London to Groombridge

Our last day in London, we had a late checkout so we decided to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum. We could have spent all day there, we only saw a fraction of the galleries.

We caught the train from London and Kay and Julian picked us up from Tonbridge.

It has been another lovely lazy weekend with them, regathering our strength for our days in Barcelona and Prague. We have had several walks around the village, stopping to watch the steam train and a match at the Groombridge Bowls Club.

Today we walked up to see if there was a cricket match on but there wasn't. I took a photo of this fascinating fungus.

We then crossed the county line between Kent and East Sussex.

London Days 3 and 4

We were pretty tired after 2 busy days so Peter thought he would go out for the morning and then leave me to explore in the afternoon. We wanted to see the Tower and Tower Bridge so we got off the tube at Tower Hill and headed off. It was the nicest day so far in London so we took our time just wandering.

Still practising our selfies (the others have been deleted).

We crossed Tower Bridge and walked along the river towards London Bridge where Peter was going to leave but it was such a lovely day that he decided to keep going for a bit longer.

Past the Globe.

We stopped to watch some street performers.

By now we were getting close to the Tate Britain. We wanted to see the Turner Collection there so we just kept going.

 We caught the end of the guided tour which was very interesting. Another place we could easily have spent several more hours in but by now our legs and feet were complaining so we headed back to the hotel. We estimated that we walked about 8 kilometres.

Today we started with a visit to the John Soane Museum, a fascinating house which has been preserved as it was 180 years ago. He was the architect who designed the Bank of England, but he was also an avid collector of antiquities. Every nook and cranny has something interesting to look at. He designed the interior of the house to display his collection, just amazing.

From there we walked to Covent Garden, then Piccadilly Circus via Leicester Square.

We had figured out where to catch a bus at the end of the day so we took a short walk through Hyde Park to Kensington.

The bus stop was right near Harrods so I decided I had to at least stick my head in. Peter caught the first bus to come along and I went into Harrods. I didn't quite know what to expect but it was certainly an interesting experience.

London Days 1 and 2

The internet in our room is not great and we have had such busy days in London that we are too tired to sit in the lobby to post, so here is a summary of our first 2 days in London.
We got to our hotel earlier than we expected so we had the first afternoon to explore. Lisa had suggested the Museum of London so we headed there via St Paul's Cathedral.

The Museum was fascinating. It traces the history of London and there are so many interesting things to look at. We spent 3 hours there and still had to rush through at the end.

We didn't get to Westminster Abbey last time we were in London so it was at the top of the list of things to see.

Another 3 hours easily spent in an amazing place. They don't allow photos inside which is probably a good thing because no one would ever move anywhere. The architecture is wonderful, but around every corner is a tomb or memorial of someone famous.

Next on the "to see" list was Buckingham Palace. We saw it at night time before but Claire wanted to see it in the daylight. We walked through St James Park and noticed lots of well dressed people heading in the same direction. Peter asked a couple about it and they told us it was one of the Queen's Garden Parties.

The queue was enormous, Peter estimated about 1,000 people with cabs arriving all the time. Unfortunately we couldn't get close to the fence.
We walked down the Mall towards Trafalgar Square and went into the National Gallery.

Our friends Rosalie and Tony are in London visiting their sons so we arranged to meet them at a local pub for a meal and trivia. It was a great night and we won!

Groombridge

We have had a lovely day exploring Groombridge with Kay and Julian. We went up to the train line to see if there was a steam train running. No train but the station had a display of stationary engines.

Next we walked to Groombridge Place via Kay's Bowls Club and the cricket ground.

As you can see from the photos it was a very sunny day and quite warm so we had to stop at the Crown for a refreshing drink.

In the afternoon we visited Julian's brother Jim to see his Koi fish. He has an impressive tank and the fish are amazing.

Pete's random ravings

* THE GOOD ( Best}

* THE STRANGE (Mysterious)

* THE HOT UPSTAIRS (Uncomfortable)

* THE DUMB (Wet & cold Aussies)

( we have been troubled by internet on the back end of our cruise and in several places along the way, also on several occasions we have been too buggered to post,  so our blog has gaps. sorry)

Random ravings.

The Good (Best) - From Brugges in Belgium. "Tongerlo" was awarded the title of the best

 beer in the world. I won't dispute that award as it was pretty damn good, maybe the best I've tried.

