Last weekend, we opted for a different strategy entirely by launching into a whirlwind of activity in southern Sweden. We powered through our jet lag by soaking up the crisp spring sunshine, catching up with family, playing Finnish lawn games, practicing our Swedish with new friends, drinking early morning wine in a park along with tens of thousands of other people, and checking out a community bonfire. Is it better to cater tenderly to the needs of your body, or to ambush it? Who’s to say which is the more successful strategy? Is the grading based on how much fun you had, or how much recovery time you needed? (We had and needed a LOT of both).

Welcome to Copenhagen: First Stop, Sweden.

So why did we go to Sweden for the first weekend following our arrival in Copenhagen? My cousin, J, and her partner, D, live in Lund—a southern Swedish city that is just a short train ride across the Øresund—and they kindly invited us to join them for their planned weekend activities! We didn’t realize it when we booked our flights, but our arrival coincided with the Swedish celebration of Valborg, which is especially popular in their community.

Valborg: It’s Spring, Let’s Party!

What is Valborg? In Swedish, it’s pronounced “Val-bore-ee” without the hard English “g.” But the English pronunciation (rhymes with “cyborg”) is not uncommon.

I’ll get deep into the history of Valborg another time, as the reason it takes me a long time to publish posts is that I get bogged down by having too much historical detail to effectively cover. My aim with these “travel journal” posts is to focus on writing about the actual experiences we have while traveling. Hopefully, it will help me start publishing more regularly.

Anyway! What I will say about Valborg is that, in short, it is:

1. A celebration of the long-awaited arrival of spring.
2. A great excuse to get together and party outside—especially for students wrapping up the end of their school semester.

Some brief historical context is that, in rural Sweden, May 1 was typically the day that most farmers put their livestock out to pasture. It is said that the custom of lighting a bonfire on April 30, the night before, is related to this. That farmers lit a fire and made a lot of noise—through playing music, singing, and dancing—in order to scare away bears, wolves, and other predators from the countryside. It could be said that modern Valborg parties and bonfires are thus part of a long tradition of agrarian responsibility. So party on, you raucous youngsters, your ancestors would approve!

Other facts about this celebration include that Valborg gets its name from an 8th century English saint, Walpurgia (Valborg in Swedish), who conducted missionary work in a region that is now part of present-day Germany; her feast day (in Sweden) is May 1. There are also some long-forgotten superstitions involving witches, as well as an archaic local tradition in which groups of young people went farm-to-farm and played music in exchange for food and alcohol. Trick-or-treating for party supplies! But, again, I’ll talk about this another time.

Sat., April 29: Birthdays and BBQs

Victoria and I caught a train out of Copenhagen early on Saturday morning. We met up with J and D at their place, then headed out to our first event. This was a dual birthday party being held in a Malmö city park.

The weather was unexpectedly—but enjoyably—hot and sunny! It was the first day of the year that I was able to sit outside without wearing a jacket or a sweater. Not coincidentally, it was also the first time in 2023 that I (mildly) sunburned my hair part. More of that to come, I’m sure. It’s a good reminder that I should always bring sunscreen and wear my baseball cap when participating in outdoor activities, even though the latter is a dead give-away that I’m a tourist—as if my two cameras (three if you include my cell phone) weren’t already a clear indication of that!

We rounded out the evening with a BBQ at J and D’s friend’s house, where I got to share some of the weird, archaic knowledge about Valborg that I’m sure hasn’t been relevant in Sweden for hundreds of years—if it even was in the first place. For example, on Valborg, it’s possible you may come across a witch either sitting in or standing over a creek with an empty butter churn. If she is banging the churn with a wooden spoon and crying, “milk in my pot! milk in my pot!”, then she is trying to steal all the milk your cow will produce this season. To prevent this, load your rifle up with salt and shoot her in the butt, while shouting “shit in your churn!”

It’s likely I made a lasting impression.

Sun., April 30: Valborg in Stadsparken

J, D, Victoria, and I were up early on Sunday, April 30 to get ready for the big Valborg event in Lund. We met up with three of J and D’s friends and headed to a downtown park, Stadsparken, loaded up with lawn chairs, blankets, picnic supplies, and refreshments. We arrived at 8:30 am thinking that we would be among the first to set up. However, it was soon clear to us that thousands of others had already been there for hours. The presence of sleeping bags indicated that some had even spent the night there in order to secure their prime Valborg party location!

It’s estimated that some 20,000 people—mostly students—descend upon Lund’s Stadsparken for this Valborg event. They hang out there until about 2:00 or 3:00 pm. At that point, officials clear everyone out so they can clean up and prep for the evening bonfire, a more family-friendly activity. Upon leaving the park, the large Valborg crowd disperses. The celebration continues for the rest of the day and into the night, but for the most part this is no longer done en masse unless you return to Stadsparken in the evening for the city bonfire. Other options for the rest of the day include taking naps, hosting or attending private parties, either going to a smaller neighbourhood bonfire or attending the one in Stadsparken, and even clubbing. Other communities around Sweden also have their own Valborg celebrations, but I think that Lund is the largest. This is likely because the weather in this southernmost point of Sweden is actually warm enough to be (mostly) comfortable outside, whereas other parts of the country still have snow!

Although Victoria and I were older than most of the Valborg crowd, we still had a good time. It was definitely a local experience that we would have otherwise missed out on if it wasn’t for the invitation from my cousin. There was no shortage of entertainment, and lots of great people-watching. A stage had been set up with a DJ, but our late 8:30 am arrival (!) meant that we were in an area too far away to hear it. No matter, lots of people brought their own portable speakers. J & D did as well. We dedicated a rendition of “Teenage Dirtbag” to my brother, as it is his favourite song. Another memorable moment was listening to Blink 182’s “What’s My Age Again?”

At one point, we walked by a group of young people singing from a set of songbooks that they had in hand, as if they were a choir. (Perhaps a remnant of that old trick-or-treat singing tradition for party supplies?) I also spotted a distant handful of youngsters swinging their arms and hips in a manner that was unmistakeable. In that moment, a mystery presented itself to me. There is no way these children were alive when the Macarena first burned up the dance floor in 1996! I thought Generation Z had been spared that craze!? So how was I seeing it now, all these years later, being enacted by people who would have had to purposefully seek it out as opposed to being inundated with it at every late ’90s school dance and wedding reception they attended? Are they dancing the Macarena as a means of ridicule? Or are they actually enjoying it? Is the Macarena cool again?

