The Forest and Gloucestershire

We stayed in a small town called Coleford in the Forest of Dean for the last 3 days with my Aunt Anita and Uncle Paul. We’ve taken a few photos while touring around the forest and Gloucester, you can view em here.

The Forest of Dean is right on the border with Wales and is a very out of the way, rural area. We were picked up from a station in Wales by Anita. You can tell you’re in Wales if the place names look like a crazy mix up of letters such as the famous Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

By the time we arrived in Coleford and unpacked, it was time for Paul’s nightly ritual of heading down to The Lamb Inn (in Clearwell), his favourite pub. It serves ‘Real Ale’ which is what Paul likes to drink, and has a nice classic pub atmosphere. After 3 tasty pints we headed back for a meal, 2 glasses of wine, a drop of brandy and an espresso.

The next day, after getting up a little later than usual, we went down the road to the Clearwater Caves and then Puzzlewood. Clearwater Caves is an old mining site dating back thousands of years that was mined for ochre, iron and coal. It was pretty cold but quite interesting down there.
Puzzlewood was fun. It’s a winding maze through a forest that looks like a set off of Lord of the Rings. It took us a couple of hours to complete to Tanya’s satisfaction.
After that we got back in time to head off to the Lamb for another round.

My Aunt Anita took us for a driving tour around the forest the next day. We saw Symonds Yat Rock (a big rock with a great view), the River Wye, a recently uncovered ancient road and the Dean Heritage Centre (a museum). After all that it was time for the Lamb again.
While on our travels through the forest a deer and her fawn crossed our path, as well as numerous sheep that some of the locals own. Because they are legally allowed to have their sheep anywhere in the Forest of Dean, they choose to put them at the sides of the road where they are easy to find, have plenty of feed and get in the way of the traffic.

For our last day, we jumped on a bus for an hour to get to Gloucester. While on the bus we had to listen to a couple of chavs having a loud personal discussion with phrases like “Shelley tinks ‘er boobs are bigger an mine, like” assaulting our ears. At least the scenery was nice.
Gloucester itself is a well kept city, it’s biggest attraction being the cathedral which has become more popular since part of it was used for scenes in the Harry Potter movies.
We also went down to the docks to see the National Waterways Museum. It manages to make the potentially boring subject of canals interesting and fun with interactive displays and canal boats on the dock that you can go inside.
When we got back to Coleford, it wasn’t Lamb time, because it’s shut on Mondays. Oh well.

Next stop, Exeter!

Bath Time

Bath was fantastic. It’s the best city in England that we’ve been to so far. Over about 4 days we managed to see most of the tourist sights and took a few photos that can be seen here.

We stayed with my cousin Jennifer, her mother (my aunt) Eileen, her husband Adam and her almost 2 year old daughter Orla in a large late Georgian house just a few minutes walk from the center of Bath. Orla has gotten a handle of the English language at an early age and enjoyed talking almost constantly (one of her memorable lines, while chuckling away was “I laughing!”), she was a lot of fun to be around and took a shine to both of us I think.

Bath’s buildings were mostly Georgian in style, and they all used the same tan coloured stone, which might sound a bit boring, but it gave the city a distinctive feel.
The grandest and one of the oldest buildings in Bath is the Abbey which we went to on our first day. Rebuilt in 1499, it has a wide nave and amazingly huge stained glass windows.
After touring around the city a bit, we decided to try getting into the Thermae Spa (hot pools) with a local council rates bill from Jennifer to get a residents discount. Unfortunately the cashier asked for supporting identification which we bluffed our way through by saying that we didn’t have any. I then found I was short on cash, and had to pay with my credit card, which of course, had a different name on it. She noticed, but let us get away with it anyway. We saved £8 for that effort, but still had to pay £36 for the both of us for 2 1/2 hours. It was relaxing though, and we especially enjoyed the steam rooms that had a different scent in each room + cold showers just outside.

We visited the Roman Baths on the next day which was really very interesting. They are no longer used for bathing, and are just for touring around now.
After wandering around Bath a bit more, we came across some boat trips that went up the Avon. We chose the smallest boat (the Viking Warrior) which had a friendly owner and an electric motor. He took us up to Bathampton and back, accompanied by hungry ducks and swans to whom we fed bread that the owner handed out to us.

Jennifer took us out and about the next day with Eileen and Orla as well. We saw the Royal Crescent, the Circus and the Assembly Rooms (which were shut). We also had tea and biscuits (which we had to hide from Orla) at a flash hotel in the Crescent.

On our last day before catching our train towards Gloucestershire, we went back to the Assembly Rooms which had 2 out of 3 rooms open this time, then down to the Jane Austen museum which I think is only suitable for die-hard Jane Austen fans, such as Tanya.

Photos Uploaded!

I finally got around to uploading the London and Brighton photos.
Here’s the links:

London Photos

Brighton Photos

Enjoy!

