Oxford and Cambridge Photos

In OxfordI just posted the last batch of photos from our trip to the UK this past August/September. These are from heading out of JFK, a brief stop at Cadbury World in Birmingham, a day trip to Oxford (Suzanne, Kyle and I) to visit a friend from my Marburg days, and my week alone in Cambridge.

We had planned to head to Cambridge for a day trip during our time in London. However, as Suzanne and I had just been in June and I had been going regularly, and was planning to continue to do so, we were considering Oxford instead, also only an hour by train from London. Over the summer, Armida, who is now in Oxford, and I happened to reconnect so we decided it would be the perfect time to visit with her and her family. We did a lot of walking through town and had a wonderful day. We especially liked the covered market and I had toad-in-the-hole for lunch. My dad decided to stay behind in London and visited Kensington Palace and Hyde Park, both of which we enjoyed.

King's College in CambridgeSuzanne, Kyle, and my dad flew home Sunday morning, leaving the apartment quite early. I headed up to Cambridge, an hour from King’s Cross station which was about a 20 minute tube ride from the apartment. The week was pretty much a typical week in the UK office. I did try to see more of town, venturing north of the river and hitting a number of new pubs. Normally, I tack on a night or two in London after the week in Cambridge, but as I had just been there for a full week, I left Cambridge on Saturday morning direct to Heathrow airport. It’s a bit of a trek, about two hours by train and tube, but you only need to connect once at King’s Cross as the tube from there, the Piccadilly line, goes right to the airport.

London Photos

Big Ben in LondonI just posted the (way too many) photos from the London part of our trip. We had a very nice week, doing a ton of walking and hitting most of the major sites. Monday it rained a bit, but we were at the Imperial War Museum most of the day, so it didn’t matter so much. In the course of the week, we also walked around Westminster, seeing Big Ben, did the Churchill War Rooms, the Science Museum, a bit of the National Gallery, the Tower of London, Borough Market, St. Paul’s Cathedral, a boat ride to Greenwich, the National Maritime Museum, the British Museum, and the Museum of London. My dad and I also did Westminster Abbey Saturday morning. Suzanne, Kyle and I did a day trip to Oxford to visit a friend from Marburg and her family while my dad visited Kensington Palace and Hyde Park. It was a pretty full trip. We rented a the very nice Cheniston Gardens apartment in right near, less than five minutes walk from, the High Street Kensington Tube stop from Ivy Lettings. This was only a one bedroom as we had booked before my dad decided to join us. He stayed a few minutes walk away at the London Lodge Hotel.
Tower of London while cruising down the Thames in London

Wales Photos

Caernarfon CastleI just posted (lots of) photos from Wales as the first batch our trip to the UK in August/September. We had a great time and really enjoyed Wales. The weather was even pretty decent aside from one day. This was our first full day there so we were taking it easy and only visiting Caernarfon Castle anyway. We saw quite a bit during the week including Caernarfon, Conwy, Beaumaris, and Harlech castles, did some hiking, and visiting the Llechwald Slate Mine and Sygun Copper Mine. My dad and I also spent a morning at Llechwald doing an underground Outward Bound-ish/ziplining course which was very cool. All told, we (I) did about 700 miles of driving. Driving a stick on the left side of the road wasn’t too bad, but the roads were really narrow so it was pretty stressful until I started getting used to it (maybe Wednesday). The first day, driving several hours from Manchester after our overnight flight, was a bit tough. We rented the great Gilfach-Y-Nant cottage from Dioni in Beddgelert, a small village in southwest Snowdonia and were really happy with the cottage itself and the town.

View of Snowdon Horseshoe

I still have to prune and process London and the others but hope to have at least some up next week.