Valborg morning was sunny, but the wind had a definite chill to it. Every time the sun went behind the clouds we felt the temperature drop by several significant degrees. I had dressed as if the weather would be the same as it was on Saturday, even though we were in the park hours earlier on Sunday morning than we had been Saturday afternoon. I had brought sunscreen (an improvement), but I had imprudently left my jacket behind at the apartment, thinking my sweatshirt would be enough! First rule of travel: LAYERS. Second rule: REMEMBER YOU’RE IN SWEDEN. I was definitely regretting the last decision I made before we left our Canadian home in which I thought to myself, “should I bring a scarf? No, it’s going to be spring and summer! It’s going to be warm! There’s no need to bring this long, thick, beautiful yellow scarf that I could wrap around my neck multiple times and thus bestow upon myself layers of necessary heat retention. It will take up too much room in my luggage.” You beautiful fool, you just wear the scarf and boom, no extra space taken up at all! Third rule of travel: Always pack a scarf! It will always be one of the most useful things you could bring.

Anyway! Victoria and I left the park around 1:30 pm, feeling sufficiently chilled and wind-blown. This was a decision that was certainly prompted by wisdom, not age or jet lag. Okay, definitely some jet lag. We did require a restorative nap while the youths continued on with their agrarian duty in our absence.

Sun., April 30: BBQ in a Swedish Allotment Garden

We all regrouped around 4:30 pm for a BBQ hosted by one of J and D’s friends, M. M had told us earlier that he had recently acquired an allotment garden plot located really close to his apartment. Now, if you’re like me, you might be envisioning a community garden where someone is lucky if they get a patch of soil big enough for one or two vegetable beds. No, the Swedish allotment gardens are quite more expansive than that! M’s garden plot includes a small wooden cottage with a deck, a mini-greenhouse, a couple of trees, and enough land to have a lawn, a couple of landscaped pathways, and several flower and vegetable beds! In effect, it’s like having a yard! M told us that these allotment gardens are very Swedish in nature. They began to appear in Swedish cities as early as the late 1800s. The idea behind them was to provide places where the urban working class could grow their own food and have a place of refuge from city life. It’s a great idea that continues to be very timely. It is next to impossible to afford a semi-detached house with a yard in many cities. I’m sure a lot of people would love to have access to this kind of (private!) space!

I took a short walk to check out some of the other nearby allotment gardens.

After dinner we played another round of Mölkky. I surprised everyone (including myself) when, after failing to hit anything two turns in a row, I hit the “12” block and won the game. A dopamine hit like that can’t be replicated.

Sun., April 30: Bonfire Time!

We concluded Valborg weekend with the best activity of all, a local neighbourhood bonfire! We decided to go to this one instead of the big one in Stadsparken because it would be way less crowded.

Below is the photo that made me laugh so hard I cried. “Was I in that photo?” D asked. I didn’t think so. But then we zoomed in.

Onto the bonfire! Below, it’s just starting to pick up:

It’s really getting underway now:

Up close and personal:

The kids in the pictures below were super cute, waiting patiently to toast their marshmallows. A second, smaller fire was later set up nearby so that it would be safer for them. An older boy did try to get really close, until a guard discouraged him. They didn’t want anybody to get hurt, after all.

The fire from a distance:

Oh, look, it’s Victoria!

And that’s it for Valborg! For now, anyway. Thank you for reading!

After checking out Chatsworth House, we drove north to the city of York. I wanted to see York for a few reasons: first, I really wanted to see the medieval wall that encircles it; second, I heard they had a great Viking museum; three, a couple of friends of ours had gone there and highly recommended it. Unfortunately, heavy flooding in 2015 meant that the Jorvik Viking Museum was closed. But there were still plenty of other attractions for us to see!

Part of the old wall below.

A tower gate.

There were some really narrow—and short!— streets. I think this is an example of one of the infamous York snickelways (a small street or footpath). According to Wikipedia, the term was coined in 1983 by local author Mark W. Jones and combines the words snicket (passageway between walls or fences), ginnel (a narrow passageway between buildings), and alleyway. York has many of these paths, most of them medieval in origin. They have quirky names such as Mad Alice Lane, Hornpot Lane, and Mucky Peg Lane.

Below is York Minster. “Minster” is a term applied to churches established in the Anglo-Saxon period as missionary teaching churches. More on York Minster will follow later in the post.

Below is The Shambles, an old street in York with timber-framed buildings that date as far back as the 14th century. The street was once known as “The Great Flesh Shambles” for all of the butcher shops and their shelved displays of fresh meat. The design of the buildings—with the upper levels jutting out into the street overtop the ground floor—was a way to minimize taxation. Property taxes were based on the ground-floor area of a building.

“Shambles” is an obsolete term for an open-air slaughterhouse and meat market. There were 25 butcher shops on this street in the late 1800s, but none remain today.

There were no sanitary or hygiene standards at the time so blood, guts, and organs would be tossed into the gutter in the middle of the street. Things are a little prettier these days.

We went to The House of the Trembling Madness for dinner and a pint. The Trembling Madness refers to a state of withdrawal from alcohol in which the person becomes confused, shakes or shivers, and has a rapid heart rate. The pub was inspired by Belgian beer halls and has a medieval theme. The building it is housed in dates back to 1180. As a friend pointed out, it is interesting that all of the weight-bearing beams in the roof are different sizes.

We then went to The Golden Fleece, York’s oldest (and most haunted!) pub.

More information below.

I didn’t see any spectral figures but, more importantly, I met this delicious Swedish cider that I enjoyed everywhere I could find it for the rest of the trip. It tasted like strawberry campinos!

We continued onto a third pub where we ran into a group of locals who were out on a company pub crawl. My partner and I were waiting in line at the bar when a man cheerily asked us what we were drinking and ordered us two pints. We had just received them and were beginning to chat with his friends when he informed everyone that we were all moving onto the next establishment. We had been adopted!

After a couple of more pubs and a pleasant talk with the locals, people were beginning to pack it in. The man who had initially invited us gave us a walking tour of the brickwork in some of the local buildings. I wish I could remember what he said—it was all very interesting. We then ended up in a loud dance club (apparently York is a happening place for clubs and hen parties!) before the three of us called it a night.

The next day, Thursday, June 16, was a full day of York sightseeing. We began with a walk on the city walls. York was founded by the Romans in 71 C.E. as Eboracum. The Romans built a fortress and put up walls around the city. The site of the headquarters of this fortress now lies under the foundations of York Minster. York has more miles of intact wall left than any other city in England.

After the Romans left Britain, York was taken and settled by Angles in the 5th century. King Edwin of Northumbria would later make York his capital. The first wooden minster church was made for his baptism in 627. Edwin later ordered the minster to be rebuilt in stone. In 866, the Vikings captured the city and called it “Jorvik” (the “j” is pronounced as a “y”—sound familiar?). The Danes restored the neglected city walls and destroyed all of the Roman towers but one—the Multangular Tower. The last Viking ruler, Eric Bloodaxe, was driven from the city in 954 by King Eadred in his successful attempt to complete the unification of England.

