A Day Fit for a King

Now that I've finished with my report on Ireland, I have to catch up on all the other stuff I've done since then. The biggest thing is probably the class field trip I took to Hampton Court Palace, one of 60 of Henry VIII's royal accomodations.

The palace was massive; in the 4 hours I was there I still didn't get to see all of it. There are over 40 apartments, the kitchens themselves cover some 36,000 square feet, there is a giant hedge maze, tennis courts, and multiple gardens all set on 1,000 acres of land. This place is the ultimate of excessiveness and extravagance.

We were each given a set of headphones to take an audio tour of the palace. There were also actors dressed up in Tudor-period costumes roaming the grounds and engaging visitors in the running storyline of Henry VIII's impending marriage to his 6th and final wife, Catherine Parr (they were set to be married that day around 4pm).

Nearly every room in the palace was set up as it would have been back in the day. This one was decorated with hundreds of hunting rifles and other weapons, all the way around.

There were also a lot of these ginormous tapestries hanging on the wall, all original artifacts. The scale of everything was just massive; it was certainly built to impress and make the subjects of the kingdom feel very small.

 

There were multiple throne rooms, each set up the exact same way.  The second picture is of the crystal chandelier above one of the thrones.

As well as many small throne rooms, drawing rooms, and bedrooms, the palace also had its fair share of ridiculously long hallways and corridors, all looking out on the magnificent gardens that covered the grounds.

I found the actor who played Henry VIII to hold a rather strong likeness to pictures of the actual King.

This was just one of the many bedrooms. I was surprised by how tall they all were! It looks pretty luxurious, but on second thought, I might be a little creeped out to sleep in that thing...

The gardens were by far my favorite part. The biggest garden had these funny little trees that reminded me of something out of a Mario Bros. game or Alice in Wonderland. Others described them as Hershey's Kiss trees or Mushroom Trees. Whatever you want to call it, they were pretty adorable and made for an endless entertainment during our picnic lunch.

The Tudor Gardens were behind the palace, and were much more traditional. With springtime well on its way, flowers are beginning to bloom and little bits of color could be seen here or there.

The Royal Kitchens were a sight to behold as well. Re-enactors (is that a word?) were stationed around inside, with a live fire roaring in the hearth and a few tables with real food out on display, to give it an authentic feel and smell.

Finally, before we left we joined in a talk by "Catherine and Ann Parr," "Henry VIII," "Sir Thomas Seymour" and his "servant." It was pretty interesting how they acted out the events, while giving historical information, while still involving visitors in the storyline.

The men were all taken into the privy chamber with Sir Thomas, while the women stayed behind with Catherine as she talked about the actual historical character during the Protestant Reformation and the roles of women during the Tudor era. Eventually the servant came along to summon Catherine to the privy chamber ("The horrors! Women are never allowed in there!") and they did a whole exchange where Henry questioned his wife-to-be on how she would run the kingdom as queen.

Although we couldn't stay long enough to watch the "wedding," we attended a short talk on medieval fashion (very interesting!) before departing to catch a train back into London.

Apologies in advance for the pun, but... it was quite the enlightening day!

Video Montage

A video montage of my backpacking trip to Ireland.

Ireland, days 8-9

On my last day in Belfast, I went to Ormeau Park with the hopes of seeing what the local city parks were like, and having a relaxing morning. This would have been great -- had I not managed to get us hopelessly lost all the way across town.

It wasn't that bad really. We took a left where we should have taken a right. When we finally hiked it in the correct direction, we went straight where we should have turned. Eventually we found our way there though.

I was pleasantly surprised when we got there. Although the park had that typical manicured look we had seen all week, it was a unique design. Apparently, it had been designed by a member of the community back in the 19th century, and the design remains roughly the same.

It's a delightful combination of evergreens and deciduous trees, wildflowers, green lawns, landscaping, and winding pathways throughout.

After spending some time at the park, we poked our heads into St. George's Market, which was basically an enclosed street market. It sold an extremely wide variety of goods, ranging from food to hardware, to jewelry, to clothing.


The day was still young and we were planning on returning to the market the next day for one of my friends' research projects, so two of us departed to go off and explore the city a little bit. We went into City Hall, which was quite ornate, and walked around in its public courtyard a little.

