Scotland via England

For this trip we decided to fly into London and drive to Scotland, this will give us a chance to see the Northern part of England.  We flew Ryan air again for $123 round trip for the three of us. You really can't beat their prices. We picked up the rental car from Sixt for around $100 for the 4 days. This time we rented hotel rooms on Hotels.com instead of houses on Airbnb since we were traveling around and not staying in one spot.
Our first stop was to Sherwood forest and to check out the area of Robin Hood and his merry men.

This is a must see for anyone who is in awe of nature.  The forest is home to a lot of very old oak trees.  The forest covers over 450 acres but is recorded in records back to 927 AD which covered over 100,000 acres then.  The major oak is considered the oldest tree in the forest and is thought to be anywhere from 800-1000 years old and is still producing acorns. 

She may be propped up, have some rotten holes and not have any leaves on her right now but she is beautiful! look at her! just look at her! I wish i could have seen her during the summer when she is in full leaf. her trunk circumference is 33' and branches spread over 92' wide! The tree is thought to be the site of the base camp for Robin Hood and his followers, but there is  no evidence of it.
Here is another picture of her The Major Oak.

Ok last picture I promise. Up at the gift shop there was an artisan making wooden bowls with a homemade lathe, it was pretty cool.

Our next stop was to Nottingham castle it was originally built in 1067 and rebuilt in 1678 to what you see now. It was the residence of King Richard I also know as Richard the Lionheart.
 
There are tributes all over the grounds of Robin Hood.

On our drive to Scotland we stopped in the town of Kensington, England.  We noticed a cute little gate with rabbits on it.

We did a little search and realized that this is the town that Beatrix Potter wrote her famous book Peter Rabbit. This was a cute little garden that we found a geocache in.

We finally made it to Scotland and went to see Edinburgh Castle, there has been a royal castle on this site since the 12th century.  

Before driving up to see it we stopped below it to get our first geocache in Scotland.  

The entrance to the castle grounds, you can see how high up the castle is over the city.

The castle grounds were pretty awesome. In 2014 researchers claimed the Edinburgh Castle as "the most besieged place in Great Britain and one of the most attached in the world".

The views from the castle are amazing, seems like you could see forever. 

The arms rooms were really cool, all of the swords and spears are originals, and there are loads!

 Here is a shot of the entire room, you can see the displays of spears and battle axes hung high on the walls. The suits of armor are really cool too.

 This is what the Scottish Armys barracks looked like, talk about being close to your brothers in arms.

Kim was a bad girl and had to go to the stockade. The castle jail was pretty neat and had been modernized to hold prisoners during WWII. 

 I love the look of the architecture, even though it is all gray scale it is still cool looking.

 In the back ground is St Giles cathedral built in 1243.

 Highland Kirk church right outside the castle in the city.

 This is an overview of a tartan factory, they make multiple patterns for kilts and other items.

 The machinery looks very old and heavy, pretty cool.

 We left Edinburgh and wanted to go find Nessie, in Loch Ness.  Driving through the highlands was beautiful, it was really strange, the temperature dropped way down as we were driving through.  When we came out the temp went back up.  

 If your are interested in the legend of Loch Ness then you want to visit the exhibition center.  It was pretty neat, it showed the research of the lake and it also showed the hoaxes that have been created over the years.

 The lake is absolutely gorgeous! We looked for a while but no luck we didnt see Nessie.  We drove around the entire east coastline.  It was amazing to see it so green since we just drove through the snowy highlands.

 On our drive back to the airport I wanted to stop and see Hadrian's wall.  It was a wall built by Romans fro east coast to west coast in 122 AD.  Parts of it are still standing!! There was a roman fort about every 5 miles along the wall. We got there to late to visit the fort and visitors center.

Te trip would not be complete with out a man in a Kilt playing a bagpipes....THE END.

Jonahs Birthday present............Trip to England!!!

So what do you get your youngest child for his 11th Birthday, who is infatuated with British people, while you are stationed in Germany?  You take him to England for 3 nights!!  Travel here is EXTREMELY cheap, around $350 for the three of us to include a rental car for 4 days.  We cant afford NOT to go!!

 We surprised Jonah at school to give him his Birthday present.

On the plane, leaving for England. Ryan Air was pleasant to fly on even though its a budget airline.