Sunny Brighton

When we arrived in Brighton a week ago the weather was horrible. Overcast, drizzling, with the occasional burst of sunshine that only got our hopes up briefly before it started pissing down again. Luckily this cleared up on day 4, and the rest of our time in Brighton has been mostly sunny.
We took a few photos while we were there; you can see them here.

We’ve been staying at my Aunt Eileen’s place in Saltdean (about 10 mins drive outside of the city) and she’s been great. She picked us up from the train station, said we can stay as long as we like and took us on a coastal tour east of Brighton on our second day. She also stocked her fridge up with food that she thought we would like to eat. Very thoughtful.

When the weather cleared up on the 4th day, we got on a bus to explore Brighton. We started with the famous Brighton Pier. It was a bit of a let-down. Filled with tacky expensive tourist shops, candy floss stalls and gambling machines it didn’t quite live up to expectations. Not that I actually know what I was expecting. When we got to the end of the pier, we found the rides cost at least £3-£4 for each ride, which seemed a little pricey to me.

After the pier we looked around the town a bit. It’s pretty much like any other city except for a shopping area called the Lanes. This is an old area of Brighton that has tight alleyways and flash stores. It’s done very nicely.
We also tried entering the Prince Regent’s Pavilion on a weekend. It’s a weird 19th century place that looks like the Taj Mahal. When we got there, it was packed, so we went to the museum instead.

My Great Uncle David also lives in Saltdean and we spent most of a day with him as he drove and showed us around some of the nearby towns. Our favourite was Rottingdean, some of which dates back to the Saxon period (pre 1000 AD). Uncle David took us to lunch at the Rottingdean club which is in an old building that has ceilings low enough that I had to duck when walking around. The food was pretty good too.

My cousin John (Eileen’s son) also lives in Brighton with his wife Melissa and their young (and well behaved!) children. We went around to their place one day and had a great lunch.
John took us out for few drinks that night at a local pub. While we were waiting for him and drinking at the bar, we heard a loud SLAP beside us. Tanya spun around to see 2 women beside her, one having their hand on the other’s bottom. They were quite embarrassed at causing a scene, but were friendly, so we chatted to them until John arrived. I had a few pints to drink, which made me a bit more than tipsy. Luckily, Tanya was smart, and stuck to half pints, so she got us on the bus and home safely.

In all Brighton isn’t quite as nice as we thought it would be. More busy and commercialised than we imagined. We preferred the small towns that were a bit friendly and quieter. It’s still a nice place to visit though.

Today we’re off on the train to Bath to stay with my cousin for a few days. Better go help Tanya pack…

London’s Calling

Tanya and I are here in London after landing in Heathrow a week and a half ago.
My Uncle Noel and his partner Maggie have been kind enough to pick us up from the airport and let us stay with them in their house in Harrow Weald (a suburb of Greater London).
We’ve gone into the city almost every day to join the throngs of tourists taking photo’s of the sights. Click here to see them.

On our first proper day, we made our way into the city, first by bus, then via the Underground. While we were on the train in, we realised that we didn’t know the name of the bus stop we started at, or the name of the suburb we were staying in. No worries I thought, we’ll work it out when we get back from the city.
We had a great day and visited the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. The tower was chock full of interesting displays such as the Crown Jewels, White Tower and the Medieval Palace. We also got a guided tour of parts of the Tower from one of the Beefeaters.

After we had a look at the insides of the Tower Bridge (also worth a look) we needed to head back through the tube. It was rush hour and the Circle Line was packed. We squeezed onto the train where it was hot, humid and stinking from so many people in such a tight space. After changing onto our line back (which was less busy) and getting back to the station we tackled the problem of not knowing where we were going, except for the name of the small back street cul-de-sac we were staying at.
First we looked for the information kiosk, but that was shut. Then we bought a map, but found that is was only for the center city! Next we tried jumping on a bus we thought was going in the right direction and looked out for landmarks we recognised. This was working for a while until everything looked unfamiliar. We jumped off, crossed the road and got the next bus back to the station.
Next up, we borrowed a phone book to look for my Uncle’s phone number to ask him, but his number turned out to be unlisted! Finally, we went into a dairy and the guy behind the counter was nice enough to let us borrow his local area map. We found the way to go but didn’t trust our poor understanding of the bus system, so we walked the 2-3kms back.
Finally, after nearly 2 hours of pissing about, we arrived back having learned an important lesson: we were staying in Harrow Weald.

All our other excursions into the city have gone smoothly. We’ve seen sights such as The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London Eye, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tate Modern, The Museum of Natural Science, Hyde Park, Kensington Palace and Greenwich.

The streets here are really tight here. I’m glad we don’t have a car, or we would have hit something by now.

Today we’re heading off to Brighton to stay with my Aunt. Better go pack!