The Peak District!

Yesterday, Christopher, Angus, and I headed up North towards what's called The Peak District. It starts about 3o minutes or so past Nottingham and I guess it's where some of the highest "peaks" in England are. I say "peaks", because compared to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, England's peaks are really just decent sized hills. But, I digress.

We stopped in a town called Castleton. Its a really cute town and there was so much to do! We started out with lunch (which turned out to not be so great...note to self, if we go back, dont eat at the Three Roof's Cafe), and then headed up to see Peveril Castle.

The castle sits up on a high hill and overlooks the entire town and surrounding valley. We had to climb basically straight up to get to it... my butt is sore today from the incline! The castle is named after William Peveril, who is said to be an illegitimate child of William 1, though its never been proven. There's not much left of the castle, basically just the wall and the tower. You can see some remnants of other buildings scattered around, but nothing very substantial. Its always neat to see the old castles though.

Angus needed to stop for a drink

On top of part of the wall

Walking up the stairs to go into the tower

Inside the bottom of the tower

The view from the top of the hill... it was an absolutely beautiful day!

Down in Castleton

Angus took a dip in the creek

After the castle, we made our way back down the hill and wandered around the town a little bit before making our way to Peak Cavern (which is also known as the Devil's Arse). They allow dogs on the tours, as long as they stay on their leads, so we took a tour.

The reason the cave is known as the Devil's Arse is because of the noises the cave makes when air is rushing through it. They changed the name to Peak Cavern in the 1800's when Queen Victoria was coming to visit, so they wouldn't offend her, but they're back to calling it the Devil's Arse now.

My awesome toe shoes!

Standing inside the cave looking out. The people who used to dwell here were rope makers. The tour guide even demonstrated how they made rope... it was awesome! They lived and worked in the cave and the children even had to work; they began work at 4 years old!

Rich and famous people used to come visit the cave, and this is how they had to enter. The boat had to go underneath that tiny opening, so they had to lay flat and be pushed underneath, in the pitch black. Back then, people thought that caves were basically direct routes to hell, so not only was it dank and dark in the cave, but there was the added fear that they might be on their way to meet the Devil Himself. Needless to say, a lot of people turned back the way they came and didn't go any deeper into the cave.

Christopher and Angus by the boat

For those brave enough to continue on their tour of the cave, the rope makers would have the children climb up into the orchestra gallery (the hole in the middle of the picture) and wait until their guests got into the room below, and then they would scare them. Whether or not the rope makers took to you depended on what kind of light source you had on your tour. If they liked you, you got a torch, if not, you got a candle, so often times they literally could barely see right in front of them. When they got into the larger rooms, the rope makers would set of fireworks to light up the room. And then the room would fill with smoke and they'd have to make their way out of a dark, smokey cave.

After the cave, we walked around Castleton some more. We were going to go hike up Mam Tor (one of the peaks), but Angus was done by that time.

Like I said...done. We had to carry him the rest of the way. And, he's not as small as the yorkies. He weighs 23 pounds!

Yeah, he's not spoiled at all...

London... again.

So, I totally forgot to post from when Christopher and I went to London on May 8th. We haven't really had the chance to do anything just the two of us lately, and with all the stress of baby stuff and work, we needed to get out. One of Christopher's friends had family coming in that day and wanted his friends to meet them, so we got invited to dinner at the Hard Rock in London that night... perfect opportunity to sneak away! So, we left early and spent the afternoon wondering around London! I seriously LOVE this city... its so amazing. We've been here for a year and a half now and have been to London almost a dozen times and we are still seeing things we've never seen before!

Our day started out on the hunt for some sushi. I'd been online the night before trying to hunt a place down and found that on one street, there were quite a few, so we headed down to Soho and ended up running into China Town. I always find China Town by accident...lol. So, we walked around China Town for a while and contemplated just eating Chinese... it all looked and smelled amazing... but, we were on a mission. We finally found a little hole in the wall type place that had everything we were looking for on the menu. And it was awesome! We had TONS of sushi.... definitely satisfied our craving for a little while, anyway.

After China Town and walking around Soho, freezing our butts off, we headed down to The Victoria and Albert Museum (or the V&A). It was pretty awesome. We got off at the train station at Knightsbridge, and we walked down a Public underground (its like an underground walkway thing) and the entrance was right off the walkway... it was pretty neat.. we just walked into all these marble statues! It was an awesome entrance!