We haven't posted about Brugges as yet, but in a brief summary:

* our port was well out of town, interesting tram and train arrangements

* great canal cruise ( Brugges is the Venice of the north)

* VR history of Brugges and museum very very good.

* Belgium waffles and beer, excellent

What more can you ask for?

The Strange (Mysterious). Our hotel in Keswick host recommended a Tapas bar in town where if we produced our hotel key we could get 10% off the bill. The food was great but then I noticed the signed eight of clubs stuck to the roof of the restaurant. After I asked about it the girl behind the bar said I had almost forgot about that. Four years ago a magician came into the bar to show off his tricks hoping to earn some tips.  She said that he was amazing with his tricks and impressed his audience, With his finale he got a customer to sign the eight of clubs, then shuffled and cut the cards a number of times and then threw the entire deck up to the roof with the signed eight of clubs stuck to the roof for four years so far,

The Hot & Upstairs ( & Uncomfortable)

We are  IHG gold card members (with the Holiday Inn and Crown plaza group) so for this visit we wanted to mix their stays with local pubs with accommodation to try the local experience, The pub's character, breakfast and service have been great however, none of these pubs have elevators and so far we have been up several staircases to get to our room. This would not have been so bad unless it was coupled with the fact that the rooms upstairs were very hot for two reasons, firstly they were high up without insulation and secondly they had towel heaters in the bathroom and no air conditioning in the room. Today we checked into a Holiday inn in Bath with elevators and air conditioning,  Claire cheered,  Character is one thing but comfort is another.

The Dumb (wet and cold Aussies)

During our journey sometimes our brains go to mush.  We were in Scotland on our fourth day and went out without coats and jackets when the weather turned. Pretty dumb but excuseable, today on our way to Bath we drove through wet weather but on reaching Bath it had cleared up. Although we both have wet weather gear and an umbrella we both chose to ignore the potential of rain.

DUMB AUSSIE (brains gone to Mush)

Bath

A much better day navigating today especially as it was one of our longest drives. Getting into Bath was slow but we are beginning to expect that. We checked in and headed into town. We went to the Roman Baths last time so we didn't go again. Claire was looking for some of the places where "Persuasion" had been filmed.

We went past the Abbey and then got caught in a sudden downpour. We had thought about grabbing our wet weather gear but hadn't. It didn't last too long and then Peter found a pub while Claire went into the Jane Austen Centre.

Claire with the most photographed man in England.

The rain had stopped by the time Claire came out so we walked back into the centre of town via the Assembly Rooms and the Royal Crescent. Claire is going back to the Assembly Rooms tomorrow to visit the Museum of Fashion.

We aren't usually ones for posting food pictures but this sharing board we had tonight was worth a photo.

Chester to Shrewsbury

We only had a couple of short drives today so we spent a bit more time exploring Chester before we headed off. We went to the Roman Gardens then walked along another section of the walls.

Luckily today was a couple of short drives because getting out of Chester was a nightmare. Claire has been using a combination of Google maps and maps.me to navigate and apart from a couple of hiccups it has been working well. Unfortunately a combination of a left turn instead of a right and Claire developing a cold which has turned her brain to mush (This is Claire's description) meant we ended up changing direction 3 times. A 20 minute drive took us closer to an hour.

Our destination however made up for it. Peter had read about the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal and he wasn't disappointed. It is the tallest navigable aqueduct in the world, being 39m high and took 10 years to build, from 1795 to 1805. You can walk over it or take a canal boat and we decided to walk. Claire had a few moments where she wasn't sure she'd done the right thing but we made it. We then walked back by the road so that we could see it from ground level.

The view from the aqueduct was spectacular.

Canal boat traffic jam. It is a tight turn for them and the blue one was literally jammed for a little while. The boatman had to get off and give it a good shove to free it.

The end of the day was almost as bad as the beginning. We are staying right in the city centre which is very convenient but there is a maze of one-way streets which took some navigating, then the narrowest opening to the car park that you have ever seen. We nearly missed it. Our room is at the back which means 2 flights of stairs up, then about 4 steps down, then another 4 up then a flight down. Luckily we only needed to bring up one of our big bags.

Shrewsbury Abbey is just across the river from us so we went there first. Claire was particularly interested because it is the setting for Ellis Peter's Cadfael novels. We had a small guided tour then went into the city to look for somewhere to eat tonight.