Bath and beyond

"Write!", said I.

"But I don't want to", said that pesky little voice inside my head.

"Write, I say!", I insisted.

"But..."

"No buts! You can't go outside because of the rain and you've been procrastinating all day long, so now use your time to do something useful and write!".

"Ok...", the voice gave up. For now.

So Bath.

What can I say about Bath? Well, if I had to sum it up with a word it would be.. uh... I hate this idiom, I can never describe anything in a word. Well, a few words then - Bath is a really nice city and a great homebase for day trips. Yeah, that sounds alright.

By itself, Bath is an alright city. It has some interesting history (which I'll get to later. yay.), and a bit of nice architecture, but you can really see it all in one day. What makes Bath a great place to stay in for more than a couple of days is its proximity to lots of cool places. I spent 3 full days in Bath and its surroundings, and I could have probably found something to do with another day or two, if I had to.

The river Avon in Bath

(Warining - Lots of history ahead. If you're not interested, skip this paragraph)

The history of Bath is a long one. It dates back to the Romans, which is pretty much as far back as any historic place in Britain can be (that is not to say that there wasn't anything in Britain before the Romans, it's just that besides some stone circles, almost nothing is left of the civilization that lived there before them).

After the roman conquest of Britannia under Emperor Claudius, the local community probably wanted some of the luxuries they had in Rome. After all, they were stuck in a backwater colony on the edge of the world, they might as well suffer it while soaking in a nice bath. So, after accidentally finding a warm water spring in about 60 AD, they started building a spa and shrine complex on the spot. Being anything but monotheistic at that time, they decided to adopt the local goddess, Sulis, and dedicated the shrine to the newly-made-up goddess Sulis-Minerva (because the Romans just couldn't stand not seeing a proper Roman name somewhere in the title). The bath complex was built gradually and reached its greatest extent somewhere in the 3rd century AD.

People from all over the colony would stop on their way to Londinium in the growing town caled Auqea Sulis to relax and pray at the Sulis-Minerva shrine, often throwing gifts to the goddess to the boiling waters.

After the Romans withdrew from Britannia in the 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair, and were eventually more or less forgotten. The spring, however, was not.

The great pool of the Roman baths. Basically a giant pot of green soup

In the 12th century another bath was built on the spring (and of course the essential cathedral, which was later turned into a much smaller abbey), and in the 16th century, another. Although, these were much smaller than the Roman complex, and the town remained in its anonymity.

Then, unexpectedly, the town saw a short period of splendor in the Georgian era (18th century-ish, called the Georgian era after the three consecutive kings called George - George I, George II and George III. As a side note - George III was the only one who spoke English of the three, the other two spoke only German. He was also, literally, insane, and it was during his reign that Great Britain lost the American Colonies) when a lot of very rich and very powerful people started moving into the city. During that time, Bath was somewhat like our Hollywood - the center of attention, setting all the trends, a place to rub shoulders with who's who. Around that time, Jane Austen moved to Bath as well, and she used Bath as the backdrop in some of her novels.

The Roman Baths were then rediscovered (by accident of course) in the 18th century, but the town lost its place as the trend-setting center of the empire in the Victorian Era. Thanks to the, now famous, Roman Baths though, it remained as a tourist town, and wasn't left to die out like it was in the past. In fact, in 1987, the town was announced as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Bath Abbey. But seriously who comes to a place called *Bath* to see a church?

Ok, enough history for now. What did I actually do in Bath? Well, like I said there's not a lot  to see, but you can still spend a day there. The town itself is very pretty. The Georgian architecture, in which Bath is famous for, is very impressive in its distinct symmetry, the Roman Baths are, of course, super interesting, and the abbey isn't that bad either (though it lacks the wow effect I need from a church to actually draw my interest).

I started my day with a free walking tour. Our guide was a retired history teacher, who apparently hasn't had enough of teaching. He focused mainly on the Georgian aspects of the city, telling us about all the famous people who lived there, showing us some nice examples of Georgian architecture, and explaining what the hell is up with all the obelisks (Beau Nash, the Master of Ceremonies in Bath, and a leader of fashion, swore that for each member of a royal family he'd get to visit the city, he would erect a obelisk. One of them, for example, was erected to commemorate the arrival of William, Prince of Orange, which is a member of the Dutch royal family).

Prince of Orange Obelisk. Something like a large phallic trophy

Later I visited the Roman Baths, which are really in the center of the city, next to the Abbey and the central square. It's actually a very well thought tourist attraction, with a very good audio guide, and a very good restoration job. Overall, it was a very nice experience. Afterwards I bought a sandwich and just sat in the main square. There are actually 2 central squares, and in both of which there's always a street artist. Apparently, they get time slots from the city council to perform, and they were all pretty good.

Onward! 

