{"id":2287,"date":"2021-07-12T20:23:01","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T20:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/?p=2287"},"modified":"2021-07-13T07:48:09","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T07:48:09","slug":"last-bit-of-london-and-moving-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/12\/last-bit-of-london-and-moving-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Bit of London and Moving On"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ah, a month to truly explore London has been absolutely wonderful. And there is so much we didn’t get to. It would take years to feel like you have been to every corner of this city! I have immense gratitude that we have had the time in that incredible place. However, the piggy bank seems to have rapidly emptied – <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our final weekend fell over Father’s Day (at least it was in the US) so I wanted it to be special. We enjoyed Sunday brunch at The Ivy in Kensington. While they do have a dress code (mostly just don’t wear athletic gear) it was not stuffy at all and the food was amazing! The atmosphere was very relaxed and the restaurant was beautiful. Nicest freaking restaurant bathroom I think I’ve ever been in! Didn’t take photos though – I was a bit concerned that might be construed as weird. We had a few errands to run over in the Piccadilly Circus area, so we combined that with a nice walk before making our way over to Rotherhithe Village – definitely an area off the normal tourist path! Rotherhithe you may ask? Why? There is always a reason and, as usual, it is an historical one. We were having an early dinner at the Mayflower Pub. Granted, when it opened – around 1550 – it wasn’t called the Mayflower then, it was…ahem…The Spread Eagle. In July of 1620 a ship departed from its mooring in Rotherhithe, making its way to Southampton, on to Plymouth and from there across the Atlantic Ocean where they stubbed their little toe on a pebble called Plymouth Rock (still gets my vote for biggest disappointment in a historical site). Yep, this is where the Mayflower began its voyage and Captain Christopher Jones was from Rotherhithe. The pub is likely the last place the crew and passengers were before boarding the ship. Pretty cool, huh? If you have the documentation you can sign their book of Mayflower descendants. The Husband is a descendent but lacks the proof, so we simply enjoyed being there. Excellent pub too, definitely worth the trek. Once we were done with dinner we headed to the West End of London as we were fortunate enough to be going to a play. Most of the theatre productions weren’t on until after we left (there were several we would have liked to see), but Six was playing. Oh man…a comedic musical about Henry VIII’s six wives – perfect! It was utterly brilliant. In fact we enjoyed it so much we bought the soundtrack\ud83d\ude01<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You never know what you will find in Piccadilly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fun walkway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Mayflower Inn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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One of the tables inside<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The dock where the Mayflower was moored was here<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Lyric Theatre in London’s West End<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Six – great fun!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just down the road from our flat was St. Mary’s Hospital – I might have mentioned this in an earlier post. You know, you can walk by something daily and then, all of a sudden, you notice a detail that you can’t believe that you have missed! That something missed was one of London’s famous blue plaques that state someone or something famous or historical is associated with that location. And it only detailed one of the most significant events in modern history…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) discovered PENICILLIN in the second story room above this plaque<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The middle window is the second story <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, so now I wonder what else I have missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had two places to go this last week, one was for me, one was for the Husband. First off, The British Library Treasures Collection. Fortunately, the British government has been pretty good keeping important documents – and the structures where they were kept have not burned down, which is rather an impressive feat. The one issue with sharing this visit with others is the items don’t always photograph well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stage designs for the play Pluto’s Paradise – Leonardo Da Vinci<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Lindisfarne Gospels – see below note for the full explanation. And file this away under interesting information as we are going to Lindisfarne at a later date.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sucky photo – sorry. One of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta. Two are held by the British Library, this one and the one on display at the St Thomas a Becket exhibit at the British Museum that we saw earlier.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Study of musculature by Michelangelo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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St Cuthbert Gospel. See below image for more information. And when they say it has lain with his body for 400 years they meant that literally – it was buried with him. We will revisit St Cuthbert at a later date too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The place we went at the Husband’s request was to the Museum of Natural History. The collection began in the 1700s as curiosities, later coming together as a serious museum in the mid 1800s. The main building is from 1880 and is quite beautiful. It has, of course, been added on to since then! The paleontology department is not a strong section – understandable as shipping massive dinosaur skeletons to England would not have been easy! There are a few species of dinosaurs that lived in the British Isles so they are represented. Honestly, it’s their collection of animals and wildlife that are astounding. They no longer are adding to this collection, so some of the specimens are nearing 200 years old. There is even a dodo bird! The entrance to the earth sciences section is dramatic and quite impressive!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Skeleton of a blue whale suspended over the Great Hall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A closer view of the grand staircase<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The original entrance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Escalator to the earth science section. Really cool!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I found a boo boo. The words talk about a volcano in Colombia…the pictures are from when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980! I did report the error – whether they fix it or not, someone let me know?