Day 11: Wandering

The weather was a lot nicer today (still a bit chilly, but dry at least) and my leg was feeling much better after the day of rest yesterday, so I decided to go on one of my aimless walks that I enjoyed so much when I was in Japan. I just start walking in a random direction without any goal, and just follow whatever seems most interesting as I go. The entire point of this is somewhat of a Robert Frost "Road Not Taken" thing. Sure, seeing all the buildings and monuments and doing all the touristy things is interesting, but that's the stuff everybody sees and you can just look up online. The true fun is when you take the side streets, turn down the unmarked paths, and discover things you didn't even know to look for. These usually lead to me getting horribly lost, but I was pretty confident as long as I kept track of which side of the river I was on I'd be able to find the city center again easily. Of course, that all was with the assumption that I'd stay inside Chester...

I began doing a walk around the city center walls, which are a mix of different periods, some dating back 2000 years to the Romans. Quite a few people were out for walks in the same area, and there were a few artists selling their pictures along the walls. This artist particularily amused me (Jessica and Paul will get this):

After walking the perimeter I crossed over the bridge to check out some of the rest of Chester, which I hadn't ventured into much yet. Following my "whichever way seems most interesting" rule, you'll see a pretty clear progression of the way my route took me...

After wandering in the woods for a good 2 hours I finally emerged to find myself way out in the countryside entering into some little village. Luckily I could see Chester rising up in the distance, and following the road back made the return trip much quicker. At least I got to see some of the countryside other than through a bus window.

My leg was starting to get sore again by the end, but it held up a lot better than it has since I hurt it, so that's promising. It should get more rest tomorrow since I'll be on a bus most of the day.

Day 10: Resting and Planning

It's another cold and wet day in Chester. I was out for a bit to get food and go for a walk, but for the majority of the day I've stayed in. Did all my laundry in the morning, and spent a good bit of time planning out and booking the next stage of the trip. I've decided to just go on straight to Edinburgh, as bus rides and new cities bring extra costs and stresses and I'm already running short on time before my flight to Ireland. Booking a place to stay was a bit of a challenge as everything is booked up for Easter weekend, but I finally managed decent accomodations spread between two hostels. The transportation also wasn't trivial as nothing is going to run directly from Edinburgh. What I ended up doing is an 11 hour ride from Chester to Manchester, switching to a different bus to Glasgow, and then switching again to Edinburgh. It feels a bit silly to go through Glasgow since I'm coming back there 5 days later, but that's just how things worked out.

Day 9: Chester Troubles

(First of all, since I'm doing a bunch of posts more or less at once and it puts the most recent at the top, reading the previous ones first will probably help in understanding why I'm in some place called Chester in the middle of the night).

When you're paranoid about missing your stop on a bus, sleep becomes incredibly hard. I slept for maybe an hour off and on, but by the time we finally go to Chester I was feeling pretty sore and tired. I then got off the bus in the pitch black of night, weighed down by my backpack and satchel, into the very cold, windy drizzle of Chester, having no idea where I was in town or where to go. I hadn't slept significantly since 4:30am the previous morning, and after wandering around the nearby streets of the bus dropoff the weight of my bags started to feel pretty heavy. I eventually found the local train station, and I knew roughly where my hotel was from there, so I found it pretty fast. Check-in time wasn't until 2pm though, so I wandered back to the train station (which was open-air and still very cold, but at least had cover from the rain) and huddled there spacing out and listening to my ipod for a couple hours until 7am or so, when things started to open. I went back to the hotel, and they were gracious enough to let me stash my bags there until I checked in later. Since I had a good deal of time and didn't really have much of a plan I just started walking. Despite my exhaustion and soreness the town is a very neat place. Most of the buildings around the city center have an old, charming look, and there are lots of cobblestone alleys and old city walls and bridges. There are lots of shops and restaurants very close by and it really is a nice mix of modern convenience and old history. I bought a word puzzle book in one of the shops and found a neat little alcove in the Cathedral's garden that had shelter from the rain and did some puzzles until I got too cold, then wandered some more until I found a library which I hung out in until I could check into my hotel. I finally got my hotel room with much relief only to discover I had lost the charger for my tablet at this point. The part I was most worried about was the USB to tablet charger since I wasn't even sure if UK had compatible models. Luckily they do, and I bought the charger, as well as an global socket converter thing (amusingly even when I return to Canada I'm going to have to have to use one to convert our sockets to the UK plug the charger has). Now I plan to get a good night's sleep, do some laundry in the morning and hopefully have a quiet, uneventful day tomorrow. I have 3 nights here (considerably more expensive then the hostel was, but it's only for 3 nights and the extra comfort and privacy is much appreciated right now) and then I'm debating if I should dip into Wales, go to York, or move on directly to Edinburgh.

Here are some pictures from the day. Since it was just wandering around I was playing with my camera more and trying to find interesting pictures instead of just snapping photos of buildings and monuments like in London.

This is one of the main streets in the commercial area. This was around 7 or 8am so it's still pretty quiet. It picked up a lot later in the day.

Fishermen: The only other people crazy enough to be out and about in the cold drizzle so early in the morning.

The Cathedral through nearby cherry blossoms. I have normal pictures of the Cathedral I'll put up tomorrow, I just find this one a bit more interesting.

A typical restaurant/shop in the city center, just to give an idea of the architecture and style

Anyway, that catches everything back up to date. Should be a bit less drama for the next couple days at least!