The next day was a bit tricky. I knew I wanted to get to a place called Avebury, but I also knew that it's near impossible, or at least very inconvenient, to get there by public transport. So I asked around, and found that there's a tour company that does a guided tour in Avebury and a bunch of other little villages in the area. At first, I wasn't enthusiastic about it at all. You see, generally I hate guided tours. If I have a couple of days to tour a city on my own, then I think it's ok, because they give you a certain perspective which you can than expand on your own, if you wish, but if the only way you can see a place is with a guided tour, I always feel like I'm being led like a sheep. Look at this, take a picture of that, and a whole group of tourists looking at the same things, taking pictures of the same things, ignoring the little things which make historical places interesting. I hate it. But as I read reviews of this particular company, I actually got excited. everyone said the tours are excellent and that the guides were informative and knowledgeable, and besides, I didn't really have another option, and while Avebury seemed pretty cool, I didn't think I could spend an entire day there, so the extra villages were actually a big plus. So eventually I went for it.

I'm not sure if it was the right call or not.

It wasn't bad. It wasn't really good either. One of the things I got excited about was the possibility of hea ring a great story. Something that will enrich my experience and make me imagine stuff. Instead what I got was a very quiet tour. In a way, I should have been happy with it, because, as I said, I hate tour guides that point and tell you what to look at. This guide was more like a driver, taking as around, explaining a bit and then giving us time to look around for ourselves. But somehow that disappointing me.

So where did we actually go?

The first village we visited was Castle Combe. It's a very small village, just one street, in the Cotswolds (a rural region between Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon). It's a place stuck in time. It kind of looks like it would fit anywhere in history before the industrial revolution, and in fact, a lot of movie studios film there (among the movies that were filmed there - Warhorse and Stardust). It has a certain relaxed and very old fashioned atmosphere to it. It's a pretty village, but not very exciting

Castle Combe. Boring but beautiful

.

After that we drove to another vilage called Lacock. Lacock was a bit more lively than Castle Combe. It's more of a living community, with cars and shops and people walking around, but it's still a very small (even though it was bigger than Castle Combe) and old-fashioned village. We had lunch there, and then continued to the main course - Avebury.

Avebury Stone Circle. Woohoo, 4 intact stones in a row!

Now, I'm pretty sure none of you have heard about Avebury, and you probably don't understand why I was so excited about this place. Well, let me explain it to you this way - You know how millions of people visit Stonehenge each year, but never get to actually touch the stones or see them up close? Well, I got to touch as many stones as I wanted in Avebury.

Avebury is actually the largest stone circle in Europe. It's so big, in fact, that nowadays there's a small village in the center of it (main source of income? you guessed it, tourism). While there aren't any "Gateways" like in Stonehenge, the site is actually older than Stonehenge. Also, because it's much less popular, there are no ropes or fences or anything blocking you from touching the stones. You can walk between them and imagine the people who built them, walking like you are in their shadow, praying to their unknown gods.

Sadly, there was a slight... uh... let's call it "misunderstanding" in the 17th century. As I previously said, 17th century England was a very VERY bad place to live in. One of the reasons for that is the rise of the Puritans. The Puritans were a sect of Protestant Christianity, and they were very serious about... well... everything. They hated everything catholic, going so far as to smash hundreds of years old relics, and destroying churches, cathedrals and abbeys, but even more so they hated anything even remotely pagan. The Avebury stone circle was a very obvious pagan site. You see where I'm going here, right?

Luckily, they didn't destroy all the stones and made them into boring houses, just a large number of them. Still, many of the stones remain, and it's a very impressive place to visit.

Of course, when we got there it started raining.

Well Lior, you're saying, that's England for you. It rains. What were you expecting? You're right, of course, but you can still understand that it kind of sucks to go all the way to see those amazing stones just to be forced to retreat to the nearest gift shop after only a couple of minutes of wandering around (Ah yes, it's worth mentioning that by that point I had, of course, lost my umbrella). I still managed to get some very nice photos and hang around with some sheep and very ancient stones. Very cool.

Touching the stone. To all of you who went to Stonehenge - HAHAHAHA

On my last day in Bath I decided to do my own tour. I took a bus to a village called Wells and from there another bus to Glastonbury.

Now, Glastonbury was one of those place I knew beforehand I just can't miss. And it was really worth the trip.

This place is swimming in a pool of history. It has so much history it doesn't know what to do with all the history. It is probably the history-est place I've been to. Nah, I'm exaggerating of course, but still, lots of history.

According to legend, Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus's uncle, came here after the crucifixion with a cup (ahem ahem) filled with Jesus' blood (AHEM AHEM holy grail AHEM AHEM). When he arrived, he is said to have struck his staff to the ground and a thorn tree grew from the place the staff touched the ground. The original tree was, of course, cut down and burned in the 17th century, but was replanted later in the same place. Not as cool, though. Damn you 17th century! Damn you!

The Holy Thorn. It's just a tree really.

Glastonbury is also mentioned in the Arthurian legends as the misty Isle of Avalon, the place where King Arthur was buried.

Coincidentally, when in the 12th century the Glastonbury Abbey, which was until then the most powerful abbey in England, started losing its power in favor of the newly founded Westminster Abbey, a monk "accidentally" discovered the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere buried, very conveniently, in the Abbey's graveyard. The grave was then dug, and the remains were moved to a larger and more spectacular black marble grave which stood in the middle of the abbey's nave. That is, until Henry VIII.

