Stonehenge & Bath
Stonehenge & Bath
Two UNESCO designated world heritage sites both located in the southwest of England, the former a 5000 year old prehistoric monument without a shred of written records, the latter a well documented spa town built by the Romans and continued to be inhabited till this date.
Wales
A country within a country (legally annexed by England since the mid 16th century), Wales was known for its coal mining and metallurgical industries during the Industrial Revolution heydays, and Tom Jones nowadays (for me). The 2000-year-old castle we visited in its capital city Cardiff featured not only Roman fort and Gothic towers, but lavish castle rooms with elaborate Italian and Arabian decoration and Mediterranean gardens, all commissioned by the world's richest Welsh man in the mid-19th century.
Ireland
We landed this Emerald Isle via waterways not far from where the Danish Vikings invaded some 1200 years ago, stopping by a wool-weaving mill town and an old monastery village on our way north to Dublin, where we enjoyed an Irish cabaret evening with dinner, dance, song, and laughter.
Edinburgh, Scotland
This hilly, chilly, windy city standing guard by the North Sea has a majestic old town straddling a jutted castle on one end and a retreat palace on the other with serene natural beauty surrounding, was also the focal point of the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, writers, movers and shakers that made possible much of the modern world today.
York, Northeast England
Another Viking influenced town on this side of the British Isles, York lays claims to the first paved road and the second largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe, and shook us with about-face weathers of rains and sleets and sunny skies all within our one half-day visit.
The Bard's Hometown
Stratford-upon-Avon was a medieval market town in midland England that honored the birth place of William Shakespeare (whose birthday parade we just missed) with live Shakespearean plays in the garden where one of the performers recited a flawless sonnet just for me.
The Bard's Hometown
Stratford-upon-Avon was a medieval market town in midland England that honored the birth place of William Shakespeare (whose birthday parade we just missed) with live Shakespearean plays in the garden where one of the performers recited a flawless sonnet just for me.
London & Jo Malone's
We spent one extra day on our own after the group tour ended in London, visiting Buckingham Palace and British Museum, etc., and meeting with a fine young man--my wife's nephew--who gave up his comfy job in Taiwan and braved the strange new world here working at Jo Malone's flagship store in London, where I bought my first-ever bottle of perfume after a hypnotizing hand and arm massage by a sweet lady from Romania.
Great Britain and its empire had no doubt played an important role shaping up the world we live in today, thus I had been fascinated by its history and heritage, character and constituencies long before I came on this tour.
Surely skimming 2 isles and a dozen towns in 10 days would not in-depth understanding of this great union and its people make. Still, riding through the rolling green pastures of Ireland I felt close grasping the despair of the great potato famine and the angst against centuries old Anglo-Norman suppression the Irish peasants must have felt; listening to the kilt wearing Scottish tour guide speaking of folklore in spirited high accent gave me impression how proud and tough a people the Scots are; and the bustling and hustling streets of London reminded me this world's 5th largest economy is busy moving forward, expending no time lamenting its lost empire or wallowing in memories of its old glory.
That bland tasting food the Brits are infamous for we didn't get to experience on this trip. All meals we had were surprisingly delicious. Black pudding (blood sausage) and cider beer were about the only exotic things I tried. And the chocolate we bought at York was very good--great flavor with moderate sweetness, as the unexpected cherry blossoms we encountered there were beautiful!
Talking about visiting an old union, we had a bus load of people from all over the new union of America: the Dixie chicks (4 lady church friends) from Texas, Dick & Jane from Michigan, Ed & Jeanne from Virginia, Richard & Teresa from Pennsylvania..., and Robert and Nelda from New Zealand, Lonnie & Marilyn from Canada. All 44 of us under the auspicious care of our red hair English-Irish lady tour guide Patricia, whose rich historical and anecdotal knowledge and well-cadenced explanations fended off competition from Google search in a WiFi equipped bus just like the wall the Roman emperor built fending off attacks from the Scottish tribes some 1900 years ago!
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