Day #7: Rain and a bit of sun, and rain

I started the day by taking a few pictures of downtown Birmingham around our hotel:

Next, we drove to Blists Hill Victorian Town, a recreated mining town. It was not as good as Ballarat in Australia, but still decent:

And then we had a long drive to Llechwedd for its deep mine tour, which we barely got there in time, for:

and from there, more driving still, to reach Conwy, our base for the next 2 nights.

Day #8: Rain, and more rain that ruined our time around Snowdon, especially the ride to the top :(

After breakfast, a short-ish drive to Caernarfon's Castle, an old british fort, still in good shape:

We got to see someone play the organ in the nearby church, very cool:

We then drove to Beddgelert, which was supposed to be for a nice walk around, but it was just pouring rain:

Next, we drove back to snowdon, a mining town where slate is harvested, for our train tour to the top:

And last was going to be our mining train tour, but the weather was just bad and we didn't get to see much for more than half the trip:

diesel vs steam

poor hikers who did all this in the rain for no views

yeah coal!

great views

note the rack and pinion track

And that was it for the day, honestly it the weather ruined a lot of it.

Day #9: light rain, some sun

We did a tour of Conwy in the evening and the next morning, including walking the medieval city walls which are in surprisingly good shape. Conwy castle was actually built by the British to rule the surrounding Welsh, and it was nice to visit:

only a few ways in the city

found during our walk of the city walls

Castle:

The bridge to the next town had an old bridge built to match the castle, a 2nd castle like bridge for the train, and then an uninspiring bridge for more cars:

Rest of the city:

you could play catch and release crab fishing

the seagulls didn't release as much the crabs they caught

not big indeed :)

Plas Mawr was another house from that time:

By then, it was noon-ish, so we left to go to Liverpool and started with the metropolitan cathedral, which was built recently and is definitely modern looking:

the crypt underneath is much older

We then moved our car next to our hotel and went to see the Museum of Liverpool as well as the Merseyside Maritime Museum, but sadly we had only 2 hours for both, which wasn't close to being enough:

examples of smuggling in the maritime museum

slavery section of the museum

By 18:00, we got kicked out, and we took an uber (or first one) back to the other cathedral in liverpool (the main one). It is absolutely huge

We then got tickets for a tour to the top:

And then we got to learn about the church bells and saw folks who were practising playing them. The impressive part was that they could ring the bells while having the bells not actually make sound, and then had a computer that would reproduce the exact sound the bells should make. This allowed them to practise playing without actually bothering everyone around in the city. Super nice!

We then finished the (long) day by walking to Chinatown, which outside of the big gate and a few Chinese restaurants, was not that impressive:

Day #10: very occasional light rain, aka a fine sunny day in Great Britain (good given the hours of hiking we did)

On the way to the lake district, we stopped by Dove Cottage/Wordsworth Museum, which while having some nice cottages, was kind of boring given that I had no idea who the former inhabitant (poet/writer) was

But this put us on the way to the hilly region around lakes, where we did a couple of hikes:

after parking our car, we took the boat across the lake

and we did that hike back (11km, 2h20-ish)

We then got back to our car, and we drove to the next lake by Keswick, and did the catbell hike to the local top. Thank god for long days, we were able to start late-ish in the afternoon when there was room in the 8 car only trailhead location. That hike was a lot more steep and gave better views:

then we hiked down around and back down to the lake

those were all over

And after close to 20km/4.5h of hiking, we drove to our gastro pub for well needed food :)

Day #11: heavy rain at times

After breakfast in our B&B, we were supposed to go for a scenic loop around the lake and the hills. As a reward for trying, we got pretty bad rain, so I drove the loop quickly and may have set a lap time record for wet conditions :)

'fantastic' views

The highlight was 'surprise view' up a crappy road. I still had to take these pictures under an umbrella:

Before leaving the area, we stopped by Castlerigg Stone Circle which is another version of stonehenge, just less famous and with smaller rocks:

We then drove to Hadrian's Wall. That was quite interesting, I didno't know the Romans had invaded England all the way to Scotland, and after dealing with the crazies of the north, they figured it was easier to build a very long wall across a narrow part of England, and hold their position. Most people don't know that there is a second wall higher north, Antonine Wall which was the 2nd line the Romans built as they proceeded further north, but eventually they gave up the fight, and retreated to the Handrian Wall.