For history lovers like me Henry VIII is the devil. You see, when he decided to divorce his first wife, it wasn't enough for him to make his own religion, he had to abolish any remnant of the old catholic belief. And by abolish I mean destroy, burn, and topple. Glastonbury Abbey was no exception. In fact, being one of the richest and most powerful abbeys in the country, its abbot tried to resist the reformation, but ended up hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor. The magnificent abbey was burned and demolished, King Arthur's supposed grave along with it. Today, only a few walls remain of the once magnificent building. Such a shame.

The remains of Glastonbury Abbey. No joke here. I mean, look at it, it's such a serious place

What remains of King Arthur's grave. Not so sad when you realize it was all just a scam, but still, it was a historic scam

Walking around the abbey, I couldn't help but feel the power of the place. It has a certain charisma, a certain drama in the air. You can look at the stones and almost feel their story. You can feel the emotions - the anger, the sadness, the pain, of the people who used to worship here. You can smell the history in the air. It's very hard to explain, but this place really brings the dead to life.

It's very green today. It's something like a park, in fact. With lots of grass and flowers, and a small natural reservation. People have picnics underneath the massive ruins, or just sit around on benches reading books. But I could still see it. See it as it once was. See the walls, and towers and columns. See the monks praying, and eating and sleeping. See the black marble tomb in the nave. Not a lot of places give you this kind of experience. I tried to capture something of this power in my photos, but I don't think I really got the essence of it. I guess I'm just not a good enough photographer for it.

This one sort of gets it? no? maybe a little bit?

Anyway, today, Glastonbury is a very weird town. Being a center a folklore and mythology for more than a millennia has also, as a by product, made it a center of attraction for a certain kind of people. People who believe in fairies and lay-lines and witches and magic. Not the Harry Potter kind, the original magic stuff. With druids and pagan ceremonies and tree worshiping and so on. So the town has a lot of magic books stores. You can buy all sorts of crystals, potions, magic spells and, of course, vegan food there. It's actually kind of funny. Personally, I just ate a cheeseburger. Much better than some green slime.

Another center of attraction in Glastonbury is the famous Tor. Tor is just another word for a hill. People tend to think that the word refers to the tower that stands on top of the hill, but it's not. The tower is actually the remains of St Michael's church which used to stand on top of the hill. The Tor itself is also associated with all kinds of mythological stories and is to this day a center of "spiritual activity" (if that's what you call a group of hippies dancing in circles, banging on drums and screaming weird things like "I AM THE DRAGON"). In fact, the church was built there to rid the place of its pagan association, St. Michael being the warrior saint and is often used to "fight off" paganism. 

For me the main attraction in the Tor, besides its sheer coolness, is the magnificent views. I needed to brave through a tough ascent (well, tough for me), but once I got to the top, there's practically nothing (besides the huge tower of course) to block the view. It's really something to behold. It is also an extremely photogenic place, so you're going to have to suffer through several photos of it, instead of just one.

Glastonbury Tor. Like I said, extremely photogenic

The tower isn't bad either

 And the view, of course

It has some weird friends though

and some furry ones too

That was my day in Glastonbury. From there I traveled back to Wells, and went to see its cathedral. Now, the fact that it has a cathedral by itself is very interesting. Cathedrals is where the seat of the bishop is. That makes cathedral cities the main regional city. Wells, however, is not even a city. It's tiny. The cathedral, nevertheless, is very impressive, and unlike Bath Abbey, it does have the wow effect. Just look at these photos, how can you not look at it and say "wow...".

 Wells Cathedral on the outside. Everyone together now...

Well Cathedral on the inside. Wow...

By the way, while it looks kind of modern, the double arch thing is actually medieval. It was their solution to a sinking tower problem. Apparently, Glastonbury Abbey used to have one of those as well.

That's it for my time in Bath. Next time I'll write about Oxford.

Untill then, stay cool and don't forget to mind the gap,

Lior.


P.S You know how I say I don't write often because it takes a lot of time. Well, FYI, this post took me 4 hours to write. So, basically, my entire day. 

Yeah, I know, I suck. Well, you have no idea how time consuming writing this blog can be, and while it's fun to write down all my experiences, it's also fun to sleep, so it's becoming very hard to find the time to write. But anyway, I'll do my best, even though London was so long ago, it almost seems like an entirely different trip, I'm not sure I remember everything. Maybe I'll just summarize the best parts and move on. We'll see.

I'll start with something different. Some people have asked me what Viadera means. Well, from Wikipedia -"The viadera was a lyric genre of Catalan and Occitan literature invented by the troubadours. It was a dance song devised to lighten the burden of a long voyage or to enliven the trip".

I thought it was kind of cool and appropriate, hence the name of the blog.

Ok, so back to London. I'll just make a list of the best things, hopefully it'll be shorter than a full description.

1. The City of London.

Wait, what? Do you mean ALL of London? No, I do not. The City is actually just a quarter inside the bigger London. It has it's own mayor and council, but it's also a part of London. It's also the oldest part of the city. In fact, through all of history, when people talked about London, this is what they meant. This is where Shakespeare wrote all of his plays, where Charles Dickens drank beer in dark smokey pubs and where William Wallace was hanged, drawn and quartered (if you're interested, here's a very short video explaining why the hell there's a City of London inside the City of London - The (Secret) City of London, Part 1: History there's also one about the government of the City of London, but I think it's a bit less interesting).

