ENGLAND
The Motherland for many Americans, my husband and I have enjoyed exploring our family roots into the small villages of England. Naturally everyone going to England thinks they must visit London and certainly you should, but our first several times in London were met with much confusion and disorganization, that we really didn't care anything about going back. Last year though we were privileged to have a wonderful English friend meet us in London and give us the inside scoop on the city. Now I would feel very comfortable in navigating it alone.
To me the true beauty of England and really all of the United Kingdom is not in the big cities but in the quaint villages where the quirkiness of the Brits comes to the forefront. So do plan a few days in London, but hop a train and go to Canterbury, Oxford, York, or Winchester to see how Brits have lived for centuries.
The British food has always gotten a bad rap...even from the Brits. However, some of that is changing. We've found that Pubs are stepping up their game...especially the small pubs out in the country side. We found a particularly grand one, the Black Robin, just outside of the Canterbury area and their menu was always changing. Be open to "Chips" with everything...why is it no one serves veggies?
Without any doubt the absolute high point of our many visits to England was our week at Oxford University. We attended the university's Oxford Experience Week in the summer of 2011: http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/summerschools/oxex/index.php. It is not exclusively for seniors, but we found most of the folks there were our age. We lived in a dorm room that was built in the 12th century for the sons on English Lords and their servant. So we each had a small bed chamber which joined a shared living/study room. Now we had to walk down the hall to use the restroom, but go be in the place and time and don't worry about the small stuff. We studied courses that appealed to us and each had special field trips. The courses were taught by University professors or adjunct professors. We got to eat three meals a day in the "Harry Potter" dining hall and we had a cocktail party in the garden where the Green Door to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland began. Just the COOLEST thing either of us has ever done.
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| Dining Hall at Oxford University |
As I said, we love tooling around small villages. I am also a huge fan of cathedrals and Britain has plenty of them. In my Oxford program, I studied the Cathedrals of Britain and read several of Ken Follett's books about the building of these ancient structures. I got to see St Alban's just outside London with my friend, Jen. I went on a field trip to Salisbury England to see, in my opinion, the most beautiful cathedral there. My husband and I went to see St. Paul's, Westminster, Winchester, Canterbury, and Christ Church in Oxford.
Since most of us have a limited time in any foreign country, I highly recommend your visits include these towns in this order:
- London...specific recommendations are on the London Highlights
- Oxford... (hotels close to town are pretty expensive but the train station is right down town so you don't have to have a car)
- Canterbury...Please consider staying at the Falstaff Hotel right in the center of town. Built in the 1500s and looks like a little ole lady's dump when you want up, but completely renovated and charming and the food is really good. Go to church service at the Cathedral if you can!
- York... By all means visit the York Minster (large church) and area of The Brambles...tiny little alleyways with odd shaped building leaning over toward each other...too cool. Looks like something out of a story book.
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| The Brambles area of York England |
SCOTLAND
While Scotland is a part of the United Kingdom, hardly anyone, Scotch or English, considers Scotland as anything but independent. In fact they have recently been allowed to have their own parliament.
Scotland is COLD! No matter when you go it is cold and rainy. If you look at the latitude it is 55N which is not much below Iceland. So pack right for goodness sake. While Edinburgh is a really cool old city, the outlying districts like Perthshire and Inverness are very interesting sights and filled with delightful, friendly people. My daughter went out to the western region last summer, and while it was beautiful it was truly remote and took long days of driving to get there. What you'll notice first, once out of the city, is that the roads are tiny and very curvy, so getting anywhere takes twice as long as you think it will.Our first trip into Scotland we didn't spend very long in Edinburgh..primarily we went to the Royal Mile and the Military Tattoo that night. We had traded for a timeshare just outside Pitlochry, in Perthshire. This is the midlands so lots of rolling hills and the heather was in bloom, so it was lovely to drive the back roads.
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| Heather in bloom in the highlands |
Since I am from North Carolina, I'm aware of just how many Scots had settled in our Smokey Mountains. Once you get to the Highlands, you'll understand why they feel so at home in NC.
We were charmed by the lochs (lakes) and even though we didn't see any varmints in the Lock Ness, it was a lovely day to tour the area.