For some reason there was a giant tourist ferris wheel on one side of the Hall. It seemed a little out of place, but made for an interesting feature in the middle of the city.

The only thing I didn't like was that the ferris wheel was unfortunately blocking some interesting memorial statues, such as this one commemorating the HMS Titanic. In fact, although we didn't get to go to any of the exhibits, the Titanic had been built in Belfast and I believe it was the last city she departed from before her fateful voyage across the Atlantic.


The next day, we returned to St. George's Market, which -- if possible -- had an even wider array of offerings. There was every kind of food you could imagine (with lots of free samples!), including entire roasted hogs skewered on gigantic spits; cheeses of every possible kind; raw fish and meats; delicious tarts, cakes, cookies and pies (lots of gluten-free pastries too); and all sorts of fresh fruits and vegetables. There were also tons of craftsmen, artists, and people selling pretty much anything they could get a hold of.

So, after an entertaining morning at the market, we rode a city bus to Belfast City Airport, cruised through security (except they stopped me to do a random check of my electronics) and lounged at the airport for a couple hours.

Out the window, you could see Cave Hill, with McArt's For at the top, and Belfast Castle at the bottom a little to the left (see picture). It was really amazing to se how far we had gone.

About an hour before our flight was scheduled to depart we noticed a note on our boarding passes: Have passport checked before boarding. Somehow we had skipped this step and no one had stopped us (Great airport security!).

>We ran back down and asked an officer what we should do. They laughed at us a little, but one officer kindly led us back out to the passport desk where we were stamped, issued new boarding passes, and instructed to go back through security. And so we did. And, once again, I was randomly called into the security room, this time so they could do a fabric swab on my coat. I was cleared to go, and soon enough we were back on our way.

The flight home was extremely short -- about 45-50 minutes, but it was lovely watching the English countryside down below. From there, we took an 1 1/2 hour coach back into the city, and finally took the tube home just after dark.

We had made it! I couldn't help but be a little astonished we were all alive. Sure, we had our mishaps, miscommunications, misjudgments, and so on, but considering we're all slightly naive 20-year-olds who have only known each other about a month and a half, I'd say it wasn't too shabby.

It was a truly wonderful trip, and I learned a lot not only about Ireland, but also about myself, traveling, and just life in general. There really is so much in this world; so much to experience and to love and to see. It really makes me grateful for the time and opportunities I have here.

Ireland, day 7

Our seventh day in Ireland was the busiest day I had the entire time I was there. I'll try to let my pictures do most of the talking so as not to make this too long (I think it's already too late to worry about length though!).

We rode the city bus to Cave Hill Country Park, on the outskirts of Belfast, much like Colin Glen (although fortunately this time we had a friendly bus driver who let us off at the street leading up to it and gave us good walking directions from there!). Belfast is situated in the Lagan Valley and surrounded by gigantic hills -- being from Florida, I thought they looked more like mountains, but everyone insisted they were hills. We were over 1,000 feet in altitude though, so whatever you want to call it, that's what we were hiking.

Belfast Castle stands about a third of the way up. It's a 19th century mansion that was owned by the third Marquis of Donegall (a family who owned/owns much of the land in Belfast).

It was open to the public, but there wasn't much inside. Apparently it's mostly used for weddings and rented out for private events. On the top floor, there were some really old informational displays, including the large taxidermy exhibit above.

This was the view of the city from the castle.

At the top of the hill is McArt's Fort, also known as Napoleon's Nose. It was really far up, but three of us decided to see how close we could get, which the fourth member of our group elected to stay behind at the castle. It turned out to be a long and strenuous hike, but I had an absolute blast.

It had been a couple hours and we were only about two thirds of the way to the top, so we decided just to hike back down so we wouldn't leave our other party member waiting too long. Just as we were about to turn around though, we spotted a clearing at the top of a sharp incline. With an exchange of glances, it was clear we were all in ageement: "Let's do it!"

It was SO worth it! Gasping for breath at the top, the trees gave way to a spectacular panorama of the entire city and countryside. Behind us, Cave Hill towered above (you could actually see all the caves from here) and in front was a glorious, grey, foggy vista.

Just as we were about to head back down, a couple of old Irishmen came up the path with their 5 dogs. After a few moments of small talk ("Lovely afternoon, innit? Are you Canadian?"), they suggested we go up a little farther to see the "big cave".