This marker signifies the beginning of The City. If the queen wants to cross this marker, she needs to ask permission from the Lord Mayor

The thing about The City is that it's actually not that old. 

The 17th century was apparently a very bad time to live in England, and in London in particular. after the civil war, Bubonic Plague struck the city. In 1666 a fire started in a bakery, and then it continued to burn for 3 days, destroying most of the city. It was actually a pretty good thing in a way, since only 9 people died in the fire itself, and it cleaned the city from the Plague.

Later, the city was rebuilt entirely, using more or less the same city plan, so the streets are still narrow and medieval in spirit, even though the buildings are all built of concrete today, instead of wood. Today, The City is the commercial center of London. Most large banks have their headquarters here, and in fact only about 7000 people actually live here. During the day, though, The City is full of lawyers, newspaper reporters, and bankers.

Why is it cool? well, even though it's not that old, it still has the spirit of medieval London. And it is still the same city that so many poets and authors lived in in the 18th, 19th and 20th century. It is pretty cool indeed.

A street in The City. Sort of medieval-ish.

2. St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's was always an important church. Ever since it was built in the 8th century, it has been the central church of London. The current building, however, is, of course, not that old. As I said earlier, the entire city went up in flames in 1666, St. Paul's included. After the fire a very important architect called Christopher Wren was hired to rebuild the cathedral. Wren was a very well known Architect and Astronomer at that time (actually, they say some of his astronomical research was later used by Newton as a basis for his theories), and St. Paul's is his greatest and most well known work. It is also one of the only Cathedrals in the world that the architect who designed them was alive at the time they were completed.

It is an incredibly impressive building. The best part, though, isn't the interior, even though it is indeed magnificent (especially the dome, which is really a masterpiece), but the view from the top.

If you want, you can ascend up the dome of the cathedral, step out into a small balcony and watch the jaw dropping view.

Being in a very very bad shape, you can understand why I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about going up 500 and something steps, but I did it, and I'm glad I did.

St. Paul's Cathedral. It's really kind of hard to take a picture of all of it

The view from the top of St. Paul

(Here's an anecdote - I got to the cathedral kind of late, so by the time I got up the stairs and down again, they were already preparing the evening service - a choral Evensong, so some parts of the cathedral was closed and they took away my audio guide. I had to sit and wait for the service to begin, Which I did. I found a seat in the first row, so I can hear the choir better, and right in front of me there were two priests whose jobs were to stop tourists from going any further into the church. One of those priests had, unfortunately, the worst lisp I had ever heard. Such an awful job for her, I actually felt bad for her. She had to stand there and repeatedly say: "Are you here for the therviceeeee?". It was both funny and sad in the same time).

3. A Shakespeare play in The Globe.

I tried reading Hamlet once. I didn't really understand much. But when I saw that a ticket to a play costs only 5 pounds (!) I said, "what the hell", and went for it.

Now, The Globe is actually quite an historic building. The current building is a reconstruction of the original Globe, which stood in the same place and was the theater in which most of Shakespeare's plays were presented. 

The play I went to see was called Titus Andronicus. Not exactly Shakespeare's most well known work, and I had to stand for the entire 3 hours of the play, and I only understood about 40% of what was being said. But it only cost 5 pounds! And it was amazing. The production was very professional, the actors were amazing, and the whole atmosphere was so authentic, I didn't even notice my aching feet and I actually understood all of the plot.

The Globe. This is an illegal picture. I wasn't supposed to take pictures, apparently

4. Regent's Canal and Regent's Park.

It was one of those things that if I was with someone else I would probably hate, but since I was alone I actually liked. When I'm travelling, I tend to be optimistic and try to look at the bright side of things. Usually, if I'm with other people, they balance me out, and listening to them complaining makes me doubt my own impressions.

It was a very long walk. I took the Tube to a place called Little Venice. I had a lot of time, and I've already seen everything I wanted to see in London, so I decided to check it out. Saying it was underwhelming is somewhat an understatement. There was a nice canal going through the streets. and some boats, but not much more than that. It wasn't exceptionally pretty or interesting. Having nothing else to do, I decided to keep walking along it. I walked and walked and walked.

After a while, the canal bends away from the road and I was forced to get off the street to follow it. It was surrounded by somewhat old and neglected neighborhoods, but I thought it was peaceful and even beautiful in a way. I kept walking and after crossing under a graffiti covered bridge, the old neighborhoods suddenly became huge mansions. It was a bit unexpected.

A huge mansion. Why didn't those guys think about it?

After yet more walking, the canal poured into a small lake in Regent's Park. A nice little park, with lots of flowers and nice places to sit, which would have been nice after so much walking if it wasn't raining.

Of course, being the philosophical dude that I am, I thought it was a journey. A lesson in patience and seeing beauty in different things. Again, if I was with other people, I would probably have hated it.

By the way, close to Regent's Park, there's another small park called Primrose Hill, which is the highest hill in London. It's nice because if you can force yourself to climb it, there's a very nice view. As I said, by then it was raining quite badly so I couldn't really stay for long.

5. Windsor Castle.

While not actually in London, it is a very common day-trip from London, since it's only about an hour away by train.

