the city of Bath. At Bath we visited the Roman Baths which was a museum built on top of a natural hot spring and ancient Roman baths. In the museum was the actual excavations and hot springs and also different Roman statues and artifacts.  It was really cool to see a part of Roman history in England. After seeing Bath we took the bus to Stonehenge. I've seen Stonehenge in many pictures before but seeing it up close and in real life was absolutely amazing. When you get to the Stonehenge you take a tunnel beneath the highway to the actual site and then you walk in a circle around Stonehenge and are able to see it from almost every angle. After leaving Stonehenge we went back to London and spent the rest of the evening at our hostel.

The final day of our trip we went to the British Museum. I've never seen such a huge museum in my life. It had almost every part of British and World history you could think of. We saw things from all the continents of the world such as Rome and Greek statues, North American native artifacts, African art, and Egyptian sphinx and sarcophagus. When they say it takes a majority of your day up they're not kidding. We got there shortly after 10am and were there for probably 5 hours. After leaving the museum we took the Tube, which is the London Underground Railway System, to Madame Tussauds, the London wax museum. At the wax museum we got our pictures taken with quite a few celebrity wax figures from musicians like The Beatles and Elvis, to royals like The Queen and Prince Philip, movie stars like Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr., politicians like Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandella, and animated characters like Shrek and the Gingerbread Man. We finished at Madame Tussauds with a Marvel Superheroes 4-D movie. After leaving Madame Tussauds we went for supper and then on to find the famous Drury Lane, the one from the old nursery rhyme. On our way to finding it we found out why all people from London carry an umbrella with them. We did not carry an umbrella and got soaked by quite a bit of pouring rain. On the bright side we did find Drury Lane but as far as I could tell the Muffin Man didn't live there anymore. After walking down Drury Lane for a bit we found the nearest Underground Station and took the Tube to the National Railway Station. We then caught our train at 8pm last night back to Ipswich and then on to Melton and finally walked back to Bromeswell. It was an awesome weekend and I can't wait for our next big adventure!

Till next time,
Rocky