In 1068, two years after William the Conqueror took over England, York rebelled against Norman rule. William arrived in York soon after and put an end to that. The stone minster was badly damaged in the uprising. Around 1080, Archbishop Thomas started building the cathedral that would become the current Minster. York became a major manufacturing and trading centre, and began to prosper. More work on the walls was undertaken in the 12th-14th centuries, and then some further reconstruction in the 19th century and later.

A good place to hide and shoot arrows from! Sneaky!

A view of the Minster.

Spying on people’s gardens is WHAT I DO, OKAY?

Approaching Monk Bar. Monk Bar is a four-storey gatehouse that was built in the early 14th century. It was intended as a self-contained fort, and each floor is capable of being defended separately. Today, the Monk Bar houses a museum called the Richard III Experience at Monk Bar.

On our way up to York, I did my best to explain to my partner all of the personalities of the main players in the English War of the Roses—a series of civil wars fought between the House of Lancaster and the House of York, two rival familial branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, from 1455-1487. It was fun telling them about something they didn’t know a lot about—this doesn’t happen very often.

I could easily get sucked into a digression that runs on for several thousand words, but I’ll exercise some restraint. It’s a fascinating period of history, and has been covered extensively by William Shakespeare in a number of history plays: Richard II; Henry IV part I and II; Henry V, Henry VI part 1, 2, and 3; as well as Richard III. Philippa Gregory has also written several historical fiction novels about this time that I really enjoyed: The White Queen; The Red Queen; The Lady of the Rivers; The Kingmaker’s Daughter; and The White Princess. The White Queen and The White Princess were both adapted into television series, one of which stars a pre-Killing Eve Jodie Comer.

Suffice it to say that Richard III (reigned 1483-1485) maintained close connections with the city of York and visited the city several times. Shortly after his coronation in 1483, he stayed in York for three weeks. While in York his son, Edward, was made Prince of Wales at the Archbishop’s Palace. Below are a few pictures of the Richard III exhibit at Monk Bar.

In 2012, Richard III’s body was discovered buried underneath a car park.

Below: entry into a tiny corner prison cell.

Replicas of helmets that would have been worn in battle during the 15th century.

Barley Hall is a reconstructed medieval townhouse. It was originally built around 1360. The building has been set up to look the way it would have in 1483. Below is the Grand Hall. Note the Tudor roses on the wall.

Below is the main table set up for a feast, with the addition of a chamber pot. It was considered rude to get up and leave during a meal so people would remain seated throughout the whole occasion, even if they had to use the washroom.

It was customary to cook decorative birds for dinner and then dress the cooked meat with the skinned remains of the animal in order to impress the diners. It’s really a wonder anyone survived the Middle Ages without dying of plague, war, water contamination, and food poisoning.

Below are examples of a couple other rooms in Barley Hall.

Back to the wall!

Next stop: York Minster. York Minster is the second largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe. The present building began construction in 1230 and finished in 1472.

A view from the top tower of York Minster.

A great view of the city.

Flying buttresses.

It’s 275 very steep, narrow steps up to the top.

A lower level of the Minster had an exhibit on the building’s history, and included Roman and Viking artefacts, like this Roman wall plaster below.

Below the foundations of the Minster are the ruins of the Roman fort that occupied the same site.

Below is the Horn of Ulf, dating from the beginning of the 11th century. The horn belonged to a Viking nobleman (called a “thane”) named Ulf. Ulf owned large estates around York and throughout Yorkshire. The Horn acted as a land deed and Ulf presented this horn as a symbol or record of his gift of lands to the Minster.

These medieval hand-glazed floor tiles date from the 1200s are are from the original floor of Saint Nicholas’ Chapel in the Minster. On the bottom row are the crossed keys of Saint Peter—the symbol of the Minster, which is dedicated to this saint.

The exhibits downstairs were so fascinating that we totally lost track of time. We had seen the top of the Minster and the bottom, but we ran out of time to explore the main level (and the main features) before it closed for the night!

York was a lot of fun and the locals were really friendly. Later that night we ended up sitting at a table beside a couple who were there celebrating their anniversary. We had a great conversation with them. They were interested in knowing why I had always wanted to come to England—they thought it was surprising that I had always wanted to visit there! They recommended that we go out to Brontë country in West Yorkshire the next time we came to England.

Additionally, in the not so fictional world, Mary Queen of Scots was held prisoner at Chatsworth at various times between 1569 and 1584 . Not bad digs—definitely preferable to the Tower of London.

Obviously, Chatsworth House was a must-see for me.

Below is a view of the front of Chatsworth House. There is a long, winding road that leads up to the house but it is too narrow (and too busy with other interested visitors) to stop and take a picture. The House does make quite the grand impression as you are driving up to it. The House has been open for public visitation since the mid-1650s!

Chatsworth House was acquired in 1549 by the Cavendish family. Sir William Cavendish was one of Henry VIII’s commissioners during the Reformation. William’s wife Elizabeth, known as Bess of Hardwick, sold some of the estates given to William by the Crown and used it to buy this land that was close to her own childhood home. There was likely a smaller manor house present or nearby the site of the present house. In 1552 William and Bess built a grand Elizabethan estate. Unfortunately, little of this original manor house remains as the house was altered and enlarged over the years.

After William died in 1557, Bess remarried, but was then widowed again in 1565. She married George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1567. George and Bess then hosted Mary, Queen of Scots, during her imprisonment at Chatsworth. I read about this time from Bess’ perspective in Philippa Gregory’s novel The Other Queen. (In case you’re wondering why I found this bit of history so interesting.)

It’s fair to say that I was unprepared for what I was about to see. I’ve seen beautiful houses before. Beautiful Canadian houses. Nothing like Chatsworth. We didn’t take the time to see inside any of the palaces in London, so this was my first experience with the kind of art collecting and furnishing that takes place in grand European homes.

Below are a couple of images from the Painted Hall. The paintings were painted in 1687 and depict scenes from the life of Julius Caesar. The 4th Earl of Devonshire commissioned the paintings to flatter the new Protestant monarch, Wiiliam III, with his wife Mary II, on their royal visit. For his aid in helping them to the throne, the Earl was granted the title of Duke of Devonshire in 1694. (What passes for a promotion in the late 17th century). (Flattery never hurts).

Since I decided to look this up, here is the ranking of the nobles of England (also known as “the Peerage”) from lowest to highest: Baron/Baronness → Viscount/Viscountess → Earl/Countess → Marquess/Marchioness → Duke/Duchess. There are currently 54 Barons/Baronness titles in England, 3 viscounts, 26 Earls, 1 Marquess, and 11 Dukes.

The 12th Duke and Duchess of Devonshire currently live at Chatsworth House and are dedicated to its ongoing upkeep and improvement. 16 generations of Cavendishes have lived at the Estate.