It was a very nice day. No rain, no clouds, it wasn't so cold. A perfect day for exploring. The castle itself was very impressive, as castles should be. Of course, it has lots of history. It was build by William The Conqueror (like a lot of castles in England), and is still used as a Royal residence to this day, making it the oldest castle in the world that is still in use.

The Round Tower of Windsor Castle. The flag means that the Queen was there

The coolest part was St George's Chapel. This needs a bit of explaining. That morning I also visited Westminster Abbey. As you can see, it's not part of this Best Of... list. The reason for that is that for the money it cost, they Abbey was a bit of a disappointment for me. Sure, it's one of the most history-filled buildings in the world. Kings, queens, world class scientists, authors and poets are buried there. The problem is that there are just too many graves, too many tombstones, too many memorials, too many plaques. It feels like you can't breath in there, every centimeter of the floor and walls is covered with some grave.

Since it was one of the places I wanted to visit the most, I was a bit depressed about this. But then I went to Windsor, and St. George's was all I wanted from Westminster and didn't get.

It's a 15th century chapel, and the home church of the order of the Knights of the Garter, which is the second most prestigious order in Britain, and also the oldest. 

The architecture is amazing. The fan vaulting is incredible and you certainly get a sort of feeling of awe walking in. And then there's the Quire.

For those of you who don't really know anything about church architecture, the Quire (also called simply the Choir in catholic churches) is the part of the church in which the choir and clergy sit during services. The thing about St George's Quire is that it's the heart of the Knights of the Garter order. The banners of all the current members of the order are hanged on the walls (among which, the imperial flag of japan, indicating that the Emperor of Japan is a Knight of the Garter), above crowned helmets and half drawn swords, signifying that the knight is prepared to defend his queen.

Once a member of the order die, another is elected to replace him, but the emblem of the deceased isn't removed from the chapel. Instead, they make a little plaque with his emblem and hang it on one of the chairs in the Quire. This means that all the chairs are covered with hundreds of emblems, some of them going back to the 14th century. 

The Quire of St. George Chapel. I was sure I had a picture of it, but apparently I don't, so this is a picture from Wikipedia. Thanks Wikipedia!

That's it for London. There were a lot more things that I saw and did, but I really don't want to bore you with ALL the details.

Next time I'll be writing about Bath and all the cool day-trips I did from there, so stay tuned. Also, if you liked this post, don't be shy, leave a comment, I'd like to know what you think about it.

Until next time, stay cool and don't forget to mind the gap,

Lior

It appears that I owe you a few days worth of writing.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "No way, Lior! you said you'll write once a week!", and you're right. Technically I don't owe you nothing (Nothing! you hear me!), but it seems like I've been through so many stuff, that I should probably write it down before I start forgetting what I did. So this post is going to be extra long. I'm going to cut it to sections so you can break off whenever you want and continue reading later.

So, to the point, what have I been up to lately? Lot's of walking, mainly. Yeah, I know it's not surprising, but you have to remember that up until last week I was a complete couch potato. I'm actually kind of proud of how I'm handling it all. Never missed anything because I was too lazy to walk. That's an accomplishment for me.

Saturday, April 19th

Let's see, the day after I went to the Tower of London, I tried one of those free guided tours. It was a tour around Westminster, and it was kind of nice. not super exciting, and not super informative since I've already been there a couple of days before that, but the guide had a few fun facts that were interesting, and he brought us to see the changing of the guards in St. James Palace, which I didn't know of.

The tour started in Covent Garden which used to be part of the gardens of Westminster Abby, hence the name (Convent Garden became Covent Garden), and today is a very lively neighborhood with a market and lots of shops. We went through the neighborhood until we got to Trafalgar Square.

(Here was supposed to be a picture of Trafalgar Square with some kind of funny caption, but apparently I don't have one so...)

A bit of history for you (Yay!) - Trafalgar Square was build in honor of Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory over Napoleon's fleet off the shore of Trafalgar, Spain, in 1805. It was a really big deal since Nelson's fleet was a lot smaller than Napoleon's, and the British had a lot to lose in that battle, since the French fleet was headed towards Britain. Nelson's statue stands on top of a a tall column in the middle of the square.

 Nelson's Column. At least I have this picture

Cool story - His way of inspiring his troops was by arriving to battle wearing his full uniform, with the sword, hat and all his medals. Now, Nelson fought in a LOT of wars, so he had a LOT of medals, and usually it wasn't a bad thing, only it turned out that the day of the battle of Trafalgar was a very sunny day. Imagine him, standing on the deck of his ship, screaming commands everywhere, shining in the bright light like a tiny sun on top of the water. Now imagine you're a sniper trying to kill the enemy's admiral. Your job has just become so much easier. So yeah, he got shot. But the shot didn't kill him immediately. He died three hours later, and in those three hours he managed to lean his fleet to victory.

Cool story number 2 - After he died, his sailors didn't really know what to do with his body. They didn't want to throw him to sea, which was the sailors' way of burying their brothers, because he was too much of an important man. They couldn't bring him to London, either, because the trip was 10 days long, and the body would have rotten by then. In the end, one of the officers offered to put him in a half empty barrel of rum. The alcohol should act as a preservative, so they should be able to make the journey to London without the corpse rotting. And so they did. Problem was, the officers never told about this special barrel to the other sailors. You can imagine what happened next. In the end, the corpse arrived safely to London, though the barrel was, by then, only a quarter filled with rum.