This statue was awesome... it was HUGE first of all, and incredibly life like. Its entitled: Samson Slaying A Philistine. It was created in 1562 by Giovanni Bologna and was sent to Spain as a diplomatic gift in 1602

We walked around the museum for a couple of hours. It was filled with all kinds of thing. The displays ranged from Japanese and Chinese art, to a history of textiles, to an entire hallway dedicated to wrought iron-works, to a gallery of all things theatre. There was tons to see.

This was the glass sculpture at the main entrance... I wanted to take it home with me! LOVED it!

A Choir book from 1380. This book is part of a set that included songs that were to be sung on feast days of different saints. The detail was absolutely gorgeous on it!

An original sketch of one of the Phantom's costumes for Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Phantom of the Opera"

After the V&A, we headed down to Harrod's and wandered around there for a while; killing some time before we had to meet Christopher's friends. We had an awesome dinner at the Hard Rock and then headed home since I had to work the next day. We didn't take as many pictures as we normally do... it was cold and rainy that day so Louise (the Nikon) stayed in the bag most of the day.

As we were walking into King's Cross to get on our train home, we saw these guys... we were pretty stoked that we found not one, but 4 Waldo's!

London and York

On Friday Mom and I headed up to London. We started our day in Camden Town... its this funky market town and one of my favorite haunts in London. We had lunch and walked around the markets and then headed to down town London and to the Tower of London.

Once we were within the Fortress walls, we had the best view of the Tower Bridge!!!

The tower is most known for the white tower that's in the center of the whole fortress. It was built in 1078 by William the Conqueror.

Its so much more than just a tower though. There were tons of buildings and courtyards surrounding the tower, creating a powerful fortress.

The Queen's house and courtyard.

Back during Charles II's reign, his astronomer complained that all the ravens flying around were interfering with his view of the sky. Charles II ordered to have the birds destroyed, but then heard a prophecy that once there were no ravens at the tower, it and the kingdom would fall. So now, there are ravens held captive at the Tower to keep the prophecy from coming true.

The Tower has been used for many things over the years; Fortress, palace, prison, place of execution and torture, armory, the royal mint, observatory, and since 1303 its housed the Crown Jewels. We got to go in and see the crown jewels, but we weren't allowed to take pictures. It was amazing though! As you walk through, they had video of Queen Elizabeth's Coronation, so that was really neat to see. The crown jewels themselves are absolutely GORGEOUS! We also got to see swords and scepters, some of the gold plates, platters, and other things that were used in the Royal Banquets. It was so cool... I wish we could have taken pictures!

Inside the White Tower is the Armory. That was awesome to see. They had armor from lots of kings and their horses.

Henry VIII and his horses armor

A close up of Henry VIII's armor... I'm not saying anything other than this; either we now know why the man had 8 wives, or he had something he needed to compensate for...lol

We got to see some of the prisons and torture devices used.

Here's the Rack

After walking around the tower, we headed to the Adelphi Theatre to see the sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera"... "Love Never Dies"! It just opened in London in March, so we got to see it with its original cast! It was absolutely FANTASTIC!!!! We had our reservations, because, having to live up to Phantom was going to be difficult, but it was really, really good.

On Saturday we got up early and headed up north to York. The city was founded by the Roman's in 71AD and is now known as "England's Favorite City". And I can see why... its surrounded by huge stone walls and the River Ouse and is filled with cute, narrow streets, lots of shopping and great food, and lots of history.

Walking into the Walled city

We had a great time. We had lunch at a place called Betty's Tea Room and it was amazing! When we got there, there was a line out the door, but I'd read online it was worth the wait, and we only stood in line about 10 minutes or so before we were seated (and we were seated just in time... the sky opened up and it started raining right after we got inside). We had a great lunch and headed out into the cold and the rain and walked around the town. We made our way to the York Minster and were greeted with the amazing architecture of the church.

The building was huge and I couldn't get a good shot of the whole thing, so this is the front of it with the rose window there at the top.

The inside was just as beautiful

We walked up the 278 steps to the top of the tower and were greeted with this view. I was not feeling great, and therefore not in the best mood, so there aren't many pictures. It was rainy and cold, but really pretty. I dont know if it was worth the 278 steps though...lol. My knees were killing me by the time I made it down.

Leeds, Colchester, and a hedgehog.

Last Thursday morning, bright and early, I headed down to Gatwick Airport to pick Mom up. Hers was the first flight into the UK from Charlotte, so needless to say, it was a PACKED airplane and not that great of a flight. But, she made it here in one piece and after a day or two of relaxing, we've been out running around!

We went to Leeds Castle on Saturday and had a great time!