Every inch of the home was covered with beautiful oil paintings, silk tapestries, ornate banisters and delicate carvings on the wall. It was hard to know what to pay attention to because there were so many different things on display!

Below is the Chapel Corridor.

Below is the Chapel, which was built between 1688 and 1693, a year before the 4th Earl of Devonshire was created the 1st Duke of Devonshire. The room remains almost completely unaltered from that time. The room was inspired by the now lost Chapel at Windsor Castle.

On the second floor are a grouping of rooms that were meant for the reigning King and Queen to stay in on the occasion of their visit. The resident family never stayed in these rooms themselves.

After the State Apartment (which I didn’t take a picture of) the visitor enters the the Great Chamber, which served as a lobby in which members of the Court would have gathered to await the King and Queen. It was also occasionally used for dining. Below is a display of silver-gilt plate and oriental porcelain to illustrate this use.

The painting on the ceiling depicts the Triumph of the Virtues over the Vices.

View from the window of the Great Chamber of the Emperor Fountain and the Canal Pond.

The State Drawing Room is the first room in which select members of the Court could retire from the Great Chamber to meet with the royals.

Below are the Coronation Chairs of King George III and Queen Charlotte in 1761. They are unusual because they were carved by a woman, Catherine Naish. They were given to the 4th Duke as a reward for his role at the coronation.

The Mortlake Acts of the Apostle tapestries date to the mid-1630s. They were woven from designs by Raphael that were originally made for tapestries that decorate the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. In 2014 a major conservation project on the tapestries began as they had deteriorated from exposure to light and atmospheric pollution. (This helps to explain why a lot of the houses and palaces are dimly lit).

Below is a display of Chinese porcelain, highly prized in Europe because the secret for creating true porcelain had not been yet discovered in the West. I love the beautiful chest it is sitting on!

Below is the State Music Room, which was also known as the Second Withdrawing Room or the Green Velvet Room. Stamped and gilded leather now cover the walls, replacing the green velvet of the 18th century.

I’m sorry some of these pictures are blurry. The rooms, as I’ve said, are dimly lit and it’s hard to get a crisp, sharp image. The image below was taken in the State Bedchamber. The bed below was made for Kensington Palace, and is the bed in which George II died (1760).

Below, the silver-gilt toilet service on the dressing table is the most complete example of Parisian silver from this period of time (1694). It was used by a lady when getting ready in the morning.

Now to view some paintings in the South Sketch Gallery.

Below is a portrait of the 5th Duchess Georgiana. Georgiana was a bibliophile, arts patron, and referred to as “the Empress of Fashion” by her contemporaries. She was also a little bit scandalous, as the sign below the picture states. Her best friend, Lady Elizabeth Foster, lived in a ménage-à-trois with the Duke and the Duchess. After Georgiana passed away, the Duke married Lady Elizabeth.

The below painting of Georgiana was created in 1785-1787. In 1876 it was stolen from an auction house in London and taken to America by “the Napoleon of the Criminal World”, Adam Worth. The theft was widely publicized. The painting was eventually retrieved and purchased by the 11th Duke of Devonshire; it was brought to Chatsworth in 1994. The story of the theft inspired a Moriarty caper in the Sherlock Holmes mystery The Valley of Fear.

Some of the many paintings in the Oak Stairwell.

Below is the Queen of Scots Dressing Room, a guest bedroom. The room only takes its name from Mary as she didn’t actually stay in this part of the house (although this was long believed to be the case). Today the rooms are presented as they would have looked in the 19th century.

A ladies’ vanity.

Close-up of some curling irons.

Hand-painted Chinese wallpaper that I absolutely loved, although it didn’t photograph that well.

I also loved this beautiful dressing screen.

Below is the Wellington Bedroom, another guest bedroom.

An imposing wardrobe.

A painting miniature of Marie Antoinette.

The Library! There are over 17,000 books covering six centuries contained here including the scientific manuscripts of Henry Cavendish (1731-1810), who calculated how to weigh the Earth.

Here is a close-up of the beautiful detailed work on the ceiling. The plaster work was done in the late 17th century and the paintings are by Antonio Verrio from that same time period; his work is also in the Painted Hall.

Below is the Veiled Vestal Virgin, created in 1847 by Raffaelle Monti. It is so beautiful—the marble veil looks so soft and delicate.

The Great Dining Room. The first dinner held here was for the Princess Victoria and her mother the Duchess of Kent in 1832. Victoria was 13 years old and it was the first time she had dined formally in adult company.

The walls are covered in red silk tapestries.

The fixtures on the table are pure silver. I now understand what it is to “hide the family silver” and why Jean Valjean got in trouble for stealing a candlestick from a church. Because they were real silver, not stainless steel. I had never seen real silver dining ware until Chatsworth House. This silverware was created by the leading silversmiths of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

A beautiful chandelier.

The ceiling of the dining room was covered with these beautiful gold roses.

The sculpture gallery was created by the 6th Duke between 1818 and 1834. It is one of the most important collections of early 19th-century European marble sculpture.

This was my favourite sculpture.

I also really liked the pair of cranky lions.

The Cascade was designed by Grillet, a French hydraulics engineer with experience working for Louis XIV, King of France, in 1696.

Great view of the surrounding countryside. There’s a story behind this unobstructed view. There used to be a small village, Edensor, located immediately below Chatsworth but it was moved between 1838 and 1842 by the 6th Duke of Devonshire out of sight over a hill. 145 people still live in the village. There’s rich, and then there’s moving an entire village because you don’t want it to impede the view of your estate rich.

The grounds are massive, with lots of different gardens. There’s also a maze that we had fun exploring.

Beautiful flowers.

View of the southern end of Chatsworth House as we were walking along the Canal Pond.

All of the information that I have used in this post I got from Your Guide to Chatsworth. And so, turns out there was a good reason I made us drag this increasingly heavy load of guidebooks all over the U.K.!

After finishing at Bletchley Park, my partner and I drove out to Bourton-on-the-Hill to our Air BnB for the night. It was in this cute garden cottage.

Mere steps away from the cottage was the charming Horse & Groom pub.

We popped in for a lovely dinner. It came with a side bowl of peas!

Adorable.

We went for a short walk before the sun went down. I thought it was clever that they are re-using these iconic red telephone booths as defibrillator stations.

I’ll take it!

A golden oolitic limestone specific to this area is what was used to build these lovely homes. The Cotswolds became prosperous in the Middle Ages thanks to the wool trade. It is thought that Cotswold translates to “sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides.”

Yes, I even found their fences ridiculously cute.

The following day, Wednesday, June 15, I had a busy day planned for us! (What else is new?) In the morning, I wanted to take a quick tour of some areas where my ancestors had lived. First up, a grouping of houses (not even a hamlet) known as Lower and Upper Swell.