Back to my trip, after Trafalgar Square we went through the Mall, to St. James Palace. St. James Palace is probably the most underrated palace ever. It's not that it's very beautiful or anything, but it's the official Royal Court, and is actually the most important palace the Royal Family owns. Though the Queen doesn't live there, this is where the kings of England have ruled from since Henry VIII.

There we saw the also very underrated ending of the changing of the guards. It was particularity nice because not many people know about this part, and so there weren't many people there to block the view. 

Changing of the guard at St. James Palace. Is their head really that big?

Skipping ahead a bit - We saw Buckingham Palace later (the official Royal residency), and St. James Park. Then from there we walked to Parliament Square which stands right in front of the Parliament house and there the tour concluded. 

Cool story number 3 - Apparently Big Ben isn't the name of the clock tower. In fact, it's the name of one of the bells inside the tower. The story goes that the man who designed it was a bit on the large side, and his name was Ben. So when the newspapers published a picture of Ben standing next to his huge bell, people laughed and said that they couldn't tell who Ol' Big Ben is, the bell or the man. The name stuck.

Me at Buckingham Palace. Probably the exact opposite of a selfie

The rest of the day wasn't that good. I went to the National Gallery and thought it was kind of boring. The problem with it is that there are just too many paintings there, and after a while they all start to look the same. Besides, I don't know much about art or art history, so I didn't know exactly what I was seeing. The only part that I was somewhat excited about was the Impressionist wing which was pretty impressive.

Later I just walked around Soho. At this point I was starving, and I was looking for a place to eat, but everything was shockingly expansive. I actually started feeling a bit weak, and I guess that wasn't so good for my mood, but in the end I found a nice hamburger place with reasonable prices, so everything was ok.

Sunday, April 20th

for those of you he don't know, the last weekend was Easter. Which is kind of nice, I guess, if you're Christian and you're 7 years old and you get to run around and hunt for eggs, not so much if you're a tourist. The thing about Easter is that there is a school vacation, and all the parents want to take their kids out to see cool stuff. The same cool stuff that I want to see. Yeah, Not good. adding insult to injury, it was a very rainy weekend. Why is that bad? you're asking. Well, when I saw it was going to rain all day I figured I should probably go check out the Natural History Museum. Bad idea. Such bad idea, in fact, that every parent in London had it.

Natural History Museum. Just so you know what I had to deal with

The museum itself was alright. I guess it's more suited for kids learning about Biology and Geology than for adults. Most of the museum is educational, and there aren't a lot of actual physical artifacts. There's a Volcanoes and Earthquakes section, which I thought was terribly boring (unless you're interested in the fine art of cartoon volcano illustrations), there's a huge section of stuffed animals, which wasn't as cool as it was supposed to be since I thought everything looked too plasticy, and, of course there's the Dinosaur wing.

Again, if you're a 7 years old, there's nothing in the entire world that interests you more than seeing Dinosaurs. I mean, come on, Dinosaurs! so, of course, this was the only gallery that had a line  to get into. And a huge line, at that. I had to stand 45 minutes in the rain to get inside the museum, and then another 30 minutes to see a couple of dinosaur skeletons. Not cool. 

A dinosaur and his shadow. Grrr! I'm a giant feathery lizard! Fear me!

Also, did I mention there was a room full of rocks?

Rocks.

Ok, the rocks were actually pretty cool

Monday, April 21st

Lior, stop complaining! you're saying. You're in London, have some fun. Well, I'm happy to say that the next 3 days were actually pretty good. Easter was over, and though Monday was still a vacation day, I had learned my lesson. I didn't go to the British Museum as was my intention, instead I decided to have a relaxed day in Hyde Park.

Hyde Park. Should have been called Quite-Easy-To-Find-Park really

It was a nice day. The sun finally came out, the skies were blue, birds were chirping, ducks were quacking, the whole package. I sat on the grass, leaning on a tree and decided I want to draw. I did that for a while (you can see the results on Facebook), and then I decided to go look for another interesting composition that I can draw. I started walking along the Serpentine, the long lake in the middle of the park, when suddenly, and it was really very sudden, it started raining again. I ran to the nearest shelter, completely forgetting about my quest. There goes my day, I thought, I can't sit on the grass anymore, nor can I sit on any bench. I can't sit at all, actually, and that was quite a big part of the relaxed day I was planning.

A few minutes later it stopped raining. Well, I thought, I might as well walk a bit around the lake, see all it has to offer. It's a really beautiful park, to be honest. Lots of nice places to sit and enjoy some peace and quiet, or a have a picnic, or feed the birds and watch as they crowd around your feet. I ended up walking all around the lake. On the way, I passed through 2 interesting points which are closely connected.

The first are the Italian Gardens (it's technically part of Kensington Gardens and not Hyde Park, but whatever). It's a small garden on the  north-western tip of the serpentine that's designed like a Renaissance Italian garden, with lots of water fountains and statues. The garden was dedicated to Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert, and their initials are engraved on a wall in the garden.

