First up we want to wish you a happy new year!
2017 was a busy year for us, for those of you have been following our adventures we moved from living in Canada to the UK and later went back to Canada and adventured down to the US to visit some friends.
2018 has started with more adventure than last year and with a lot more adventure on the horizon.
So lets get into this blog, I (Mercedes) had a cousin come to visit from Australia who was on her way through to the Netherlands on a University study program. She arrived on the 31st of December and we had to have her at her university campus in Maastricht by the 4th of January.
So this adventure was to see what she could see of the good ol' motherland and then off to Europe.
My cousin landed in the morning at Heathrow airport and with no time to waste we came home, showered, had breakfast and headed off to Cambridge and then Oxford.
I know that we have done Cambridge and Oxford in previous blogs so I wont go into too much detail here. The only thing that I will mention is that my cousin decided that her trip would be documented through the eyes of a little rat so some of the photos have "Ratty" in them!
That night being the 31st of December meant that we needed to celebrate New Years Eve and if you're in England it goes to reason that one must celebrate New Years in London if possible! So in order to do something different and interesting, I had booked us in for a 1940's themed party in an underground-ish area made to look like a WWII air raid shelter/bunker!
Below: We're off to London in era-appropriate costumes!
Left: The party was fun, we managed to look like we knew how to dance, the music was live and swinging.Below: The drinks menu was in the form of of a rations card which I thought was pretty neat.
As the night went on the party got too full and we got too hot that we decided to leave the party and go off to find the fireworks and get onto the train before the after-midnight-rush started.
The next day we were off to see as much of London that we could see in one day.
Here I would like to note that my poor cousin was fairing better then I would with such a long journey + jet lag + a big day of Cambridge and Oxford + New Years celebrations. Me? I would have collapsed in an exhausted heap of tears by now but she was up and ready to go go with a little help from her old friend called coffee.
In one day we got to see:
London bridge
Tower bridge
Tower of London
Greenwich
Cutty Sark
Big Ben (under construction)
West Minster Abby
Buckingham Palace
King's Cross's Platform 9 3/4 (Harry Potter)
So here are the photos that we took along the way!
Below: The Cutty Sark - One of the last tea clippers to be built, and one of the fastest
It was so cold (not as cold as Canada) the wind was chilly and the cold was wet and cut right through you! So we decided to pop into the National Maritime Museum to warm up. While we were there we checked out a few of the displays.
Left: One of the many Figure heads (the statue on the front of a boat) that were on display at the museum
Above: Photos that were taken at Greenwich the left one showing time and the different units of measurements. The right photo is the line that marks 0 degrees Longitude aka Prime Meridian (the line the runs from the north pole to the south pole).
Above: The view down from Greenwich hill towards the Queen’s House.
Fun Fact: The Queens House was was commissioned by Anne of Denmark, James I’s wife, after he gave her the land as an apology for swearing at her in public (She’d accidentally shot his dog).
(http://www.visitgreenwich.org.uk/)
Above: The Westminster houses of parliament aka the Palace of Westminster
Fun Fact: The first royal palace was built on the site in the 11th century, and Westminster was the primary residence of the Kings of England until fire destroyed much of the complex in 1512. The palace is owned by the monarch in right of the Crown and for ceremonial purposes, retains its original status as a royal residence.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Westminster)
Below: Sarah and Rat in front of Westminster Abby
Fun Fact: The Abbey has been the coronation church since 1066 and is the final resting place of seventeen monarchs. Taken as a whole the tombs and memorials comprise the most significant single collection of monumental sculpture anywhere in the United Kingdom (http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history)
Below: Sarah and Rat in front of Buckingham palace
Above: Platform 9 3/4 at Kings cross station. This was the last stop of the day and thank goodness the line to take a photo here was about 1 hours wait.
Harry Potter
For those of you who don't know King’s Cross is where students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy catch the Hogwarts Express.
(https://www.kingscross.co.uk/harry-potters-platform-9-34)Here Sarah is from the house of Ravenclaw - This house vales intelligence, knowledge and wit. Me I guess I am from the house of Slytherin - This house values ambition, cunning and resourcefulness.
(http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Hogwarts_Houses)
This brings us to the end of Day 2 in London.