After holding the line for a few hundred years, the romans eventually decided that England didn't really have much value and wasn't worth all the effort they put into keeping it, so they just let it go. In the meantime, Hadrian's Wall was a formidable construction at the time (likely only rivalled by the Great Wall of China). I think the only problem is that they built the wall, but they didn't get Scotland to pay for it :)

The Romans had impressive positions in England

Along the wall, they had forts, and I think with the crappy british weather and the mud, many artifacts were preserved in the mud and are now being unearthed, giving lots of valueable info on the Roman Empire:

Next door was Vindolanda, a big fort:

sadly the buildings didn't really survive the passage of time

Nearby you could hike next to remaining bits of the wall:

every roman mile, there was a small fort to keep the line

And we went to see Housesteads Roman Fort, where we got poured on by the end of our visit:

the wall keeps going but is missing most of its height

After we were done, we drove to Durham to see the cathedral and castle where we slept:

city tour under the rain

the cathedral got rebuilt in legos

The next morning, we had breakfast in the great hall:

Number one had a tasting menu of 4, 7, or 10 courses. For that day, we figured the 7 course one would be enough. Jennifer got the premium wine pairing to go with it:

a few deserts to finish the meal :)

Two days later was our anniversary and Jennifer booked a dinner for us at The Kitchin (yes, it's spelled that way), another michelin rated restaurant. We took the premium tasting menu and Jennifer got the premium wine pairing:

Neither were amongst the top restaurants we've eaten at in Paris or California, but they were both a good dining experience, although not quite competitive in price with similarly good options in California (price was similar except it was UK pounds instead of dollars)

Days #12-14: more rain on and off. until finally, on the 14th day, UK-wide rain stopped.

We left Durham early in the morning and drove to Scotland:

We first headed out to the retired Royal Yacht Britannia, which you can enter from a shopping mall. It's the Yacht where the royal family would travel the world and "be royal" and go on vacation, with the UK taxpayer's money. Good scheme they have running... In some ways, it's not quite unlike airforce one, except much slower, and bigger of course:

onboard doctor

with so much uniform changing, because uniforms are important, a huge washing station

Nice machine room

After the boat, we drove to another Georgian House for a tour:

We then used our last few hours in the rental car and drove to Holyrood Park and hiked up to Arthur's Seat for an elevated view of the city:

the castle, and old town

never had the time to look that one up, maybe a ski slope in the winter?

We then went to drop off the car, and we walked to our B&B to drop off our luggage:

the park shortcut was scenic but not faster

We then went out for our nice dinner at Number One

Sightseeing-wise, it was kind of a short day since we only arrived in Edinburgh a bit after noon due to the longish drive.

The next morning, we started with the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where the queen stays when she's around. Sadly, no pictures in the palace:

what's left of the chapel attached to the Palace

Next, we went to the Scottish Parliament Building for a guided tour. Yes, Scotland has its own Parliament as they are given some autonomy and self rule. You can tell the parliament is recent, it's extremely well designed and with a fair system that puts broken systems like the US one to shame (with stupid things like filibusturing):

each MP gets a small pod office where tthey can work in between sessions

the parliament building has a very nice architecture, but no pictures inside

From the parliament we walked up the royal mile:

we got stopped by this in the street

oink, why don't we have an oink where we live?