By all means take the time to go to the Whiskey Brewery's...in Scotland, what we know as Scotch Whiskey is just called whiskey. So don't go to the bar and ask for Scotch...they'll laugh at you. It is a great time to make friends with single-malt whiskey...which is much more reasonably priced there than here.
My daughter and I enjoyed two side trips from Edinburgh in 2011...one to Stirling Castle and the other to Roslyn. Stirling Castle is a short train ride from Edinburgh and dates from 1100. It was where Mary Queen of Scots was crowned in 1543. It was the site of William Wallace's fight for independence in 1297 (Braveheart Movie). Even though it was raining sideways, we enjoyed our tour. Roslyn is a short bus ride out of Edinburgh and it's church is featured prominently in the Knights Templar history and in the Dan Brown books on the Holy Grail. You are not allowed to take pictures inside the church, but do wait for the presentation by the local hosts. The history of the church is fascinating.
Another interesting sight is the Falkirk Wheel...http://www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk/ This engineering feat was featured in National Geographic just before we went to Scotland in 2007. We were determined to visit. By all means take the ride in the boat through the lock's...It is a hoot to be in a boat and lifted up in the air.
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
If you think you might like to see Scotland, I highly recommend you plan to go in August and get tickets to the Military Tattoo: http://www.edintattoo.co.uk/. You must plan to apply for tickets nearly a year in advance, so go for the tickets and then plan the rest of our time in Scotland. The whole month of August is nothing but festivals in Edinburgh. Street performers abound, great music in multiple venues every day and night, and the Tattoo.
More about Edinburgh in the Edinburgh Highlights.
IRELAND
Without making any attempt to reconcile the political differences between Ireland and England, I will include them here primarily because of geography. To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect from Ireland; and we haven't spent a lot of time there, but I'll give my impressions of the country and the people. I think Irish folks enjoy life and are pretty funny. The country side is quite lovely and much like the rest of the UK. We saw Dublin for several days and then moved on to Limerick on the western side of the country for our base.
I must address the Irish government's unwillingness to deal directly with public drunkenness. I believe it is so much a part of the history of the Irish people, that the police have just been told to look the other way. My husband and I went to a lovely outdoors cafe in the Temple Bar area of Dublin...a very big draw for tourists. We were seated next to an 8 foot glass partition. I was puzzled by the glass wall until a drunk stumbled out of the bar on the other side of the street, came straight for us, and fell face first into the glass sliding down to the ground just beside our table. Had it not been for the glass he would have been in my lap...YUK! Time after time we saw people lying around drunk and no one addressing it even in broad daylight. I honestly took me back to the 60s when my college choir sang in a soup kitchen on Skid Row in NYC. I guess I'm too Baptist and too Southern to want to step over drunks in the broad daylight. In Dublin, they must also depend on the frequent rain to clean the streets. We were there when it hadn't rained in three weeks and the streets smelled like a sewer. So truthfully not my favorite city and I wouldn't go back.
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| Hay Penny bridge in Dublin, Ireland |
Since I won't be doing a Dublin Highlights, I will say that the highlight of our days in Dublin for me was a visit to St Patrick's Cathedral. Of all things we got here during the choir practice. Now I am a church choir singer so for me to sit in that cathedral and listed to those Irish tenors soar was amazing. So yes, there are some good things to do in Dublin. My husband particularly enjoyed visiting the Guiness Brewery.
I understand from some friends who went on a tour of the Western Ireland coast, that it was wild and beautiful beyond imagine. While we didn't see that, we did enjoy Limerick. From that base, we traveled down to Blarney Castle which was a real treat. It was a very claustrophobic climb to the top through a very narrow circular staircase, but once to the top I was up for the challenge of kissing the Blarney Stone...now those who know me well thing I did that in another life.
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| Looking down into the center of Blarney Castle |
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| Hanging in there for a kiss of the Blarney stone |
I think it might be very interesting to go to Northern Ireland now that the war is over, but in 2007, I wasn't trusting anything what anyone said about that conflict being over so we didn't go there.
The trains in Ireland are not as "posh" and up-to-date as the ones in Scotland and England...most likely the result of years of poor economy. But it still got us to where we wanted to go without having to drive on the wrong side of the road, and after spending two weeks driving in England and Scotland that trip, I was kinda over that.
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