Just pictures

Below are some pictures I took of the spring flowers in the gardens at Kensington Palace. It is absolutely gorgeous here now -- the trees sprung their leaves seemingly overnight and all the parks and gardens are in full bloom. Enjoy the pics! 

Spring Break 4: The Land of the Bard

My last day of spring break was spent in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare. What's more, we were there on his birthday but unfortunately, celebrations weren't starting until the weekend (figures!).  

The town was pretty and had a very traditional village feel to it, but it was one of the biggest tourist traps I've seen here. Every single building, shop and business had a Shakespeare reference in it and there were giftshops on every corner. Street signs pointed to Shakespeare's Birthplace, Shakespeare's Daughter's Husband's House, Shakespeare's Grave, etc.

When we first got there, we quickly found our way off the beaten path and followed some gorgeous, flower-lined pathways along the seemingly endless canals that meander through the town. It was almost unreal; many houses had long riverboats moored outside, bobbing placidly in the water. Everything was in full bloom, birds sang, there wasn't a cloud in the sky -- it was quite beautiful when you got off the main drag.

We had the entire day there, so we ended up exploring just about every road and side street of Stratford... which, in the end, only took up the morning. By early afternoon, we had seen everything there was to see, with the exception of paying to walk through Shakespeare's house and museum.

So, after a quick lunch in the park we headed to the Holy Trinity Church to see the old Bard's grave.

It was a humble chapel (relatively speaking!) and although it was crowded, it had much less of that frantic tourist air about it. A stewardess at one end of the sanctuary asked for a contribution of 50 pence and then let us through.

And there he was, good old Shakespeare set in stone, along with his wife Anne Hathaway, daughter, and son-in-law. It was kind of a special moment, just to be there and realizing I was just feet away from the most celebrated playwright in history.

We still had 4 hours to kill before our train so we ultimately ended up spending the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the park (a wise choice as far as I'm concerned, seeing as we were lugging around our travel backpacks with our entire week's worth of clothes and supplies). We splurged for our last meal and ate at a nice restaurant before catching the night train back to London.

It was an incredible five days, all the way around. It was really nice to be travelling at our own pace , and some of the places we went and the things we saw were just amazing. Once again I feel so deeply awed by the world and the opportunities I've had thus far to explore it. I can't wait to see what's around the next corner!

Spring Break 3: Diamonds in the rough

Wednesday, I woke up in Betws-y-Coed, Wales and went to bed that night in Birmingham, England. Below are some pictures from the train ride out. 

The ride out was beautiful, but I was very sad to be leaving. On top of my somewhat melancholy mood, the trains were absolutely packed, because at this point airports were still closed due to the volcano. There was nowhere to sit, so my friend and I along with half a dozen others had to stand for about an hour on the train until it terminated at some station and there was a mass exodus onto the platform while everyone tried frantically to find their connection. By some great miracle (and the help of a friendly young station worker) we found ours and rode the rest of the way to Birmingham without incident.

At this point I must confess that I have absolutely no pictures whatsoever of our destination city. I try not to judge, but I really found Birmingham rather unremarkable and not very photogenic. It was kind of like Belfast, but with oddly empty streets, lots of sketchy alleyways, and numerous warehouses and construction areas. Our hostel was down a side street and situated between several auto shops under a railway bridge -- I'm not going to lie: I had my doubts when I saw the place.

It quickly revealed itself as a lively and youthful oasis in the midst of its industrial surroundings, however. Every wall was painted a bright, gaudy color and the common room was decorated floor to ceiling with memorabelia from around the world. There was a cozy entertainment room, where guests were watching Lord of the Rings when we came in, as well as every kind of board game and video game you could imagine. They also offered free breakfast and dinner, which was a nice bonus.

If I hadn't been surprised when I walked into the lobby, I sure was when they let us into our room. Rather than the usual bunk beds, this dorm had a wall of capsule beds, or "pods." It was quite a novelty, but the room was crowded and it was near impossible to sleep in them. Plus, mine was VERY pink and dark inside, which I found slightly unsettling for some reason.

We spent the next day exploring the city. After wandering around the city and checking out the Bull Ring market we found our way to the Jewellery Quarter. Believe it or not, much of B-ham's industry was (and still is apparently) made from the jewelry trade. There isn't much to do there if you don't have a couple million pounds to bust, but the one diamond in the rough (no pun intended!) is the unassuming little Museum of the Jewellery Quarter.

Although it only has 2 small galleries, they offer a free tour of the old jewelry factory owned by the Smith & Pepper company. The story of the place is fascinating: The company was founded in 1899 and ran for over 80 years in the building that is now the museum. In the 1980s however, they were still using the old techniques and their facilities were so out of date they were forced to shut down. With that, the owners closed up the shop, leaving everything behind (right down to a full jar of marmite and preserves) and there it remained untouched for almost a decade.

During the tour, the guide demonstrated traditional jewelry making using the tools in the old factory (all of which still worked!). It was absolutely fascinating! Below is a short video I took during the tour so you can see for yourself.

I have tons more pictures from the factory but I think I'll leave it at that for now, lest this post gets obscenely long and tedious. It was quite the enjoyable and relaxing day, all things considered, and I certainly learned more about jewelry making than I ever thought I would!

Spring break 2: Sheep, waterfalls and mines

Day two of spring break found us right across the street from our hostel at Swallow Falls, a little boardwalk area that offered lovely views of one of the area's most beautiful waterfalls.

It was pretty, but I was a little bummed out they charged £1 to look at it from a distance, unlike the other waterfalls in the area that you could go right up to for free, given that you could find them off some of the hiking trails.

After admiring the water for a while, we rode the bus into town and spent the day hiking back up towards the hostel via the numerous hiking trails that branched off from the road.