A few things on the way, several churches, a museum of Edinburgh which sadly we didn't have the time to see later, and a few more things:

St. Giles Cathedral was quite nice:

National Convenant

We then ended up at the museum of scotland, a museum of everything, and that sucked the rest of the time we had that day

Since sadly this was another museum that closed as dearly as 17:00, we had another 4H of daylight left. In July/August, the whole city has a big festival with hundreds of things happening every day. I got a ticket for a student designed video game room, and then a play for an incredibly cheap price (and yet it was well acted):

this game designed on a single neopixel strip was actually brilliant

We then went to check out Camera Obscura, which had decent surrounding views from its top, and some illusions on its floors below:

Last, but not least, we headed for our play, departure lounge, which had simplistic decors, but was well acted:

The next morning, we went first thing to the Edinburgh Castle and as soon as we got in, we made a beeline for the Scottish Crown Jewels, which quickly had a 30-45mn line soon after we went (we beat everyone there and got in with no line at all). I got tickets online which while print at home ended up working fine on my phone, they scanned us and we got straight in:

line starts early

crown jewels

Nice views from the castle:

Next, we went to the national gallery (I opted to skip the portrait gallery):

The had an annex with other art :)

We then walked around town a bit to hit some waypoints Jennifer set :)

million pounds

Next was another victorian house, which honestly was a full waste of time which would have been better spent at the Edinburgh museum or the dynamic earth. Oh well...

Since everything useful was closing early again, Jennifer went to do some scotch tasting:

We then walked around town a bit, and took a bus to our anniversary dinner at The Kitchin.

I naively thought 4H woudl do it, but honestly not quite. Had I known I'd have started a bit more quickly than I actually did.

I probably spent a bit too long in the prehistoric section, which was nice:

A good section of the people who used to live in Scotland, all the way back to the Romans and Vikings:

how scotland was fighting england

coins for all occasions

cigarette for soldiers in hospitals, brilliant!

A good portion of the museum was a nice natural history museum:

funny how that old dinosaur looks a lot like the pretended lock ness monster :)

nice collection of felines :)

did I mention felines? :)

The science museum section also had good displays:

dolly the sheep, the one that was cloned

printing press

Peter Higgs who theorized the Higgs boson over 50 years before Cern was finally able to confirm its existence

nice collection of computers, most european:

A floor showed how Scotland was very much involved in the tech industry, including semi conductors:

huge silicon lingo that wafers and chips are made from

A nice collection of art from around the world:

I so barely finished in 4H and had to rush some bits. Without a proper map and navigation it's a bit of a mess to visit though due to multiple kinds of museums all mixed into one. That said, well worth the visit, too bad it closes kind of early (17:00).

the mail train allowed agents to sort the mail while it was transiting to its destination

the eurostar that takes you from Paris to London, based on the TGV

they had an original japanese bullet train

that original train was very spacious inside, probably too much so for real speed

nice diesel engine

nice cutout of a steam engine

I had no idea it went through a bunch of tubes like this

Mallard, fastest steam train in the world at the time

The back had a shop where they work on old trains:

We took an early train from Edinburgh to York, went to our B&B to drop our luggage, and went right away to the nearby National Railway Museum (on its own page)

not a super bad ass looking train, but it got us there

After the train museum, we went to York Minster, the local cathedral:

It was a bit of a mess getting tickets for it, but we did the climb to the top, which was fun and had good views:

We got a few views of town:

Pictures from inside:

During the day, we went to the museum by St Mary's Abbey:

We then had an early dinner and went for the evening walking tour through town (2H):

The next morning, we went early for the Jorvik Viking Center, which has nice exhibits and a nice tour/ride, but ridiculous lines, which thankfully I was able to get through with a fasttrack ticket:

Last, but not least, the poorly named "York Castle Wall", which is actually a fairly large museum of lots of things, including an old town recreation, and much more:

And it's also a bit of a museum of everything:

Once I was done with York, we could/should have just left early and gone to London, but we had a prebooked night in the B&B plus a prebooked train, so since we had time left in York one way or another, I took an uber to the nearby Yorkshire Air Museum

love the windshield wipers :)

