TravelStream™ news feed for member tomodea on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/tomodea en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:29:22 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomodea/2/1218842100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomodea/2/1218842100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tomodea/2/1218842100/tpod.html Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:29:22 -0400 Trip to England and Ireland - 11 Jun 2008 to 15 Aug 2008.

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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

We landed in Singapore about 07:00 Singapore time and spent about an hour in the Business Class lounge until boarding our flight to Melbourne.  Again we mainly ignored the food and none of us were tempted by the beer on tap!  Michael caught his flight to Brisbane, which was scheduled to leave the same time as ours.  We had flat beds again and slept for some of the flight so we arrived home reasonably fresh to a pile of mail which we are working through and, mainly for Tom, four websites to upgrade and maintain!  The weather here in Melbourne is a few degrees cooler than it was in England and Ireland and it isn't raining as much.Our next trip will probably be a relatively short one to New Zealand for the Australasian Genealogy congress early in 2009.
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London, England, United Kingdom

Our last day in London!  We packed, had breakfast then waited for the driver to take us to Heathrow.  There were no traffic hold ups and we arrived at Heathrow, Terminal 3, in plenty of time.  After checking in we sat in Singapore airlines Business Class lounge (there is another lounge for First Class passengers) and tried to ignore all the appetising food available.  Tom logged on and downloaded some emails but there wasn't enough time to reply to them before we boarded.  We were again flying on an A380 and we find them very comfortable.  There are only 4 seats across so everyone is on an aisle, the configuration being 1-2-1.  Tom sat in the middle while Ruth and Michael had window seats.  We settled down to watch movies which we chose from a wide selection on offer.  Tom mainly watched comedy shows!  Among others, Ruth watched "The Visitor" which is currently showing in Melbourne.  She was surprised at the subject matter but impressed that it was being shown.  We also slept well on the flat beds.  They are so much better than anything else we have experienced on planes.  You really can lie flat (albeit not straight - we had to bend our legs) and there is a button for "do not disturb" so the attendants don't offer you refreshments or a meal if you want to stay sleeping.  Even so we enjoyed the food on the flights.
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London, England, United Kingdom

We used the train system to visit a friend in Dorking today, first catching the Tube from Green Park to Victoria (one stop) then the Southern train line to Dorking.  The train south was amazingly empty and we had a reasonably clean carriage to ourselves.  Inga met us at the station.  She had planned outdoors activities but the weather (cool/cold and often wet) precluded her original plans.  Instead we had a short walk around Dorking, lunch in a French restaurant with French waiters, then visited Standen, a National Trust property in East Grinstead, West Sussex where Inga works as a volunteer.  After a delightful dinner in Inga's flat we caught a train back into London, this time to Waterloo, then the tube to Bond St which is slightly closer to our hotel.  We walked home along some famous streets, Oxford St, Bond St and Brook Street, then around Grosvenor Square to our hotel.
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London, England, United Kingdom

We caught up with Michael who arrived yesterday.  The three of us walked to the British Museum to see a fascinating exhibition about Roman Emperor Hadrian who we learned was responsible for much more than a wall.  He also consolidated the Roman Empire of his time, visited many parts of the Empire, built the Pantheon and a huge villa (more a small town) in Tivoli near Rome.In the afternoon Tom and Ruth walked to the British Library to see an exhibition "Treasures" which is displaying amazing books and manuscripts, including one of the Library's 2 copies of the Magna Carta.  While the copy on display is in much poorer condition than the one at Salisbury Cathedral, the exhibit is very informative as it explains the background to document's creation.We then walked back to our hotel - a day with a lot of exercise.  We met a friend for a couple of drinks at our hotel then a light meal before a relatively early night.
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London, England, United Kingdom

Before leaving we admired Lester's "gong" and the photos of the Queen presenting his CBE to him.  He was recognised for his excellent work as a senior public servant.We drove from Redhill to London; a stressful drive but we managed it.  At our hotel we left our luggage, which seems to have managed to grow since we collected the car, then returned the car to Hertz and walked back to the hotel.  We settled in, and were a bit lazy before walking to the Royal Over-Seas League for a small function we had been invited to.  We knew a couple of the people there and we enjoyed meeting others.  The evening somehow flew so we ended up having quite a late night which we enjoyed immensely.
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Redhill, England, United Kingdom

We joyfully left our accommodation and headed north to Redhill, Surrey to visit Lester and Carol.  Ruth flatted with Lester when she lived in London and they have kept in touch ever since.We found smaller roads for our drive.  We stopped in Tunbridge Wells for a wander.  We visited the Pantiles, which is an historic area that used to be where the fashionable set "took the waters".  Now it is a pleasant area with lots of eateries and shops catering for tourists.We arrived in Redhill in time for a family lunch we were honoured to be invited to join.  The lunch was celebrating the birthdays of Max and Olivia, the eldest and youngest of the young adults of the family.  It also turned into a celebration of the recent engagement of Ed, the middle offspring.  We just had to help eat the roast turkey, with a delightful selection of vegetables, some of which were home grown and picked that morning.  We managed to eat some of the desserts, then afternoon tea and finally supper.  The weather was good enough to sit out in the garden and even to play a game of croquet.  All in all a wonderful, memorable day.
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Hailsham, England, United Kingdom