We took their advice and found the big cave just beyond a grassy ravine. It was a little farther than we had time to walk, but it was clear, even from that distance, how large it must have been inside.

Before we left, I wanted one last look at the great view. I scrambled up a steep outcropping that jutted up from the side of the hill. It was a great little adrenaline rush when I got to the peak and found myself balanced on what felt like the top of the world.

This was a map of the trails -- I highlighted our route in red. Needless to say, we were dead exhausted by the end!

But the day was far from over. We rode the bus back into Belfast and then got off at St. Anne's Cathedral. It was an interesting church, and quite beautiful inside, especially with the organ player practicing haunting hymns that echoed throughout the sanctuary.

When we got back to the hostel mid-afternoon, I fell sound asleep for a good hour or so before dinner. Afterwards, I had agreed to go with one of the girls to a photography club meeting for her research project.

We got a little lost getting there when we hopped off the bus, and realized it was not a great part of town. However, thanks to a friendly hairdresser who googled the place for us, we found it without much hassle.

I was quite exhausted by that point and felt very out of place among the dozen or so photographers with their big fancy DSLRs and studio equipment. It was interesting to watch though, and I actually learned a few new things about photography.

Getting back to the hostel was a little scary -- when we were walking back to the bus stop (in the rain and the dark), at one point we were followed by two men in a car who started get out and come towards us. However, we kept walking quickly and as soon as we got to the main road seconds later, they disappeared. It was extremely unnerving, but fortunately the only somewhat-dangerous situation I encountered on the entire trip.

It certainly didn't ruin the remarkable day it had been overall. I had climbed a thousand feet over the city, I had wandered down the aisle of a cathedral, and had spent the evening in the company of some brilliant photographers. What a day!

Ireland, day 6

We started out with high ambitions on our first day in Belfast. Armed with an informational brochure on Colin Glen Forest Park, we planned to spend a few hours exploring the area and then head back to the city in the afternoon. It seemed easy enough to get to Colin Glen: walk to City Centre, hop on bus 10F, and hop off again at the park. When we double checked with the bus driver to make sure it was the right one, he gave us a curt nod.

As it turned out however, apparently something got lost in translation between American English and Irish English. We rode the bus clear out of town, and never saw the park. I knew we were in the right area, but something didn't quite match up.  When we asked the driver where we should get off, he gave us a dull look and said it was "a few stops back."

We got off, and as he drove away in an apathetical cloud of dust, we found ourselves stranded in the rural/suburban hills on the far outskirts of town. Great! We trudged uphill, tracing the bus route back along the deserted road. There were a few buildings, but they were old grubby looking apartments surrounded by walls. Finally we reached the area that we were pretty sure the bus driver had been referring to: an apartment complex called "Glen Colin." 

I thought the irony of the mix-up was hilarious, but no one else seemed to think so. We waited for another eon by the bus stop until another 10F came by, and this time showed the bus driver our brochure, and asked very clearly if he could take us there. "Oh yes!" he said, "I'll give you a shout when we're there!"

Thank goodness, too; we rode the bus back down passed the place where we got off the first time, and finally arrived at a stop clearly named "Colin Glen Forest Park." (Really, how hard was that?)

The park itself was a welcome relief from buses and roads and cities. There was a little nature center with a cafe where we bought sandwiches for lunch, and a wide variety of hiking trails to choose from throughout the narrow strip of preserve land.

The park followed the route of a small river, and had narrow pedestrian bridges crossing over it at various points.

There were also tons of birds at the park, including Wood Pigeons, a Grey Wagtail (first bird picture), Chaffinches (2nd bird), Song thrushes (3rd bird), Hooded Crows, and Great Tits.

Everything about the park was just gorgeous. Although it was surrounded by some slightly sketchy-looking residential buildings, it was a wonderful little oasis of greenery in the brown landscape.

From my research, I found that Belfast used to be the world center for linen manufacturing, of all things. The river that runs through Colin Glen was once used for the linen mills, and evidence of the mills can still be seen at the dam that runs under the Weir Bridge, above. Apparently there had also been a lot of logging on the land, but efforts in the 1990s were made to restore the habitat. I would say they've done a fine job!

It took us a good 3 hours to get through the park, but I really enjoyed the peacefulness of it, the beautiful environment, and the great scenery.