Mirage III

Mirage IV nuclear bomber, the only one outside of France

this one got me excited, the electric lightening, one of the highest flying jet planes outside of the US

a 5000 ton bomb, to penetrate tunnels and caves

an early glider prototype

GB put effort into big airships too, but they prooved too problematic and dangerous in the end

They had a control tower, and copy of the french pilots quarters

While I kind of regret not having had the chance to see bigger aviation museums while in the UK, but this one at least gave me a taste :)

The small problem, was that going to a club all night between a 12h+ day of sightseeing and 4 more such days right after that, was not the best timing ever, but at the same time, it was not an opportunity I wanted to miss. So, after leaving the V&A Museum when it closed at 22:00, I went straight to Ministry of Sound which was opening at 22:30, and only got back to bed around 03:00 or so. I was not in good shape the next day, but so be it :)

Ministry of Sound is an interesting club, it's not huge, but has 4 different rooms, with the main room being totally packed when Andrew was playing. Sadly, as a state of affairs in London, and the radical inclusion, they end up having to search everyone everywhere to pretty severe extremes. They had TSA style gates with full searches, making getting in a lot less fun...
Anyway, once in, I had a good time, and glad I went despite what it cost me in lost sleep :)

Here's a video summary with good trance bits:

I was a bit annoyed the first day we went since we went during their extended hours (once a week 17:00 to 22:00), but turns out more than half the rooms were actually closed. In the end, however, whatever was left was enough to fill the 4H+ I had there that first time, and I just went back another time for another 4H-ish. This is another way to say that it's a full day museum (and more if you're thorough).

The breath of collections there is also awesome, without abusing the word. The building itself has lots of art on the walls and ceilings:

interesting modern and less modern art:

religious art:

Some parts of V&A felt like they just didn't fit in the British Museum:

great room with marble and statues:

Some rooms had what looked like rooms from Versailles, and other big castles and mansions:

The included a really cool collection of locks and keys:

Other rooms had cultural art:

I'm still a sucker for fine Japanese clothing

Another section was on musicals, which London is known for:

and of course, arts of all kinds:

I need one of those in my living room :)

This doesn't even count other random stuff, like 3D printing and a copy of this first 3D printed gun:

Day 1 (half day)

We started early in York with a direct train to London:

Haha, no offence, but English trains are so far from matching Japanese trains

case in point...

After arriving in London we dropped our luggage and went directly to Westminster Abbey. Very nice Abbey, but not only quite expensive to get in, and then to thank you for the good money you just spent, no pictures allowed inside (they used to be allowed apparently). Needless to say that, that didn't stop me, especially with the hefty entrance fee:

We then headed to the parliament for self guided tour:

Next was the Churchill war rooms, a complex of underground rooms where most of the british high command, including Churchill, were bunkered during the war. Outside of the war, they had lots of information on Churchill's life:

Next, still, we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design. We saw half of it during a 4H visit during its extended hours (18:00 to 22:00).
It was a really interesting visit, despite half the museum being closed, which meant I had to go back a few days later. But wait, the day was not over yet, it was just about time for me to head over to the ministry of sound to go see andrew rayel who happened to be playing that night.

Day 2

After the british museum, I went to check out Tate Modern. Honestly, except for the views from the top of the building, it was a bit of a waste:

Given the Tate Modern wasn't that good, I had just enough time to go to the theatre district and go catch a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I had mixed feelings about it. It was interesting in some ways, but boring and too long in others:

theatre seats were also most small and uncomfortable

Jennifer spent the day with her friend Anna who came from nearby, given that they hadn't seen one another and she had already been to the british museum anyway.

Day 3

people send him letters from around the world

Next door, beatles store:

We then walked to the free Wallace Collection, a very nice building with a great collection:

After a good tour of the Wallace Collection, we headed to London War Museum, which took much longer than I had planned, it's quite out of the way, but worth it for sure.

