And The Weather Was So Very British
jewel April 16th, 2008
We got back Sunday night from our very quick trip to England. I think I am nearly recovered from all the walking and the 5 hour time difference. It was a fun trip. As can be expected in England, the weather was quite varied, from wonderful sunshine to steady downpours to hail and then back again to sunshine. Rinse. Repeat. On the whole, though, the weather wasn’t too bad. We got much much walking in and I got quite a few photos that I will put up in one of my gallery’s when I am finished with the processing.
We arrived at London Heathrow on Thursday morning, after flying all night. Amazingly we both managed to get some sleep on the plane so we weren’t completely done for. We went through immigration and picked up our luggage and headed for customs. Now, customs in Heathrow was a rather different experience for me. We walked right through. They have this section for “nothing to declare” and we didn’t have to stop at all – it was very much like a domestic US flight. Our first thought was – wow the British are more trusting than Americans. Later we were told that customs agents do watch people go through and that they do pull people for random checks.
A driver picked us up and took us about an hour and a half south of London to a far edge of nowhere place called Steyning where my husband had to work for a couple days.
Steyning is a very small town. Not a lot happening. It is very picturesque, though, so I pretty much walked around taking pictures for two days. I was rather luke warm to the accommodation, though. We were put up in a B&B that smelled like my grandmother’s house. It’s weird just how smell and memory are so much linked. Anyway, I generally prefer actual hotels to B&B’s when I travel. It’s just easier for me.
On Thursday afternoon, I spent about 2 hours walking around with my point and shoot camera kind of scoping out things I might want to revisit on Friday with my “real” camera. I walked to Bramber Castle (or what’s left of it) about a mile and a half from the hotel and took some photos there. There is a fairly large grassy field and there were several families enjoying picnics and playing with their dogs and what not. Friday morning I repeated the trip to Bramber Castle and took several photos unimpeded by any other people. Then, after a bit of a rest back at the B&B I headed out in the other direction from the hotel and took some more photos. I really enjoyed the architecture of the area. There was a mixture of stone and brick that was very pretty.
Friday evening we took the train back up to London. We stayed at the Hilton Tower Bridge, which was a great location. It’s right on the river, so we could walk out of the hotel and down to the river and have wonderful views of Tower Bridge and the city scape across the river. Friday night we pretty much ate dinner and chilled at the hotel bar. Boring, perhaps, but we were both pretty travel weary. Besides, we had figured on quite a lot of walking on Saturday.
Saturday morning we got up and had some breakfast and headed out. We took the tube to Westminster because we were planning on taking a walking tour with Photo Walks of London. We got there a little early and waited, but either the fellow(s) that were suppose to give the tour were late, or didn’t show, or were just unmarked and I didn’t know what they looked like, so we took a tour with a different company called London Walks. Our tour guide was Shaughan and the theme was Shakespeare. It was a fantastic tour. We took a boat just a bit up the river to the Globe Theater and toured the area of the city that was best known to Shakespeare. I took many photos.
After the tour, we went to a fantastic little Thai restaurant for some lunch and then headed back out for a walk along the river. My goal was to get to Dali Universe and get a photo of the Dali melting clock statue that sits out front. On our way down the river we encountered the whole range of London weather. Finally, after what seemed like an age we found what we were looking for and I got my photo and we toured the Dali Universe museum. Unfortunately photographs were not allowed inside. After 6 or so hours of walking (total for the day) we decided to take the tube back to the hotel rather than walk the whole way. Then we set off for dinner. We ate at an Indian restaurant called Tower Tandoori. It was pretty good. The Masala was just a touch sweet for my taste, but it was quite good.
Once we got back to the hotel I decided I wanted to try my hand at getting a photo of Tower Bridge all lit up. I’ve never had very good luck with night shots, but I’ve been working on my general photography skills and thought I would give it a shot. It was just so beautiful. If I would have had more energy at that point I would have ventured a bit down the river some more to get some other night shots. Next trip that’s on my list, for sure.
Sadly, Sunday was pretty much a steady rain so we really didn’t venture far. We only had until 1pm or so before we had to head out for the airport anyway, so we slept in and then stuck fairly close to the hotel. We lunched at a French restaurant near the river, which was quite good and then got back to the hotel in time to get our cab back to Heathrow. All in all, I do wish we could have stayed in London another day or two. It went far too quickly and I would have liked to get more photo’s (of course) and perhaps even taken a trip down to Stonehenge. There will be other opportunities, though, so no worries.
Edited to add – Galleries:
Photos from our trip to Steyning, April 2008
36 Photos
Pictures from our very short stay in London in April 2008
26 Photos
Pictures from the London Walks "Shakespeare's London" walking tour
12 Photos
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Is that Big Ben in the background? Oh, wait…. That’s just the tower.
Sure, if you want to be pedantic about it.
Yes, I know that it is the bell that is actually named Big Ben, but most people recognize the structure by that name and well, it’s just plain easier to refer to it that way.
I’ve added the “clock tower” qualifier to the pics that have the tower in them. Happy now?
Ah, I wish we had overlapped there! It would have been nice to see you both again.
Indeed, Phil – I agree! Skeptics in the Pub sounded like so much fun! Actually, your whole trip sounded like a blast. I lived vicariously, I did. We’ll be at TAM in June though, maybe we can buy you a drink at some point.