England Adventures! Part Deux

[wildflowersoul]

Monday, May 12- Oxford! We gave ourselves a tour of most of the big tourist spots, and also the important Inspector Morse drinking spots. We saw the Sheldonian Theater and Radcliffe Camera, but didn't want to give them our money to step inside. We did give Christchurch College our custom because you just have to see it from the inside. There was some Harry Potterage, and old cathedralage. We also went up to the top of Carfax Tower for a neat view of the city, and went to the Pitt Rivers Museum to seek out a knife that was used in an Inspector Morse book. Inspector Morse figured pretty largely in this trip. We drank at the Eagle & Child (the big Tolkein/C.S. Lewis drank here! bar), The Bear, the Turf Tavern, and the Head of the River. We did spot signs that an Oxford theater was putting on Assassins! and we wanted to go, but couldn't find time to squeeze it in. Oh, and we also went to Blackwell's, an enormous bookstore. Books!

Tuesday, May 13- We started the day with a 5 mile hike through several villages. Started in Bourton-on-the-Water, which is cute, but it got really pretty not far out from the village. Hiked up to Upper Slaughter, where the church sells bottles of water, candy bars, used books, and used dvds/videos. It appeared to be the only mercantile venture in the entire town. Continued on to Lower Slaughter, where we had the best picnic lunch ever. We had picked up some local cheese from the farm stand near our cottage, brought a few apples, got some bread from a bakery in Bourton that morning, and brought along a little beer to wash it down. That lunch was freaking delicious. The local ducks agreed that it looked tasty and hassled us for crumbs for a while. Returned to our car in Bourton-on-the-Water. We went up to Stow-on-the-Wold, which seemed to pretty much just a be a main street and lots of shops. Continued to Moreton-in-Marsh to see the street fair. And that was that. Everything was insanely quaint and picturesque and lovely.

Wednesday, May 14- Totally touristed it out. Started with a morning in Stratford-upon-Avon. We took the tour of Shakespeare's birthplace, Hall's Croft, and Nash's House. Pretty touristy, but the houses were done up all old-fashionedy, and I love me some period garb and old timey decorations. The entire town was very cute, and all the houses had fantastic gardens. I'm not a huge flower person, but those gardens were spectacular. We lunched by the Avon and looked at all the narrowboats moored along the river.

After that we went to Warwick Castle (lots more pictures of it in my LJ scrapbook). It was so cool. First, it's a freaking castle. Second, it has a bunch of rooms set up in various period styles with was figures and animatronics. I love fake things that look like real things that don't exist anymore! Third, it had a huge room full of armor and weapons. Fourth, there was a bird show that involved a big old eagle flying around. Fifth, it had an awesome trebuchet. Sixth, it had a very pretty Victorian rose garden. I can't express how much I totally loved that place.

Thursday, May 15- It was a rainy day, so we went back to Oxford to hit up the sites we hadn't yet seen. Spent a while at the Ashmolean Museum, drank at the fancy pants hotel that has the Inspector Morse Bar, and went on a "tour" of the Bodleian Library. I was disappointed with the Bodleian. They have a very gollum-like approach to books. And I like to touch things, and really wanted to touch an old book, and I couldn't. Pout. We couldn't look at much because they don't let the rif-raff far into the library, and our tour guide was kind of annoying. Also, if you are a tour guide and you're going to tell the story about how no one has ever EVAR been allowed to check out a book from the library (which grates on my library nerves anyway), and not even Charles I was allowed to take a book, then you should know what book the king attempted to check out. Another tour guide knew the answer, though, and gave us a really interesting back story to that nugget of historical gossip, which was really nice of him. After Oxford we went back to Witney to grab some dinner. It was so nice to have a day without driving, we took the very convenient bus around, and it was very timely and pleasant to have a reliable bus available.

Friday, May 16- Our time at the cottage came to an end. We packed up and headed off toward Minehead. On the way, we just had to stop at Wells. The town where Hot Fuzz was filmed! And they can prove it. We lunched at The Crown, the facade of which was used for filming. Had the tastiest ploughman's lunch ever. We also paid too much money to go into Wells Cathedral, but it was huge and really pretty, and steeped in history, so I won't begrudge them my 10 pounds too much. We then carried on to Minehead, home of Butlins Resort and All Tomorrow's Parties.

Saturday, Sunday, May 17 & 18- I have already filled your minds with all knowledge of ATP, so I won't rehash. It was an awesome experience, though.

Monday, May 19- Drove to London. I can't believe I drove [poorly] for an entire week and did not incur any car damage! That, my friends, is amazing. Dropped the car off and headed into London. We stayed up by Queensway, so up around Hyde Park. The freebie hotels that British Airways has for their package deals aren't the greatest, but this one wasn't too bad. It was tourist central up that way, though. We wandered around the city, snagged some cheap tickets for great seats to an evening performance, and killed some time at the National Gallery. I have no appreciation for visual arts, and found it kind of boring, though I feel like a Phillistine for admitting to that. But there you go. I am bored by the great artistic works of human kind. You know what was not boring, though? Lord of the Rings: The Musical Oh yeah. We totally saw the shit out of that production, and it was awesome. They have the hobbit actors/actresses wandering around the theater before the show, and at one of the intermissions freakin' orcs come out into the audience and scare you.

Tuesday, May 20- We had a hardcorde trudge around the city, walked almost entirely around the perimeter of Hyde Park (ok, 3/4 of the perimeter, but that's... a lot of park), walked down to Westminster to revisit Westminster Abbey- this time I could pay attention to everything and not be nervous about any upcoming proposals of marriage! We then hit the Victoria & Albert Museum, but that that point I was pretty museumed out. There are only so many sculptures a girl can look at. Also, I had expected their collection of old-timey clothes to be larger and more riveting. Finally, we capped the night off with a Ghost Tour of the Old City, where we saw cool things like this totally spooky Tudor gatehouse and were told good ghost stories. We also saw the area at Greyfriars where Queen Isabella (she of the murdering and bad deeds) was buried, and that was extra neat because the book I'm currently reading is a rollicking historical romp of Queen Isabella's story. I love ghost tours!!!

Wednesday, May 21- Our flight wasn't until 7:30 that night, so we had ample time for wandering around London in the morning. We were aiming to take a lunchtime narrowboat cruise around the Regent Park area, but were cruelly misled by the guy outside the boat place. There was no boat cruise. We did spend some time in Camden, which is a place we probably wouldn't have otherwise gone to. And in Camden, my few London residing friends, you can find a tasty burrito. A very nice dude vends what he claims are the best burritos (in London)- parentheses his, not mine- and they just might be. Good guac, ok salsa (to be fair, I asked for mild and should have asked for spicy), and tasty fillings. The burrito cart is, if I recall correctly, at the end of the Inverness Street row of stalls.

So after being disappointed by lack of narrowboating, we ventured to the "Little Venice" part of the city where we could feast our eyes on a bevy of narrowboats. Then we headed to Heathrow and had a lot of time to kill before our flight. Made it back safe and sound, and have been giving the bunnies extra nose rubs and snuggles to make up for being gone so long.

I can't thank our bunny sitters enough for taking care of the buns this whole time- you guys are all so awesome!!

So there you have it. Lots more pictures in my LJ Gallery, and I know Drew has some up on his Flicker. I'll probably put a few more up on my LJ Gallery this weekend, too.