Day 8 (Part Three): Stonehenge (and countryside)

I originally didn't even plan to go visit Stonehenge, as to me it really isn't all that interesting, but ultimately decided that it was something I should see since I was in the area anyway, if for no other reason then to be able to say I've been there when I'll inevitably asked. As expected it is terribly touristy, and everything is roped off so all you can really do is walk in a circle around the outside and take pictures. Like the first two places on the tour there is an audio guide that gives you some information, but there wasn't anything terribly groundbreaking.

(A couple on the tour got me to take a picture of them and offered to take one of me in return. The one I took of them was much better cropped :p)

After Stonehenge we headed back to London. Here are a few pictures of the country side, although I don't remember exactly what stage of the trip they were taken at.

So once back in London I grabbed some dinner and sat around waiting for 4 hours to take a night bus to Chester. Where is Chester and why am I going there? It's a city of about 80,000 right on the border with Wales up near Liverpool and Manchester, and my reason for going there specifically is purely random for the most part. I basically wanted to go somewhere smaller and less busy and just relax for a few days. I originally planned for York (which I may go to yet, still debating) but there were no late buses there. The ride to Chester was from 11:30pm - 5:00am or so, so I figured I could grab some sleep on the bus and then check out the town until I checked into my hotel in the afternoon. I thought it sounded like a decent plan, but in practice it was a bit rough. (see next post!)

Day 8 (Part Two): Bath

Bath was known historically as a type of spa that was based around natural mineral springs that were supposed to have a healing effect. It was a posh venue in Roman times for the rich to show off and gossip, and after a period of decline the city had a revival sometime in the 1500s. Although our focus was a tour of the ancient Roman Bathhouse there was also a large amount of old architecture in honey coloured stone that Bath is famous for.

There were quite a few street performers around, such as musicians and a juggler, and the bathhouse itself was right across the courtyard from Bath Abbey.

I didn't spend too much time at most of the displays as they seemed geared more towards kids (or at least people who haven't studied Roman history and culture) but some of the information on the engineering of the building was very interesting. We were all warned not to drink from the central bath itself (as the water is untreated and ducks hang out in it) but there was a fountain at the end of the tour where the water is safe to drink. It was warm and you could definitely taste the minerals, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. I've had a bit of a sore throat since around then though, but I'm not sure if it was because of the water or just coming down with a bit of a cold since it has been damp and chilly for the last couple days now.

After the tour I grabbed a couple Cornish pasties from a shop for a quick lunch before the bus got back. On the way out of town I managed this picture of the city below which I'm quite proud of. The bus had two rows of two seats, and I was on the far right taking a picture out the left window, arcing my arm up to try to get over people's heads and timing things for a clear shot between trees as we drove by. (Of the 5 pictures I took, this is the only one that's even remotely decent)

Day 8 (Part One): Windsor

Going to be a big string of posts here, to bring my account of things up to present. Breaking my tour from yesterday into the 3 stages, begining with Windsor Castle.
After my experience almost missing my walking tour the other day I was a bit paranoid a bit catching this one, especially since it departed at 8:30 in the morning and I was also checking out of my hostel, so there would be some overhead. To make things worse, apparently Sunday night is when the all older gentlemen of the neighborhood come to the hostel pub and get rowdy. It was an interesting evening as this room full of 60 year old+ men drank, sang (constantly and loudly), swore and danced while all us 20-somethings retreated away to the sleeping rooms early to chat quietly and get away from them. Ultimately I got up around 4:30am and used my computer for a bit (this is where I left my charger *sigh*) before checking out and heading to Victoria Station to catch my bus. The group was a pretty mixed-bag. Most people were in couples and families, and I am pretty sure I was the youngest of the non-families, but not by so much that I felt terribly out of place.

Once we got to Windsor we worked our way up the hill and after waiting in the queue for a bit got let into the walls. Because of the nature of bus tours we had designated times we had to meet back at, so there was unfortunately not much time to wander and explore, but that's the nature of bus tours. From the walls you have a nice view of the city down below, as well as the nearby Eton College, which is probably considered the most prestigious public school in the world.

The outside of the castle and the few gardens that were visible were pretty nice. Since it's the Queen's active home there is obviously a lot of security around and most of the grounds are off-limits.

The really interesting part of the castle is the state apartments, but unfortunately there's no photography allowed inside them. They are by a good margin the most lavishly decorated rooms I've seen. Highlights for me were Queen Mary's Doll's House and some of the rooms with elaborate weapons and armor displays. The Doll's House is impressive for the detail it contains. All objects in it are actual functioning miniature copies of real things. The silverware is real silver, the paintings are done in actual paint, the book's are bound with real paper and have actual stories written in them and the little miniature wine bottles contain real wine. There is even a set of crown jewels that are made as miniature copies of the real ones, using the same materials just to 1:12 scale.

Also on the grounds was St. George's Chapel, which again you couldn't take pictures in. It is filled with intricate hand-carved wood and stonework, and there is quite a lot of history in it. Since it is chapel to the Order of the Garter there were a fair number of displays relating to the order as well, and you could go into their main chamber and see all their heraldry.

We also happened to be there at the right time for the changing of the guards, which only happens every other day. Personally I don't happen to find it terribly exciting, and there were a lot of crowds around, so I just caught a few random bits as I wandered by.

After that is was back onto the bus to continue on to Bath.