 The Italian Garden. Imagine the water bill

The second point was the Albert Memorial. When Albert died, Queen Victoria was devastated. The magnificent queen had a magnificent memorial for her beloved consort built. An eternal memento of their love (by the way, the Royal Albert Hall, which we now know how many holes it takes to fill, is right next to it and is named after the same person).

The Albert Memorial. I don't think it's funny, actually

So I was standing there at the entrance to Hyde Park, after having walked quite a bit for a relaxed day at the park, and I was looking at my map trying to figure out what to do next. Eventually, I managed to convince myself that this is not going to be a relaxed day, and I decided to go to Green park which is just nearby.

On the way, I passed through some historical monuments (mostly World War II stuff, not super interesting). The park itself was surprisingly serene. I'm saying surprisingly because it is adjacent to Buckingham palace, so you might expect that all the tourists would pour to it in one point or another, but they don't. They stay at the gates of the palace, and this green haven remains almost bare.

It's missing something of the livelihood of Hyde Park, but what it lacks in energy, it makes up for in charm. It's the kind of place you take your date out to have a romantic picnic. 

The thirds park of the day was St. James Park, which is just beyond Buckingham Palace. It used to be a hunting area for the king, but now it's just another tourist attraction. What doesn't happen in Green Park, happens times a thousand in St. James. Every tourist that goes to Buckingham Palace must go through St. James first, so it is filled with them. Which is a bit of a shame actually, since it has a great potential.

 Views from St. James Park. Who had the brilliant idea of putting the palace right next to it?!

Cool story number 4 - In St. James there used to be a Chinese bridge and a Pagoda right next to it. They were built for a party in the 19th century (don't remember the exact year, sorry), and for the event they were filled with fireworks that were supposed to be the main event. On the night of the party, though, something happened, and the fireworks caught fire before they were supposed to. The entire thing went up in flames. The unsuspecting audience thought it was part of the show, so for a very long time they didn't try to put out the flames. When they did, however, it was too late and both the pagoda and the bridge were lost forever.

And that's it for now folks. I know I'm not done telling all I've been up to, but it's getting late and I'm getting tired of writing. I'll try to continue tomorrow or the day after that.

Until then, stay cool and don't forget to mind the gap,

Lior

First day

OK, first day of actually travelling is over. It was weird. So many times I wanted to share something with someone and couldn't, I actually found myself talking to myself. It sounds terrible, but when I got used to it it wasn't that bad. The only thing I could never get used to, probably, is the budgeting. Counting every penny that comes out of your wallet is a real pain in the ass, not to mention it spoiling the fun.

But anyways, I had a good day of travelling, so I might as well share it with you.

Yesterday was sort of an introductory day. All I did was to take the Tube to Westminster and walk around a little. Wasn't very exciting, but it was a nice way to start to get used to travelling alone.

Today, on the other hand was a full day of exploring. Well, maybe not that much exploring since I've only been to one place, but I've explored the hell out of it!

So today I visited the Tower of London. For those of you who doesn't know what that is, it's a castle in London, right on the river Thames, close to Tower bridge (surprise surprise) and The City. It was first built by William The Conqueror after his conquest of England, almost a thousand years ago, and have been rebuild a few times over the years. Today it's the house of England's Crown Jewels and a flock of huge fat crows.

Crows. Seriously, England?

The crow bit needs a bit of explaining. Apparently, someone sometime and for unknown reason had decided that if the six crows living inside the castle walls were ever to leave the castle, the entire castle would crumble and fall, the monarchy would cease to exist and Britain would succumb to total anarchy. So what's the reasonable thing to do? Keep a flock of crows in your gardens at all times of course!  and also cut off their flying feathers so they can never ever escape. They are being fed daily, at least, and they seem to be quite alright with all the fuss around them.

Anyway,  I was very excited for this visit, as this place is full of history. So many interesting things happened inside these walls, and I was itching to see it for myself. So you can imagine that I was a bit disappointing when I got to the ticket booth and I saw that these were the exact same thoughts all of the tourists in London were apparently thinking. I seriously have never seen a line this long, a record that will hold for about an hour.

Kids doing what I failed miserably to do almost 20 years ago

So after standing in line for the better half of an hour, I finally got to step inside the castle, and what can I say, it's a cool place. The tourists though, ugh, the tourists make it almost seem like a cheap Disneyland replica. When I saw a father showing his 3 years old daughter the place where the scaffolds were and said, "You see sweetie, this is where they chopped peoples head off", I wasn't sure if I was feeling sick and possibly disgusted, or actually proud that at least in one place in the world people are actually interested in history. I let myself believe it was the latter.

I started with a Yeoman tour. Yeomen are the wardens of the castle. You probably know them as the People-With-The-Funny-Outfit. Every half an hour they take a group of people around the castle and tell some stories. It was actually very nice. Our guide was very jealous of his football team, though. I'm still not sure what team he actually supports, but whenever he saw a kid with a shirt or a hat of a different team he mumbled, "what an ugly shirt, that is".

My Yeoman guide. Don't let the old fashioned costume fool you, they are actually quite funny

Despite now being old and fat (his words, not mine) our guide Colin was actually quite the bad-ass back in his day. apparently, all the Yeomen are individually handpicked out of elite military units. Colin used to be in the Royal Air Force, and he fought in a war, though he didn't mention which or where exactly he served.