I had been carrying a Father’s day card for my Dad since we were in Vancouver. I had meant to pop it into a mailbox en route to the airport but that didn’t happen. So I threw a few English stamps on it and put it in this mailbox in Lower Swell, where his ancestor once lived. I thought that was a neat thing to do and it actually made it to him!

People here take their gardens seriously. (AS THEY SHOULD!)

One of my ongoing jokes was how, with place names, we were seeing the originals. For example, Old York, or York 1.0. On the sign below is a town named Naunton which is similar to the name of a town I grew up in. Did the name come from here? Interestingly, that is where my grandmother now lives. Coming full circle, in a sense?

Our next stop included Lower and Upper Slaughter. Slaughter is an Old English word for slough, which makes sense. Although we did see a mystery book in a gift shop titled “Slaughter in Slaughter” (someone had to do it, right?)

I couldn’t stop taking pictures of these beautiful houses. Bear with me.

A former corn mill from the 19th century.

A lovely church.

The road goes through a shallow creek, no big deal.

We grabbed brunch in Bourton-on-the-Water.

Which was 110% cute. It was all decorated for the Queen’s birthday. (“Happy 90th Ma’am”? I can’t. It’s too much).

These buildings below are not quite as polished as the other ones, and I can totally imagine it is only a few steps until I am back in history hundreds of years ago.

Not that I would mind living in one of the more polished homes, of course!

Here, we have an inescapable attraction. Flowers and Cotswold brick.

Better get another angle.

More.

Remember how I said that it is thought that Cotswold translates to “sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides”? Case in point. These are the first of many sheep we would see throughout the rest of our trip.

The curbside garden: a story in three pictures.

One.

Two.

Three!

I would go back there today if I could. We didn’t make it to Bibury, which is considered the “loveliest town in England”, but I would love to see it next time. Broadway, Stow-on-the-Wold and Chipping Norton are also supposed to be super charming. For family history reasons, I would like to see Wyck Rissington in the future and Minchinhampton. Wyck Rissington is actually one of four Rissington villages: the others are Great, Little, and Upper.

If I had so many places to see in the Cotswolds, why was I forced to leave? Well, I had a really good reason. It’s coming up in the next post!

Happily, we made it to Bletchley Park in one piece!

Bletchley Park was one of the best kept secrets of WWII. It was where the brilliant minds of men and women alike worked to break the codes that the Axis powers were using for their war-time communications. I first learned about Bletchley Park from a television show on Netflix called The Bletchley Circle in which three women who worked at the park together team up after the war to solve murders. The story of Bletchley Park was most recently featured in a movie called The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kiera Knightley.

The information used in this post was obtained from two Bletchley Park guidebooks: Home of the Codebreakers and Demystifying the Bombe (by Dermot Turing).

It is estimated that the work done at Bletchley Park shortened the war by 2 years and saved 14 million lives.

I have read a lot of novels set in WWII, so it was really fun for me to see these exhibits. The Churchill War Rooms were one of the many places in London that I wanted to check out, but didn’t have time. Hopefully on a return trip!

Below is a reference book that contained detailed information about all the world’s warships used by staff at Bletchley Park. Each time a German ship was sunk, they crossed out its name and wrote a note at the top of the page describing how it had been destroyed.

Below is a replica of a Marconi Universal Crystal Receiver set. The sign accompanying it reads: “This is a replica of a crystal receiver, cutting-edge technology in 1914. Sets like this were used to listen to enemy communication, picking up radio waves through their long wire antenna.”  Guglielmo Marconi, for whom this device is named after, is credited as being the inventor of the radio. I read about him in Erik Larsen’s book, Thunderstruck.

WWII ration books! I’ve read about them so many times, but this was my first time actually seeing them. I geeked out a little.

Enigma machines, such as the one below, were used by the Axis powers to code their messages. The Enigma used rotors to scramble messages into unintelligible cipher text. A standard three rotor Enigma (such as the one below) used by the German army and air force was capable of being set to approximately 159,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s 159 million million million!) different settings. At midnight, the Enigma machines would be reset. Finding the right setting for the right day and then using it to decipher the message was the challenge faced by the Codebreakers. Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman developed the Bombe machine (detailed later in the post) to speed up the breaking of Enigma, so that messages could be deciphered in time for them to remain operationally relevant. The lid and the front flap of the Enigma machine below are open so you can see all the components: the rotors, lampboard, keyboard and plugboard.

A crossword puzzle? No. The sign accompanying it reads: “This is a stencil hand cipher page found abandoned as German troops were retreating. Thin paper was placed over a daily changing grid of black and white squares. The message was written on the clear spaces, starting in a random square.”

Radio set and headset. The sign reads: “Equipment of the type used by Intercept Operators at Y Stations.”

Card catalogue.

Below is a Phoenix bombe reconstruct. Remember the 159 million million million different settings a German army and air force Enigma machine could have? The German navy’s Enigma machine could have 889 million million million settings. A successful run of the Bombe could reduce that to a million possible settings in about 20 minutes.

The Bombe’s job was to find a possible start-up configuration for the rotors in an Enigma machine. The spinning drums mimicked the rotors in the Enigma’s scrambling unit. They rotated through each of the possible configurations until a contender for the right one was found. If the Bombe stopped in the middle of its run, it meant that the Bombe had found that configuration along with a single possible plugboard connection.

A smaller machine, a checking machine (such as the rebuild of one shown below) would then be used to see if the result produced by the Bombe was correct or just a chance stop, and also to find out the remaining plugboard settings.

Another Enigma machine. This one was once owned by Italian dictator Mussolini! It also features 4 rotors, adding another layer of complexity. Adding a fourth rotor locked the code breakers out for ten months until they got new Bombes up and running.

Below is a display of equipment that was used for wireless interception.

Cool trench coat.

Dispatch riders (including many women!) used a motorcycle to get between stations.

More information below.

Alan Turing worked for Bletchley Park. Turing was crucial to the mission of deciphering the codes the Axis powers were using. He devised a number of techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, and his work on the electromechanical bombe machine helped crack the settings that were used on the German Enigma machines. He is considered the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, Turing was prosecuted after the war in 1952 for homosexual acts. It is a sad, horrific story that ends with his death in 1954. A war hero condemned by his own country, to which he had contributed so much. An essential genius at the forefront of a new scientific field who had so much more to give. All because of prejudice.

The display case shown below has several items that belonged to Turing including his teddy bear, Porgy.

A transceiver (transmitter/receiver) in a suitcase, used by German spies who parachuted into the U.K.

More information below.

The fight was not just with the Germans at sea, but with the Japanese as well.

Below is a flag that possibly belonged to a Japanese Kamikaze soldier.

