Cardiff Castle house

November 4, 2015

The Third Marquess of Bute, who made his fortune in coal mining, decided to upgrade the house in the 1880’s.  He hired renowned designer William Burges for the job.  See for youself. The ceiling of the Arab room is not paint but gold foil. The banquet room is available for hire @ £500 hr. A […]

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No Pirates in Penzance

November 3, 2015

I had hopes of finding a house where my great great grandfather had lived or maybe a grave sight but getting to Lostwithiel, Cornwall without a car and without any idea where to start forced me to skip that.  In fact I was quite surprised when the train stopped at the station as I did […]

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Stonehenge

November 1, 2015

Seeing the Magna Carta & Stonehenge makes for a pretty good day! Unfortunately I had not time to see the Iron Age site, Sarum.  The fog only helped the visit. How they moved some of these stones from Wales boggles the mind considering the era. Can you spot the kestrel? And unlike the hundreds of […]

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Salisbury, a city saved by God

November 1, 2015

Well, at least by a place of worship.  Salsbury Cathedral was built between 1220-1320 originally a Catholic church it became Anglican after Henry VIII started the Church of England. This city is very old.  Amazingly old.  Most cities of this age have very few really old buildings left but during WWII, the German pilots were […]

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HMS Victory

October 31, 2015

The grandest exhibit in Porstmouth. In New England we have the USS Constitution, Old Ironsides and in Mystic the whaler Charles Morgan.  Both are very impressive but Ironsides was a frigate. HMS Victory, about half the length of HMS Warrior, it is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, ordered in […]

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Osborne House

October 30, 2015

I jumped the bus to Newport, the hub of the island, and went to East Comes on the way to Osborne House. Queen Victoria found Isle of Wight a nice place to holiday and, as it turned out, the place she died. Although photos are not allowed inside, it was still quite the visit. 150 rooms […]

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Brading Roman Villa

October 30, 2015

In an early 2003 post I talk about thinking of Boston, where I was born, as an old town until I ate in an Edinburgh restaurant that had been serving food 200 years before the Pilgrims began the American immigration wave. That had to be revised once again. The villa remains are housed in an […]

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Historic Portsmouth

October 30, 2015

After the mix up that landed me on the IOW, I ended up in the well named  town of Fareham, a few miles north of Portsmouth at the equally nice Red Lion Hotel. Portsmouth has long been a major British naval port and a large part of the waterfront has been turned into a tourist […]

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Wandering hotel bookings

October 29, 2015

One of the things that keeps you on your toes when traveling like I do, which is so very loosely scripted, is finding a place to stay as I rarely book more than a few days in advance since I don’t exactly where I’m headed. I frequently use Expedia.  Since I use lodging simply for […]

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Folkestone

October 27, 2015

Sometimes travel days are as painful as wandering days. All the trudging is not euphoric what with the backback of 15# and rolling suitcase of 35#. All the hiking to & thru train stations, six flights of stairs to get on the ferry and then a couple miles to the bus to Folkestone (the town […]

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