After the tour I decided I'd go right to the main course - The White Tower. The White Tower is the heart of the castle. It's the oldest building in the compound, the most impressive by far, and the one with the most interesting history. This is where dozens of monarchs lived and rules, where hundreds of criminals were tortured and killed and thousands were held in captivity. By all accounts, it should have been the best thing ever for me. But it wasn't. And you know why? yeah, you guessed it - those goddamn tourists. So many of them! there were lines everywhere, and I couldn't stop for even a minute to read something or to examine a piece of armor, becasue some kind would start pushing my right away, or straight up jump in front in front of me and block my view. This is the kind of place where I need silence and time to appreciate the history and imagine what it used to look like. But it's very far from quite, the exact opposite in fact.

The White Tower. Should have been called The-Not-So-White-Tower, or maybe The-Sort-Of-Beige-Tower really

I was feeling a bit down at this point. Having no one to share these thoughts with I was kind of stuck with them. I began to feel cornered, like there were just too many people around me and I have to go out and take a walk somewhere more quiet.

"No!", I said to myself, "You are here right now, and you have paid way too much money to just run away. You will enjoy this, by hook or by crook!". So I decided to check the Crown Jewels. On paper, it should have been a huge mistake, the line was miles and miles long and definitely beat the lines in the ticket booth as the longest line ever, but it wasn't. It was actually just what I needed.

Maybe it was the unconscious shift of attitude, or maybe it was something else, but I really liked the Crown Jewels, touristy as they are. It was really a nice experience to have. Besides being incredibly beautiful and majestic, they actually have quite an interesting history behind them, like everything in this place. 

These jewels are actually new. Well, not exactly new per se, as they were made in 1660, but they aren't the jewels that were used to crown all the monarchs before that. The original jewels were destroyed during the Civil Wars in the 17th century during which England was, for a brief time, a republic.  the winning parliamentary forces broke into the Tower, stole the jewels and melted them into coins. Twelve years later, though, the monarchy was re-instituted, so new jewels had to be made, and these are the jewels that are on display today.

(Also on display are few other crowns that aren't part of the coronation regalia, like the incredible Crown of India, that was made for George V in 1911, and was only worn once. A good use of the tax-payers money right there)

I was on a run after that. I was getting kind of late, as the castle closes at 17:30, and there was still a lot to see. Lucky for me, the people who were in charge of arranging the whole place were pretty good at their job. There's a route that leads through the walls of the castle and its towers. except for one or two interesting towers (mainly the Bloody-Tower, where the twin princes were held and killed. An interesting story on its own. I'll just leave a link at the end for the Wikipedia article for you to read. Trust me, it's worth it) all the interesting bits are connected with a nice, organized route. More importantly, most people seem to only want to see the Crown Jewels and the White Tower, so almost any other attraction is empty, as it should.

Some of the prisoners in the various towers left graffiti on the walls. Some are as old as the 16th century

Needless to say, this was more to my liking. I got to see the medieval palace, where king Edward I lived for just 57 days (again, great use of taxes. British monarchs seem to really love throwing it away), his throne room, the tower where Thomas More was held (he later became a saint, by the way) and where Jane Grey prayed right before her death (she was queen for nine day. The conclusion - If someone desperately offers you to be the next king or queen of England, even though you have absolutely nothing to do with the royal family, refuse politely and walk away) . It was a lot more like what I came to see and when finally I came out of the castle compound I felt good about myself. My first adventure as a solo traveler was done successfully.

 The Tower of London and I, in my first ever selfie

Just the Tower of London, no selfies

A few tips for you, if you plan to sometime visit the Tower:

1. You should, it's awesome, but read a bit about the British monarchy first. It's not a must, but it's a lot nicer to understand what's the big deal about Ann Boleyn and why everyone keep mentioning her name, for example.

2. Skip the whole 'Torture at the Tower' exhibition. The Queue is almost as long as the Crown Jewels one, and it's just not worth it. It's a small room with 3 exhibits you could as well see in pictures and not lose anything.

3. If you have a lot of time, skip the audio-guide. if you have average amount of time, take it. If you have very short time, it's your choice.

4. To see the Crown Jewels with a very VERY short line, come at 16:30 or even 17:00. By then most of the visitors are already gone and the line is maybe 5 minutes long (instead of the 45 minutes I stood in line).

Finally some links for you to read. I really recommend it, some very interesting stuff:

The Twin Princes in The Tower

Ann Boleyn

Lady Jane Grey

Thomas More

Also, I went to concert in a church called St. Martin-in-the-Field. Mozart's Requiem. Was awesome. The elder woman I sat next to thought I was some kind of phenomena. Probably because I was the only one there with a plain t-shirt and jeans. "What made you come to this concert?", she asked.

"I just love this piece and I wanted t osee it performed live", I said.

She was very pleased. So pleased, in fact, that when she later moved to a better seat, she saved a seat next to her for me. In the end, I thanked her and said it was excellent.

"It was, wasn't it?", shad said, smiling.

St. Martin-in-the-field. The thing about English churches is that hey are way too white

It was a good day, all in all. Still kind of weird, though.

Lior.