More information below. (Along with the reflection of my shoe, sorry.)

The huts are where the men and women of Bletchley Park did their work. Some of them have been set up to recreate the working environment. They were really cool to see and I definitely recommend a visit if you are interested in this period of history.

The brick walls located around some of the huts (such as below) were there to help protect from bomb blasts. The new brick is a rebuild, the lower discoloured brick wall is from wartime.

A recreation of Alan Turing’s office.

Apparently he chained his tea mug to his radiator so it wouldn’t be taken. Coffee/tea mug politics are the same in any era it seems…

The hallway outside of his office.

Blackout curtains were drawn in each of the rooms, so it was hard to get a non-blurry picture of the exhibits.

Hut 11 & 11a were built to house the Bombe machines developed by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman.  The Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNs) operated the machines.

Below is the exhibit in Hut 11 that describes the Bombe machines and the workers of Hut 11 in more detail.

Heroes of a different feather.

Thank you for your service!

The work of Bletchley Park began in the mansion. Then the huts were quickly built to accommodate the project’s expansion.

Below the library is set up to look as it did during World War II.

Inside the mansion, there were some props and sets from the filming of The Imitation Game.

The bar and dance hall is a lot smaller than I thought it was… but I guess that’s Hollywood.

The reconstructed Bombe machine that was used in the movie.

A little pond and green space that the staff were welcome to use. They went skating in the winter time when the pond froze over.

Amusing real estate ad. How is a house “bomb resisting”?

A German radio receiver.

At first, I didn’t want to take any pictures of the Nazi flags, arm bands, or pennants. I didn’t want to glorify it or show any appreciation for it. But it’s history and, whether we like it or not, show it or not, it happened.

I had never actually seen any real Nazi items before my visit at Bletchley Park.

Those who don’t know (or most importantly, understand) their history are doomed to repeat it.

At the time I took these pictures, in June, I thought history would remain history. I didn’t realize. I didn’t know.

To end the post on a lighter note… Here are some treats spotted in the gift shop.

The work at Bletchley Park was part of the Official Secrets Act. For decades, little was known about the work that took place here. A friend of mine discovered that his grandmother had worked there during the war. She took her secrets to the grave, not sharing any of it with even her closest family members.

The National Museum of Computing is on the same site as Bletchley Park. We didn’t have time that day to visit, but would definitely like to do so in the future.

The view below overlooks the Thames, St. Paul’s Cathedral to the right, and the London Eye to the distant left.

Below is a closer view of the London Eye.

Closer look at St. Paul’s and some of the many construction cranes in the city. (There was construction everywhere!)

Overlooking Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

A closer look at the Tower of London. A raven’s eye view, one might say.

A glimpse at the viewing floor in the Sky Garden at 20 Fenchurch. Also known as the “Walkie Talkie” building.

Afterwards, my partner and I walked to their company’s office in Soho and they got to meet some of their U.K. coworkers.

It was a grey, drizzly day so it was a good time to explore the British Museum! We didn’t have time to see everything, so we went on a 3 hour highlight tour.

Below are some ancient Egyptian columns and a sarcophagus. The items in this room range from 2600 B.C.E. to 2nd century C.E. More information here.

A close-up of the Egyptian hieroglyphs on the above sarcophagus.

A close-up of one of the Ancient Egyptian columns.

This had me feeling homesick for my cat.

A few more hieroglyphs.

The Assyrian Lion Hunt Reliefs were one of my favourite exhibits. Created in 645-635 B.C.E, these sculpted scenes graced the walls of a palace belonging to an Assyrian King in what is now northern Iraq. More information here.

Parthenon sculptures. The Parthenon was built in 447-432 B.C.E. as a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. These sculptures, depicting figures from Greek mythology, once decorated the outside of the building. More information here.

There were two of these winged human-headed lions, dated from the 11th-8th century B.C.E. Together, they  flanked the entrance to an Assyrian palace. More information here.

Easter Island statue. Created around 1200 C.E. More information here.

Carved jade turtle from 1600 C.E. More information here.

These chess pieces were discovered on the Scottish Isle of Lewis. They were carved between 1150 and 1200 C.E. out of walrus ivory and whale tooth. More information here.

You’ll notice that the pawns lack any human features. Social commentary?

More chessman and some other Scandinavian gaming tokens, as well as a belt buckle.

Below: A helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship burial. 18 burial mounds were discovered in 1939 at Sutton Hoo, in Eastern England. The artefacts date from 610-635 C.E and were so extraordinary that it is believed the burial commemorated the death of a very high-ranking Anglo-Saxon man, even a King. The items serve as a time capsule into the Anglo-Saxon world. An impression of a 27-foot long ship was discovered in the ground. For more information, check out the British Museum’s page here. The helmet itself had been crushed into 500 pieces, and was painstakingly pieced back together.To the left, you can see a glimpse of a re-creation that shows what the helmet would have originally looked like.

An automated, mechanical galleon from 1580. The ship is a clock, the cannons fire, the figures move, and the ship propels forward. More information here.

Egyptian scroll.

We barely even scratched the surface of all the amazing exhibits that are in the Museum. A return trip is definitely necessary.

We also paid a visit to the Museum of London on Sunday, after we went to the Tower of London. Below are some of the exhibits that we saw there.

Below, a printed text of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales from 1542.

I wish I could remember what this was. Tiles? It was made of stone. I thought the faded roses were interesting.

Below is part of a painting of London as seen from Southwark, c. 1630. This is the earliest known painted view of London. St. Paul’s Cathedral is shown below as it was hundreds of years before Christopher Wren rebuilt it with its distinctive dome. It was still an impressive and imposing building.

Below is the other half of the painting. London Bridge is shown below. If you look closely to the end of the bridge closest to the viewer, you can see heads on pikes. Notice how London Bridge used to be covered with buildings! To the right you can see the Tower of London.

This was the first time I’ve seen one of these Victorian bikes in real life. They were actually real, and not just cartoons?

Anne Fanshawe’s dress, c. 1751. Made from brocaded silk. This would be a good way of making sure nobody sits on the bus beside you.

After the British Museum, my partner and I went to the British Library. The Treasures of the British Library collection was a real highlight. Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to take photos inside. We browsed: Jane Austen’s writing desk and her handwriting; a journal belonging to Leonardo da Vinci; one of only four copies of the Magna Carta; a Gutenburg Bible; an incredible exhibit on the art of book making throughout history; letters from Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Winston Churchill (authorizing the Monuments Men); prints and texts from all major world religions; handwritten lyrics from the Beatles on a birthday card; original scores by Mozart, Beethoven. Handel and others; Thomas Moore’s Utopia; Beowulf; and all other kinds of historical documents. The free exhibit was definitely a favourite part of the trip, and it’s a must if you’ve ever studied or been entertained by literature.