By far, the most impressive trail we hiked was one that led over the Miner's Bridge, a unique steeply inclined footbridge used by the lead miners of the 19th century.  I didn't know this at the time though, until we later started stumbling upon "Danger Old Mine" signs, which you'll see further down.

I was mostly impressed by the waterfalls, and had an absolute blast climbing around on the rocks and boulders and tree stumps strewn in the rapids. Again, the scenery and environment was just totally awe-inspiring and completely breathtaking.

We hiked around for a couple hours, further up the mountain. The trails literally went on for miles and miles, but we stayed within the 2-4 mile range (wisely, I think) and still saw a ton of stuff. Just above is the warning sign had mentioned earlier. As soon as I saw it I wanted to go off and look for the mine, but my friend wouldn't let me... :(

So instead we had lunch at another nearby waterfall we found nearby, before tackling the lengthy trail back to the hostel.

Much to my delight, on our way back I noticed some old ruins at the foot of a hill off the road and immediately climbed down to investigate further. Victory! I found my mine! It was fenced off, but I was happy.

Across the river was a slightly stranger part of it, as you can see above. Below some old mining equipment, water was pouring out of the side of the mountain and appeared to have dyed the rocks brilliant orange. The best I can conclude is that this is from the lead and minerals that were drawn from the mine and are still continuing to spill out.

After taking a break back at the hostel, we went for an evening walk up the road in the other direction we hadn't been yet (thus far, we had only been going to and from the town -- I was curious as to what was around the other corner!). We found lots more sheep fields, distant snow-capped mountains, and more hiking trails.

We hiked down one of them and found these absolutely adorable sheep. They all had identical black spots over their eyes and noses, and had the deepest "voices" I've ever heard! A few of them also had this really funny way of getting down on their front knees to graze. They would kind of just get down there and scoot along on their knees with their faces in the grass. Perhaps I'm way too easily amused, but I almost died laughing when I first saw it.

Alas, our second and final day in Wales came to an end. I suppose it was just the right amount of time to explore Betws-y-Coed, but I wasn't ready to leave Wales. Something about that place was so incredibly magical, I wanted to see more. I found it all so serene and inspiring, and completely exhilarating all at once. I know for sure I'll be returning to Wales some day to see the rest of the country.

I'll try to post days 3 and 4 soon!

Spring Break 1: "You're in walking country now"

Snowdonia National Park is located in northern Wales, a country roughly the size of New Jersey and has literally more sheep than people (that's 3 million people and 11 million sheep, to be precise). As our final train chugged into Llandudno Junction, it was clear that this place was truly something special. Mountains rose in the hazy distance, forests blanketed the landscape, and sheep fields divided by crumbling stone walls followed the contours of the foothills for miles.

We were dropped off in the tiny town of Betws-y-Coed (pronounced BET-oos-uh-COYD, f.y.i.) by bus, which had about 2 main roads, and only one stop light that I could see.  I had a blurry map I'd printed out and walking directions from Google Maps, both of which quickly proved useless. We started out walking the wrong direction, so we stopped in at a hotel for help. The lady at reception hadn't heard of the Swallow Falls Youth Hostel, but she said Swallow Falls was about 2.5 miles up the road in the opposite direction. Google Maps had lied -- according to my print-out, it should have been .5 miles away. Oh well...

We walked and we walked and we walked some more. Figuring we had to have gone more than 2 miles, I was beginning to grow alarmed that the town was now far behind us and the road was weaving futher up into the mountains and forest, and the only remaining roadside buildings were B&Bs and farmhouses. I called the hostel for directions, and they said it was another 2 miles away. How could that possibly be? We must have walked 10 miles already! So we walked and we walked and we walked.

It felt like it had been hours and I didn't know what else to do. It was getting towards sunset, and, afraid of having to sleep in a sheep field for the night, I finally went up to a B&B and rang the doorbell. No one answered. I went next door and did the same thing. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers, because a very nice woman answered and informed us that we were about a 20 minute uphill walk away. She said we looked very tired, but this was good for us because, as she said, "You're in walking country now."

And indeed we were. We continued up the mountain road and were relieved about 30 minutes later to see a sign indicating the hostel was about 200 yards ahead. We had made it. We powered up the last few hundred feet past another sheep field and finally checked into the hotel/hostel complex. It was a decent room (pictured above), made for 6 people but fortunately we were the only ones there.

The next day, after a £1 breakfast at the hostel, we rode the one and only bus into town and explored some of the trails and side streets. We found our way to a little suspension bridge, which led to a dead-end trail between two sheep fields.

The scenery was drop-dead gorgeous, everywhere we looked. It's just mindboggling to see that places as serene as Betws-y-Coed still exist, seemingly unchanged in the last 100 years but for a few refurbished buildings and new cars.

Above is the graveyard at St. Michael's church, an abandoned chapel on the river.

This was the train we rode into town... Just kidding! This is the actual rail station though, with a little kiddy train that runs around the adjacent railway museum.

Around mid-day we found the Pont-y-Pair Bridge, which crosses over a beautiful waterfall that cuts through the town. I couldn't help but think in the US this sort of thing would be fenced off and plastered with warning and liability signs and they'd be charging admission to see it, but here it was opened to whoever felt like clambering down amongst the boulders and cascading waters.

Another nice thing about Betws-y-Coed was that it only has a population of about 500 people and few tourists, so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. The only other visitors seemed to be either retirees from the nearby trailer park, locals, or serious backpackers, hikers and climbers.

We ended up following a forest trail for a mile or 2 along the river and through various sheep fields. Eventually we came back to town, had a late lunch/early dinner by the waterfall and took a leisurely 2 mile walk back to the hostel.

Thus ended my first day of spring break. Wales was already shaping up to be one heck of an adventure, and certainly one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.