Today we drove to the coastal town of Hythe to catch the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch train from Hythe to Dungeness.  This is a small train that runs on a 15" gauge.  It was built by a millionaire train enthusiast partly for his own enjoyment, partly for tourists and also because he thought locals would benefit from it.  It has about 12 engines, runs several services every day and was well patronised today.The carriages are small too; reasonably comfortable once seated but we were amazed that some of the more "couch potato" tourists managed to get in through the low, narrow doors and swing around in the narrow space between the seats to sit down.We took a break at New Romney and walked to the High Street (the main street in many villages is called High) and along it to window shop and take photos (of course).  Back at the train station we had a light lunch that was even worse than usual before looking at the very good model train exhibition.  Tom was most impressed by the model train system with many trains running, lots of rolling stock and a detailed setting.  We continued on to Dungeness which is a desolate spot, especially when it is cold, raining and windy, as it was for us.  We decided against spending 40 minutes until the next train arrived looking at the new lighthouse, the old lighthouse and the gravel everywhere.  Instead we stayed on board and rode back to Hythe.On our return we stopped at Rye.  It is a pretty village.  Tom managed to take a photo of a rain drop - it fell on his lens as he was photographing a street scene.  For afternoon tea he had what was called Sussex tea, which came with Cornish clotted cream so we think it was really Cornish tea.Our host let us use his Internet connection so we were able to download our build up of emails and send a couple.  The rest will probably have to wait until we get home.
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Hailsham, England, United Kingdom

We drove east to Arundel Castle, which is huge, the biggest castle we've seen on this trip.  It is the home of the Duke of Norfolk and his family.  (Tom would like to know why the Duke of Norfolk lives in Sussex?)  We first explored the gardens which are well maintained - much better than most other gardens we have visited.  We then climbed a lot of stairs (the sign said 131) to and from the Keep then walked through those rooms that are open to the public.  Finally we had a light lunch and walked back to our car.  The rooms are very ornate with lots of family portraits.  The library was two storied, with heavily carved bookshelves with gilt grills protecting the books, and deep red furnishings.  We drove on to Battle to the Abbey and battlefield (the fight between William the Conqueror and the English King Harold in 1066).  First we asked the Tourist Information Centre to find us a room for two nights.  They had nothing available so we took the interactive tour of the battlefield and the Abbey ruins - more walking!  We are especially glad we live in this century when we think about life in earlier times.  We could hardly lift the English shields and can't imagine how they managed to use them for hours on end.  As we were about to leave the tourist lady stopped us to say she could get a room for us.  It sounded great; an old Country House set in 5 acres with bar and evening meals.  Just what we wanted, a nice, quiet, comfortable place to stay, where we could relax in front of the TV before dining in house, without having to go out for a meal.  We are now settled in - the only guests tonight - and we feel that the description of this place was misleading.  There are no evening meals, the room overlooks a busy main road and Tom will have to be very careful as the ceilings and especially the door frames are lower than him.  Some are even low enough to catch Ruth if she doesn't bend.  We are disappointed but hope our impressions improve.  Seeing we could not eat in we took our host's recommendation and ate at the reasonably close White Hart pub and had a very filling and pleasant dinner before an early night in front of the Television watching, through the static (another disappointment) the highlights of the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.  Of course many people would have been delighted at staying in an authentic (but how authentic was it?) 16th century building, but that was not what we thought we had booked into.
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Hayling Island, England, United Kingdom

A pleasant, sunny, warm day.  Jenny drove us to Romsey, where we visited the Abbey and had a light lunch before visiting Broadlands.  This was where Lord Mountbatten lived, though we didn't realise that it had come into the family through his wife inheriting it.  Now it only has 6000 acres and it, too, is a family home, with the eldest son of their elder daughter living there with his family.  It is well presented and actually looks like a (very large) home.  And we only saw a small part of it.  We were amused by the signs insisting that doors and gates be kept closed to keep the dogs in.  Apparently there is new puppy that is being trained.We had dinner in a nearby town, Fareham, with Stuart and his wife Jacqui.  Stuart worked with Tom at RACV before they returned to England a couple of years ago.  He now commutes to London travelling more than 4 hours each day.  It was good to catch up with them.
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Hayling Island, England, United Kingdom

This morning we went into Portsmouth to revisit the "Mary Rose".  This ship was the pride of Henry VIII's fleet for over 30 years until more guns were added to its upper deck.  The combination of their extra weight, more crew and a sudden wind squall is now thought to be the reason it sank.  In its museum we spoke to one of the volunteer divers.  He helped in the retrieval operations for the Mary Rose for 17 years, until 1982 when it was finally raised.  He even found one of the cannons.  One fact we thought interesting was that it could take 260 men to raise the anchor!After lunch, at which Roger and Jenny's daughter Rachel joined us, we went to Fishbourne to see the remains of a Roman Palace.  While Roman artefacts had been found over the years it wasn't until 1960 when a trench was being dug that the magnitude of what was there was realised.  Unfortunately a main road and several houses had already been built over what is now known to have been larger than Buckingham Palace.  The Romans are thought to have started on this site about 43 AD; initially timber structures for storing grain but later this huge structure, which would have been an important staging post for the Romans advance through southern England and it is believed to have been the residence of a local "client king".  It has incredible mosaic floors with different patterns.  The archaeologists can tell that the walls were also heavily decorated with paint and marble, though there are little of the walls remaining.Now you can see the mosaic floors, the underfloor heating channels, the remains of the bath house and the gardens, which have been laid out following the original layout. On our way home we stopped at another seaside village, Bosham, with its ancient church, the burial place of the daughter of one of the very early (pre Norman invasion in 1066) kings, King Canute.  Then home for another delicious home cooked dinner.
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