That night, my partner and I also attended Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. It was my first musical, and I really enjoyed it! Again, no pictures, but sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and experience an outing and not worry about documenting it.

The White Tower, the central keep, is the innermost point of the site (pictured below). The Tower of London was built in the 1070s by William the Conqueror following his invasion and conquest of England. Nothing like the Tower had ever been seen in England before. It was a formidable demonstration of Norman power. The Tower was painted white in 1240 to make it seem more imposing (and thus definitely more memorable.) The top storey was added in 1490 and the onion-shaped turrets were added by Henry VIII.

Below is an artist’s rendition of what the Tower and its defences would have looked like when under construction.

Below, my partner is standing in front of the White Tower (the main keep) and the remains of a Roman wall.

The original design incorporated ruins of the Roman city walls, such as the one my partner is standing in front of. In the illustration below, you can see what that wall once looked like.

For fun, here is another angle of that wall, with Tower Bridge in the background.

Today’s entrance to the Tower of London is through the Byward Tower, a 13th century addition from Edward I who also added the outer curtain wall and moat.

The moat below was drained in 1845.

Some shots from the Tower grounds.

A crotchety yeoman of the guard.

Interestingly, the Tower wasn’t built as a prison (even though that would be one of its main functions) and there were no purpose-built prison cells. Prisoners were kept anywhere they would fit. In some of the buildings you can see prisoner graffiti carved into the walls, some of it very intricate.

Some prisoners were kept in conditions that were more comfortable than others, such as Sir Walter Raleigh, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. A reconstruction of his room is shown below. At the time of his imprisonment in 1592 and 1593, “the Bloody Tower” was simply known as “the Garden Tower.”

My favourite part of the Tower was the Medieval Palace. In St. Thomas’s Tower, there is a  re-construction of Edward I’s bedchamber as it might have looked like when he stayed there in 1294.

Did you know medieval people slept sitting up? They would crowd pillows all around them.

The Wakefield Tower features a replica throne, private audience chamber, and chapel.

The sun came out, and suddenly things were looking a lot more picturesque.

Traitor’s Gate.

I could get in trouble for this since you’re not allowed to take pictures of the Crown Jewels, but below is an exclusive shot of the Imperial State Crown. It doesn’t photograph that well. Trust me, it was much more beautiful in person.

And because I decided seeing a flower market and the Tower of London in one day was still not enough, we then moved onto the Museum of London.

There were so many peonies, in so many colours, I just wanted to buy them all!

The market stands on what was once the centre of Roman London. The current architectural features of the market were designed in 1881.

It was quiet on the Saturday morning when I had my partner stop so we could take some pictures, as it is open on weekdays instead of the weekend. Thursday and Friday night were a little more lively! It was the place where I first saw people drinking outside a pub and had a moment of slight culture shock. (They can do that here?)

It was also a quiet morning at the Monument to the Great Fire of London. The Monument itself was closed so we didn’t have the opportunity to walk up the 311 steps to the viewing platform. It’s just as well: from this picture, you can tell it was a little rainy and cold that morning anyway.

The tower is 202 feet tall, which is the distance to the bakery on Pudding Lane where the fire first started on September 2, 1666. It was designed by Christopher Wren (who played a major role in rebuilding the city and St. Paul’s Cathedral after the fire) and Robert Hooke.

Below is a view of Tower Bridge from London Bridge. The current London Bridge is just a regular concrete and steel bridge opened in 1973 for vehicular traffic. It replaced an earlier 19th century stone arched bridge, which itself replaced a 600-year old medieval bridge. Before then, a series of wood bridges had been used to cross the Thames dating back to the Romans.

A distant view of the Shard.

We went to Borough Market to grab some baked goods and coffee for breakfast. The market celebrated its 1,000th birthday in 2014! The George Inn, which we had stopped at Thursday night, was just a couple of blocks away from the market.

It’s only 10 am but sure, why not?

A cake fit for a Queen. This queen, especially!

I’m still excited by streets with old brick buildings.

The Anchor Bankside pub.

Oh, look what we have happened upon! A popular local theatre! Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre was originally built in 1599, burnt down in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and demolished in 1644. In the 1970s American actor and director Sam Wanamaker set about building a reconstruction of the theatre that was as faithful to the original as possible – even using the tools, materials, and construction techniques that would have been used for the original 1599 building. The new building was opened to the public in 1996.

The new theatre is 230 metres (750 feet) from the original site of the Globe. Some Georgian townhouses now occupy the former site. Also, the river Thames was much wider in Shakespeare’s day so while the original site of the Globe in 1599 was located on the banks, that is no longer the case. By choosing this new site the reconstructed Globe retains the Shakespearean atmosphere of a Thames bank side theatre.

The stage features all sorts of trap doors and levels. You can’t see it in the above picture, but there is another level with a window above. During a production of Henry VIII in 1613, a cannon from this window was what started the fire that burned the original Globe down.

The beautiful painted roof shown below represents the heavens.

The Globe has the first and only thatched roof built in the City of London since the Great Fire of 1666. As you can imagine, it took a little bit of a push and pull with the local administration to get that approved!

They used to stuff 3,000 spectators into the theatre for shows. Modern safety requirements have cut that down to 1,400 (half of those standing, half sitting.) We had a fascinating tour of the theatre and learned all sorts of crazy details about these audiences. People would sit on each others’ laps. Also, once they crammed you in, you stayed in. No in/out privileges, no washrooms. For hours. Combined with lots of drinking. I think I would prefer a contemporary audience and access to public washrooms.

These seats next to the stage were reserved for royalty and other VIPs. As you can tell, they’re not the best seats in the house for a performance. But they are the best seats if you want to be seen by everyone else.

In addition to the outdoor Globe theatre and its wonderful tour there is an indoor candle-lit theatre space, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, that is based on the indoor theatre spaces of Jacobean London. There are many beautiful tapestries hanging around the space, such as the one below.

There is also an exhibition about Shakespeare’s life and his work, the construction of the new Globe theatre (how did they prepare all those log beams without power tools? what did they use for the reconstruction if they weren’t allowed to use nails or screws?), as well as displays about the costumes, technology (such as it was), and culture of Elizabethan/Jacobean London. We didn’t expect the exhibit at all, let alone find it so engrossing and educational.

The picture below of these Farthingale models reflects the different bustle styles in women’s skirts.

A costume for Queen Elizabeth I.

My first time seeing a reconstruction of a 17th century printing press (with moveable type!).

I couldn’t get over how I was finally seeing all the things I’ve read and learned about in schools and books. Imagine reading Shakespeare for the first time and then getting to go see a play at the Globe? Learning about the history of print and seeing one of these machines? Seeing an early printed edition?

As an English major and a lifetime lover of reading and writing, this is like a pilgrimage to my holy land.