We grabbed our rental car and headed to the 2br Flat that we booked off of www.airbnb.com.  We where on the backside of this building.

 The building was turn of the century so it was a little drafty, but plenty of room.

This is Barney the house cat.

Barney was suggesting websites.  

 After we got the car unloaded we went to go check out the London eye. Our first major site was the tower bridge.   

 It was built from 1886-1894, it is a draw bridge to allow ships to pass.

The upper level was built as a walk way so pedestrians could cross any time of the day, but was closed in 1910 because people didnt want to walk all the stairs. It was reopened in 1982 as part of the payed tour.

Next we went to the London eye to take a ride and see the sights from up high.

It is 443' tall and rotates 10" per second, it is a 30 minute ride to go completely around.  It has some awesome views!

Big ben in the background.

 We dont do pics together often.

 The pods are huge

We couldnt help but take this pic, it looks cool with the trees lit up.

 Cant come to England without Fish and Chips!

The palace of Westminster, which holds the two houses of Parliament for the UK, the clock tower (Big Ben) is to the left.

 The Palace of Westminster, view from the bridge over the river Thames.

 Big Ben is actually the name of the 16 ton bell in the clock tower.  Its true name is Elizabeth Tower.

The clock is so accurate that there is a small stack of pennies on top of the 660lb pendulum, by adding or taking away 1 penny alters the clock by .4 seconds 

At the base of each of the clock dials there is a Latin inscription which translates to," O Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the First"

Westminster Abbey, just across the street of the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben.  This is the North entrance.

The construction of the church began in 1245!

The rear of the church, the church was where Queen Elizabeth married here in 1947, as well as Prince Andrews wedding, and recently Prince William and Catherine where married here.

After some other sightseeing we didn't get to down town till around noon so we didn't get to tour Westminster Abbey, the line was streached all the way around the block to get in.

The main entrance on the west side.

Office of the supreme court.

 A trip wouldn't be complete without a pic in the red telephone booth.

 It also smells as if the bums think they are urinals.

 St Paul's Cathedral built in 1675, it was the tallest building in London until 1962.

 The West front entrance.

 The huge front door at the West entrance.

This church is where Princess Diana was married.  We where able to pay and go inside of this church and it was beautiful, the ceilings are amazing. We where not able to take pics inside the church.

This pic i got from google shows how beautiful it is on the inside.

 We made it to Buckingham Palace, Jonah got really excited.

 The huge Victoria Memorial was created in 1911.

Jonah was kind of bummed out when we told him the Queen wasn't at the Palace.  Just FYI the Union Jack is not flown if the Queen is in.  They fly the "Royal Standard" and it looks like this.  We told him we would have to check and see if she was at Windsor Castle.

 We made the hour drive to Windsor Castle, you could see it from the Parking lot.

 Built in 1066 the Castle walls are built upon 13 acres.  Although it is officially only her weekend residence Windsor Castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world and the longest inhabited in all of Europe.

Again the Queen is not in.  I think Jonah is going to wait by the gate until the Queen shows up.

There is a very nice shopping area at the outer West side of the Castle.  We ended up eating dinner and was able to lookout and see Windsor Castle while we ate, what a view.

The next day we drive 1 1/2 hour from London to go see Stonehenge. 

 Cold, rainy and 39 mph crosswinds.  It was still well worth it.

 There is believed to have been activity here as far back as 3000bc.  

The stones are believed to have been placed here between 2600-2400bc

 Even though it is just a bunch of large stones setting in a field it is still awe inspiring.

To think they carved the rocks into long rectangular stones and made them with mortise and tendons to fit them together and at the time had no iron tools to do it with.  That's dedication!

 Before we headed back to the flat to pack we decided to go visit Southampton.  Here at Westgate is where the passengers of the Mayflower walked to get to the ship to sail to America in 1620.

It has been a walled city to protect its port since 840AD, you can even see evidence of old cannon balls that where fired into the city.

 The Mayflower in 1620 and the Titanic in 1912 set sail from here, Southampton is definitely an important port.

 The monument at base of the city walls to commemorate the Pilgrim Fathers.

And I will close this blog with Jonah sitting at the port of Southampton, at sunset, pondering what was clearly, in his words, "The BEST Birthday weekend EVER!"