We decided that we would make a road trip of the rest of our time with Sarah and that we would take our old car across the English Channel on the ferry and see what we can see.
First on the road trip was Leeds Castle.
We were originally planning to go to Dover Castle, which if you have read any of our previous blogs would know that I think this is the 'Castle of all Castles' in England because its history is so diverse. The castle site is so large and well-kept, and it is very interactive and immersive with experiences. BUT alas it was closed, how dare they have holidays!?
We had a quick look to see if there were any other impressive castles around on our way to Dover to catch the ferry to Calais in France, and we found Leeds Castle which calls itself "the loveliest castle in the world".
As you can probably see from the photos it was a "typical" English winter day and later it rained (heavily!) so we did a bit of running between dry spots and jumping over puddles.
Leeds castle was probably most famously a gift from King Henry the VIII to his first wife Catherine of Aragon (A Spanish Princess). The castle has a massive history of fires and war and gifting from a King to his wife. The castle and the palace/chateau was demolished and rebuilt at least twice plus a lot of renovations since then.
Over all it was indeed an impressive castle, and the entry tickets are valid for the rest of the year so Kyran and I plan to revisit some time and do a more comprehensive blog in the summer when the gardens look more alive.
For now however there is a lot more of our adventure to get through so I will leave you with some photos from Leeds Castle and some of its current room furnishings.
Above: A portion of the Library, can you spot rat?
Above: Images looking into the courtyard of the Leeds Castle
Below: One of the Crests of one of the families that use to own the castle, the crest says "Manners Maketh Man" Which if you have seen the movies "Kings Men: Secret Service" there is the same quote used there.
Harry Hart: [Quoting William Horman] "Manners maketh man." Do you know what that means? Then let me teach you a lesson.
William Horman (c. 1440 – April 1535) was a headmaster at Eton and Winchester College in the early Tudor period of English history
He is best known for his Latin grammar textbook the Vulgaria..
So we arrived on the French side of the channel after a 90 minute ferry ride and headed down towards Paris as we had plans to see the Palace of Versailles in the morning. But seeing that this was the only time we had to see anything in Paris itself, we decided to do a little thing that I like to call "drive-by-tourism".
I guess it is here that I should mention that I was fortunate enough to have seen the majority of the touristy places in Paris when I was 17 with my family so on this occasion it was all about showing Kyran and Sarah as they had never seen any of it.
So I became designated driver and we set our Google maps to navigate us to see;
The Arch de Triumph
The Eiffel Tower
Notre dame
The Louvre
We did see all these things and all in the space of about three hours, from around 8pm to 11pm.
Funny Story: I don't know what stories have been told about driving on the roads in Paris but I would say had I not had a similar experience driving in Spain before I headed to Paris I would have (as I expect Kyran would have, had he had to drive) pulled up on the side of the road and thrown the keys on the ground in defeat.
Do you know how many lanes go around the Arch the Triumph? well I couldn't work it out! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe)
There were no lines, and 12 exits/avenues if you don't believe me here is a video!(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHlLSu6edEc).
The driving especially in that part of Paris is crazy!
In any case the long and the short of it is we went around that roundabout two or three times with Kyran and a mostly-blind girl (Sarah) screaming that they were not going to live past the next few moments.... and the rest of Paris was just as bad so I hope you enjoy the next few photos that Sarah and Kyran nearly died capturing... not me though! I knew what I was doing! :P
Above: The Arch de TriumphBelow: EiffelTower
Above : The Lourve
Below: Notre dame
That brings us to the end of our drive by tourism and the beginning of Day 4 - The Palace of Versailles.
Due to the size of this part of our adventure I have decided to split the blog into two parts - that way we can add a lot more photos and stories.
So it has now come time to turn over to the next chapter of the Findlater's + Sarah's (and Rat's!) Adventures.
Thanks for reading and I will see you in the next Findlater's travels blog post!
http://findlatertravels.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/versailles-belgium-netherlands-and.html
This adventure was made possible due to the generosity of one of our readers! We would like to take the time to thank you for your contributions and we hope that you enjoyed reading about our adventures as much as we enjoyed having them.
paypal.me/findlatertravels
Also if there is anything that is around where we are and you want us to see it/review it please do let us know! we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at:
findlatertravels at hotmail.com
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