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Dude, that’s Mars!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And this brings our time in London to a close. There’s thousands more photos that I didn’t share (these posts are long enough!) – so much to see! Thank you London and thank you to my wonderful Husband for being okay with me spending a ridiculous amount of money for this experience\ud83d\ude0a\ud83d\ude0e<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if this post isn’t long enough, because I am still two weeks behind in sharing…we took 3 days to make an 8 hour drive to get to our next landing spot – here’s some of the highlights. They each really deserve their own post but we just did not spend enough time in the locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To sum up the trip: car to Heathrow T5 to pick up rental (go figure, that was actually the cheapest option!), drive to Oxford -walking tour of a little bit of the University (we need at least three days to properly see Oxford!), drive towards the upper corner of the Cotswolds – need way more time here! – night at the White Hart Royal Hotel. Next day drive Stratford Upon Avon – which we surprisingly loved! – then to Wrexham since I couldn’t find a room in Chester (our destination for the next day). The plus of this is Wrexham is actually in Wales\ud83d\ude01 Another location to add to my Places Been app! Spent some time in Chester the next day before the last stretch of driving. And the final third of that drive was on 4 digit roads. A brief explanation of that: one or two digit roads are major roads (M6, A66), three digit roads are still pretty decent but are definitely more rural. Four digit roads are the ones that might be two lanes of traffic but that doesn’t mean that two cars can comfortably pass each other. And there might be stone walls on either side of the road. And that RV or large delivery truck might be partially in your lane. And there are multiple sharp corners, blind everythings, and general opportunities for using four letter words. Fun times. We finally reached our final destination of Cleator Moor, a very small village between the north western edge of the Lake District and the Irish Sea. This is home for the next 4 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ugh. Oxford is a blur…I can’t remember exactly what this building is. It’s a super cool building at Oxford University.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Oxford University is made up of more than 30 different colleges. The structure of Oxford (and that other university in England that starts with a C. I promised I wouldn’t mention both names in the same post) is completely unlike any other university that I know of. Each college is an individual entity – rooms, dining hall, small group teaching, socializing. The students attend large lectures with students from other colleges at different points during the school week<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is funnily enough called New College. Which it was. In 1379.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Christ Church College<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This I do remember!! This is the entrance to All Souls College<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Radcliffe Camera (using the Latin meaning of “room”)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Part of the Bodleian Library. Oh man…next time I have got to get in there!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A view of the Cotswolds. I could lose myself in this area for a few weeks…pulled into a ditch so we could get this photo!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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White Hart Royal Hotel in Moreton on Marsh. Really, really cool hotel. It has royal in the name because King Charles I stayed here twice. And didn’t pay his bill.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This is another one of those “wow, whoa, wait…what??”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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So, this. Which excited the Husband to no end.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next stop was to pay my respects to Master Shakespeare – YAY!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Holy Trinity Church in Stratford Upon Avon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The grave of William Shakespeare <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The River Avon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A very old building in Stratford. The date on it says 1483.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Stratford is full of genuinely old buildings. Obviously the street is a new addition (they probably removed an entire street worth of buildings to make that nice, wide street).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I think we will need to stay at the Hotel Mercure next time we come to Stratford. What a cool, old building!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Epic fail on focusing…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And, the last bit. Congratulations if you made it this far! We spent a few hours in Chester – another cathedral town and intact medieval city…with the added bonus of still having it’s Roman walls!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Most, if not all, of the Roman city walls are walkable!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A multi talented street performer!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Chester Cathedral did have some very cool bits<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Nave<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I liked the contrast here. Walls from the 10th century looking through to an elevator!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Some of the cool early medieval bits<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This is one of the best fundraisers ever! You could buy a Lego and add it to this replica of the cathedral. I was super bummed that there was no volunteer there for us to participate!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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And then there was this…a medieval chapel that is now a Superdrug. Wrong on so many levels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We are now in Cleator Moor and I am going to get caught up. I hope… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, a month to truly explore London has been absolutely wonderful. And there is so much we didn’t get to. It would take years to feel like you have been to every corner of this city! I have immense gratitude that we have had the time in that incredible place. However, the piggy bank seems … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Last Bit of London and Moving On”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2287"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2354,"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287\/revisions\/2354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wenomadwehappy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}