Done to death?? Say it ain’t so! Bloudy fight? Horrible murder??

I can’t remember why I took this picture and it’s driving me a little crazy. I’ve deduced that it’s probably from Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Costumes and props used in the shows. Exploring the Globe was definitely a highlight of our time in London and I would definitely like to go back and see a play there.

The Millenium Bridge.

Cool split level view of the pedestrian bridge looking towards St. Paul’s Cathedral.

St. Paul’s Cathedral is massive. As you’ll see below, it’s impossible to get all of it in one frame. A church has been on this site since 604 A.D. Christopher Wren (as mentioned above) rebuilt St. Paul’s in the late 17th century following the Great Fire. It was the tallest building in London from 1710-1967. The dome is among the highest in the world.

The church is located on the highest point of the City of London, and the largest crypt in Europe is located below. English Baroque is the architectural style.

The West Front.

Time to join in the local festivities with a corgi cupcake!

We stopped at the Fleet Street pub Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese for lunch. It was rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire, and has been frequented by literary figures such as Charles Dickens, Dr. Samuel Johnson (whose house is literally just down the alleyway), Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, among others. The layout of the pub retains the old medieval style in which there are several small rooms each warmed by a fire, instead of one big room for everybody.

There is no natural light so it’s a little gloomy, but very atmospheric. The floors are uneven in parts and the roof is low. Definitely built before modern building regulations. I had my first English-baked pot pie here and it was delicious! It was perfect after a slightly chilly morning.

More beautiful buildings spotted along Fleet Street.

Rainy day city pageantry.

The Piccadilly Arcade featured some expensive looking jewelry and high end clothing shops but, sadly, no pinball machines. The second we emerged from this place of class and sophistication onto Piccadilly Street we were surprised by cheers and claps as the London contingent of the Naked Bike Ride went zipping by. I did not take pictures but it was funny to think that this event happened on the same day as the regal Trooping of the Colour and the celebration of the Queen’s 90th birthday.

Piccadilly Circus!

There were so many cool shops to check out in this area. We went to Fortnum & Mason, a posh department store from 1707, and wow, these Brits take their tea and biscuits very seriously here!

My favourite part of the store was their street-side flower display. Go figure.

Bear with me here.

Cath Kidston was nearby and, while I busied myself with that, my partner found a store that specialized in Japanese books.

We then stopped in the toy store, Hamleys, so I could pay my respects to the Queen (she’s shorter than I imagined).

Carnaby Street! The epicentre of Swinging London and mod fashion in the 1960s.

These signs bring a lot of colour to a dreary rainy day.

36,000 more steps and we are exhausted. Back to the hotel with my Cath Kidston loot!

A bit of a whirlwind, this day.

I’m glad I did! We ended up walking over 36,000 steps, or 16 kms. We started out by tracking down a cell service provider so my partner could get a U.K. cell phone plan. Then we walked down Oxford Street.

We came across this statue of William Shakespeare in Leicester Square. The inscription reads: “This enclosure was purchased, laid out and decorated as a garden by Albert Grant ESQ M.P and conveyed by him on the 2nd July 1874 to the Metropolitan Board of Works to be preserved for ever for the free use and enjoyment of the public.” The statue of Shakespeare is modelled after the one in Westminster Abbey. Here, he holds a scroll that contains a quote from Twelfth Night: “THERE IS NO DARKNESS BUT IGNORANCE.” (So terrifyingly fitting these days.)

There are beautiful buildings just about everywhere you look in London. I made my partner stop on Irving Street so I could take a picture of these ones.

We walked around Trafalgar Square and then spent a couple of hours in the National Gallery. We could have spent days in there! We didn’t have time to go to the nearby National Portrait Gallery, but I’m hoping we can go there the next time we go to London.

A view of Trafalgar Square from the steps of the National Gallery.

In addition to the many priceless paintings, the architecture of the National Gallery building is itself a work of art.

Some beautiful impressionist paintings by Monet and Renoir.

We met up with one of my partner’s coworkers at Mildred’s for lunch. Then we proceeded down Whitehall Road with the goal of walking past some of London’s most famous sites.

Whitehall Road takes its name from the Palace of Whitehall, which was the main royal residence between 1530 and 1689 (including King Henry VIII.) With 1,500 rooms, it was the largest palace in Europe. Unfortunately, it burned down in 1698 with only the Banqueting House surviving.

The weekend we were there was the same as the celebration of the Queen’s 90th birthday and the Trooping of the Colour. I had a hunch that we wouldn’t be getting anywhere near this part of town on the day of the event, Saturday, so we decided to see the sites when it wasn’t as crowded.

We came across Horse Guard’s Parade where the big military march would be taking place the next day.

A regal looking pair.

We walked all the way down to Parliament Square and came across Sir Winston.

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. (Fittingly, Sir Winston is keeping his eye on them.)

Hullo hullo?

Westminster Abbey is another site we will have to return to in the future.

Walking past Westminster Abbey.

The gates of Buckingham Palace.

We’ll try to do a tour another time.

The Canada Gate.

What was surprisingly touching was the Canada Memorial in Green Park, just to the North side of Buckingham Palace. It commemorates all the Canadian soldiers killed in WWI and WWII.

It was really beautiful and peaceful. An inscription at the centre of the memorial reads, “In two world wars one million Canadians came to Britain and joined the fight for freedom. From danger shared, our friendship prospers.”

We popped into the Buckingham Palace gift shop where I had my choice of corgi souvenirs. You’ll be pleased to know I picked up one that was wearing a  royal robe.

Hurray, a walk through Hyde Park! And I come across my first garden of the trip!

English roses.

Pink poppies!

Did I mention that 2016 was the year of the English Garden? Surely that wasn’t a coincidence.

There were so many geese along the Serpentine, including these fluffy goslings.

We were so happy to find the Diana Memorial playground and fountain. People (mostly kids) are encouraged to splash around and play in the fountain. Our feet were seriously hurting by this point.

We walked by Kensington Palace, which is where Prince Will, Princess Kate, and Prince Harry reside.

These royals sure appreciate a beautiful gate!

And a beautiful garden.

Selfie time.

A beautiful private residence. I noticed that there were lots of little garden areas for people to enjoy.

Here’s a cool pub I wanted to check out, but we were running late to meet up with one of my partner’s coworkers for dinner. Next time! I do admire how any pub worth its salt will trim itself with a copious amount of potted plants.

My partner and I met up with their coworker in Brixton. He took us to Pop Brixton for a drink, where a collection of stacked shipping containers has been used to create a community market of independent restaurants, galleries, and shops. It was a really cool place to check out. I had my first Aperol spritz there.

We ended the evening at a local pub, The Ivy.

That was the end of day two! 38,091 steps in total.