Leeds Castle was built in 1119 to replace the Saxon Manor Esledes. King Edward I and his wife, Queen Eleanor of Castile made it their home in 1278. It is a HUGE castle surrounded by a large moat. We went during their tulip festival, so every room in the castle, along with all the gardens were absolutely covered in tulips of all different shapes and sizes and colors! It was beautiful!

The Queen's Bedroom

GORGEOUS tulips!

Some were HUGE (that's Mom's hand)

Me and Christopher in the best room in the Castle... the library (although, it still doesn't hold a candle to the Library at the Biltmore House)

Walking the grounds of the castle was as amazing as the Castle itself. They had a HUGE aviary with TONS of different types of beautiful birds. We even saw Toucans!

Past the Aviary is a maze that was built in 1988. It took us a good twenty minutes or so to get through the maze. Christopher left Mom and I behind and found his way to the middle...

I was none too happy about him beating us up there...lol

Underneath the center of the maze is a grotto. It was super neat! It was constructed of all different shells and was gorgeous!

Close up of one of the shell statues

As we were leaving

Sunday night, our friends Liz and Tim came over for dinner and when we let Angus out that night, Liz came inside and told us she thought there was a hedgehog in the backyard. Sure enough, there was... and Angus was trying to play with it.

Christopher put some gloves on and picked the little guy up... and then he promptly tucked up into a tight little ball (the hedgehog, not Christopher).

Monday and Tuesday, Mom and I kind of took it easy and just hung around close by; shopping in Cambridge and Peterborough.

Wednesday we went and picked up Liz and headed down to Little Maplestead to find one of the 4 Round Churches that are in England and then to Colchester, a town near the coast, in Essex. We never managed to find Little Maplestead or the round church, so we headed on to Colchester. It wasn't that great, honestly. It was a little on the...ghetto side. We had a pretty good lunch at an Irish pub and then walked around the town a little bit.

Right outside an old church that they turned into their natural history museum. That sign says "Stay and Play"... inside the cemetery... creepy.

After we went into the Natural History museum, we found the Castle. Colchester Castle is the oldest Norman Castle in England. It originally was a Roman Temple built in honor of Claudius (Who conquered the early Celtic town, Iceni that is now Colchester). However, when the King of Iceni died, he left half of his will to his Queen, Boudica and the other half to the Romans, to play nice since they were invading and taking over most of Southern Britain.

The Roman's refused to give Boudica anything, they beat her up and raped her daughters, and then, as they say, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". Boudica led a huge revolt against the Romans. She and her people left nothing Roman alive in Iceni; no one was spared.. no women, children, elderly... no one. They eventually burned down the temple, as thousands of people were taking refuge inside and the fire raged so hot, you can still to this day, dig down so many meters in Colchester and find blackened, burned soil. Its estimated that nearly 30,000 people lost their lives in that battle. No one knows for sure, but legend has it, Queen Boudica, took poison to kill herself before she was to be captured by the Romans.

Around 1076, William the Conqueror ordered fortresses to be built on all the coasts, so Colchester Castle was built on top of the Roman ruins, since the foundation had already been laid.

In the 1600's it was used as a prison and was used to imprison and interrogate suspected witches!

The view from the top of the Castle

Statue outside of the Castle gates

The priory of Colchester. It was closed, so we didn't get to really see it or find out much about it. But it looks cool....lol

Skegness Beach!

After our not so great news this past week (see baby blog for details), our friends, Liz and Tim made us get out of the house on Saturday and we all headed down to the coast to Skegness Beach. Not having lived in San Diego for like a year and a half, we've been missing the beach quite a bit. An English beach is definitely not quite the same as an American beach, but it worked...lol.

This is a tree/bush thing that is growing in our yard. I dont know what it is, but the blossoms look almost like lotus blooms. Its GORGEOUS!

Walking out onto the beach!

Christopher and Tim played frisbee

The Skegness Pier

Um...Apparently there are donkey's on the beach?

Christopher and I on the pier

Tim and Christopher...lol

The tide by the end of the day!

Not much going on

Well, not much is really going on in the way of travel on this side of the pond. We need to get out and do something soon though, except my work schedule is packed with weekend work from now til the end of this month, I think.

England is trying to hard to officially shake off Winter and bring on the Spring, but a few days this past week seem to be holding it back. It even snowed further north this week! Ever since living in San Diego, I am not as great with cold weather as I used to be. Of course, I think the fact that our heat is constantly broken (ugh) doesn't help with that. Everything is starting to bloom and turn green though, so pictures will be coming soon!