Once done, we headed back to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. Barely had over an hour for both, but turned out to be just enough for me :)

Once we got kicked out at 18:00, we had just enough time to walk to Rodizio to get BBQ meats served at our table, and walk to our theatre for our evening show. That show was the play that goes wrong, a nice idea, but the theatre staff was a bunch of dicks and totally ruined our experience before we even got in, by trying to steal all the food we had in our backpacks, claiming we could not carry it in, or check the bags in, we just had to throw it out (which is actually not written anywhere in their terms and conditions):

Day 4

Next, we walked to the Tower of London, which thankfully was not too busy on a monday (some other days have stupid lines to get in). Interesting castle to visit, many displays:

got to see the other crown jewels

multiple tours and performances

they had beafeaters giving tours of the monument

Great views of the London Bridge from there:

Next, we went to the monument of the great london fire, lots of steps, but nice views from the top:

The museum of london was not far nearby, so we went there:

My plan was next to go to the British Library, which had extended opening hours on mondays, but just to screw with us, that did not include the famous room with all the manuscripts that we specifically went there to see. In other words, we went there for absolutely nothing, grr...

That evening, we then had a dinner at Google, and I got to see one of my schoolmates and friends

Day 5

More things to see that day (on separate pages):

The science museum actually took the rest of my day, and I never made it to the nearby natural science museum, which had a stupid 1H+ line outside every time I looked at it. I guess it'll be for another time (and my understanding is that it take a full day to visit anyway). I just had enough time to meet Jennifer at the theatre where we went to see Matilda, a nice musical:

City Views

City Views from bridges:

St Paul's

Day 6, trip home

light snack to order during the flight :)

security line

Once inside, it was a race to see everything in just 7H. While it's not as big as the Louvre in Paris, it's still huge if you have a decent look at displays, and 2 days or more if you look at everything carefully. The aramaic and egyptian collections were nothing but impressive:

silly me thought that the rosetta stone was at the Louvre, but Paris only has a copy since the British re-stole the original from the French :)

cat mummies

egyptian game

The other collections were good too:

The greek temple bits were good too (some original, some copies):

And I literally finished within minutes of the museum closing, and really had to go at a good pace. It's definitely a great museum, glad I went.

nice V2 rocket

human guided torpedo

They had a nice display about Mi6, the secret intelligence (as opposed to the MI5 james bond agents). Several of them infiltrated France during WWII and helped the French resistance to fight the germans:

spy equipment

fake papers

One nice feature was all the post it ASCII art :)

bubble bobble!

Nice views from the cafe terrace:

got to see my school friend Jerome, who works from that office

There was a good history of early planes:

a good reminder that the first aircraft that was heavier than air was French, even if it didn't fly far

very bird-like aircraft

of course the wright brothers are mentioned, along with their patents and thirst for money that caused the US to slip back decades while France quickly took over the world of flying machines

one impressive thing on the wright brothers' airplane was the engine: light and efficient

lots of early french planes

While most people know about the French Mongolfier brothers and their hot air balloon, few know about all the dirigeables that many countries experimented with, including England:

The section on VTOL aircraft was very nice. I didn't know about the pre-harrier prototypes:

VTOL thrust vectoring prototype

Short SC-1, first UK VTOL aircraft

and harrier

Other random planes:

first german jet aircraft

early airplane with inefficient propeller

So again, while it was not an aviation museum, it sure had a worthwhile collection to check out.

It definitely had interesting and unusal exhibits (at least for adults) and I smiled when I saw reviews that they didn't have enough basic things for small kids to bang violently on until they broke :)

The aviation part of that museum itself was quite impressive and I put it in its own page

nice to see a streetview bike

I got to learn how multicord encoding worked at the time

kind of sad when I know some historical communication devices :)

nice to see more silicon lingots in museums, that's where all our chips come from

the UK has several crappy 3 wheeled cars because taxes/insurance for them was cheaper

gotta love old commercials

even a section on genetics, including this 7 toed cat.

or less fun, but good to mention, this euthanasia machine

Here's a map that what we covered:

So, here are some random thoughts:

Driving

People

Weather

Food

Train

Misc

Locations

Last Impressions, Conclusions