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London - Lakes - Hadrian - Traquair and more...

London - Lakes - Hadrian - Traquair and more...

Old Jun 18th, 2016, 07:06 AM
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London - Lakes - Hadrian - Traquair and more...

This is the first bit of a TR, written on the road, as we visit cousins and friends in the UK. I culled many suggestions from Fodorites as the itinerary developed as well as obtaining valuable weather advice ( = anticipate anything, pack layers). The beginning of the trip was marked by tragic events: the Orlando slaughter of LGBT people, the murder of MP Jo Cox, and resulting upheavals in the Brexit debate. We're on the road now, it's June 18, the polls are showing "leave" pulling slightly ahead, and we will be in Scotland, in Traquair House, the evening of the referendum, so it's a historic time to be here.

We drove from Burlington, Vermont to Trudeau Airport in Montreal, left the car in long-term parking, and took an easy Air Transat flight to Gatwick. We often fly Air Transat to Europe. It's convenient for us since Montreal is the closest big airport, it's well run, and a great value. Our open-jaw ticket, over to London then return from Glasgow, nonstop each way, was only US$580 including all taxes and fees.

We took the Thameslink train from Gatwick to Kings Cross/St. Pancras and walked a couple of blocks to our hotel, the Premier Inn on Dukes Road at the corner of Euston Road. This was the second London Premier Inn we have used (we stayed at the City Council Premier Inn on the Thames a couple of years ago) and they suited us fine, at a reasonable cost. This time the location was ideal for us, an easy walk of some 20 to 40 minutes to most of the places we wanted to go.

After lunch and a rest, we walked down to St. Martin-in-the-Fields for the evening candlelight concert of choral music and Faure's Requiem. This is one of my favorite churches anywhere, a light, airy version of English baroque and the 50 chorus members were outstanding. Then on to dinner at the Ship Inn, a fine gastropub dating back to 1549. Dinners: a starter of crab fritter with mint yogurt sauce and caviar for me, wild mushrooms for partner, and two servings of sausage, mash, and onion and bacon gravy. Plus ale, of course.

We slept in late the next morning. I made a quick visit to the church of St. Pancras next door to the hotel and was given the great opportunity by one of the church ladies to walk up the bell tower with her and ring the church bells. An unexpected treat.

We then walked down to the Holborn tube stop for the 11:00 walking tour of the Inns of Court, "Legal and Illegal London," covering the development of the legal education system. This was given by London Walks, highly recommended and very worthwhile, The two hour tour cost £10 (£8 for seniors like us); no need to register, just show up outside the Holborn tube stop. Many of the buildings of the Inns survived not only the Great Fire of 1666 but also the 1940 Blitz.

We visited many of the buildings and courtyards and heard (and sometimes remembered) a huge amount of historical background, including: why a lawyer is called to "the bar"; why did John Donne write the phrase "for whom the bell tolls" in his sermon which he gave in one of the Inn chapels; why Francis Bacon died just after his successful attempt to freeze chicken cutlets. Some of these historical nuggets might even be accurate! Also in the visit: the Temple church, built by the Knights Templar, dating back to the 12th century. We stayed at the end of the tour to hear a magnificent organ concert at 1:15 pm.

On to Ely Place, a couple of blocks away. This is the only scrap of London not subject to rule by the municipal government but instead by its own board of commissioners. It was originally part of a large palace complex built for the Bishop of Ely in Cambridgeshire. Now, only the little street and the very old Ye Olde Mitre pub survive (the pub was built to serve the workers of the bishop's estate).

A mediocre lunch at Chandos restaurant a block away from St. Martin's (don't recomment this restaurant). Afterward, we hopped the tube to go to the Freud Museum.

Freud fled Vienna in 1938 after the Anschluss, paying a huge sum to the Nazis as an "emigrant tax". He and his wife and daughter, Anna, settled in a house in Maresfield Gardens. Freud, suffering from cancer, continued to see a few patients there. He died in late September, 1939. Anna Freud, an important psychoanalyst and author, lived in the house until her death in 1982. It is now a fascinating and moving museum, with many of Freud's possessions arranged as much as possible as they were in his Vienna home. The most moving part: THE COUCH. Yes, the couch used by Freud's patients. Surely one of the most important pieces of furniture in the western world.

Must run. We're now in Keswick on a late Saturday afternoon about to head out to visit the Castlerigg stone circle, one mile out of town in a big meadow...perhaps 1,000 years older than Stonehenge. We shall see. More to come. Including Kinky Boots.
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Old Jun 18th, 2016, 08:46 AM
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Great start! You did some really interesting things your first couple of days. Can't wait to hear more.
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Old Jun 18th, 2016, 10:09 AM
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Signing on for the ride. Lucky you, being in the Lake District. Hope you enjoy Castlerigg. I shared it with a few sheep. Or maybe cows, it was a while ago.
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Old Jun 18th, 2016, 10:15 AM
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Looking forward to the journey!

>>I shared it with a few sheep. Or maybe cows, it was a while ago.
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Old Jun 18th, 2016, 10:21 AM
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terrific start, and please do tell -

why DID John Donne say "never send to know for whom the bell tolls"?
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 12:59 AM
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@annhig: Donne was preacher of the chapel. He laid the foundation stone in 1620. Here's the background of his famous sermon "No man is an island, etc." from the website of the Lincoln's Inn chapel:
"The Chapel bell, cast in 1615, also has an association with John Donne. In addition to ringing for curfew at nine o’clock each evening, it is also tolled by ancient custom at midday on the death of a bencher of the Inn, a practice long held to be the inspiration for the quotation from Donne’s poem beginning “No Man is an Island” which concludes 'And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee'."
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 01:14 AM
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So it is now, in the narrative, late afternoon in London. Over to The Montague for a cocktail, then to Kinky Boots, the musical based on the movie (interesting origin, since most of the time the movie is based on a play). Hilarious, raucous, Chaucerian, with a slam-bang razzmatazz finale. Highly recommend if you're Chaucerian. Based on a true story of a Northampton shoe factory, allegedly. (Did Lola really travel up to Northampton??)

Then a late dinner at Salieri, just a few blocks away on The Strand. Very serviceable Italian restaurant.

The next morning we had tickets to the 10:00 admission of the "Egypt - Sunken Cities" exhibit a the British Museum. It was good to buy the earliest entry time because shortly afterward large numbers of people starting entering the museum. The special exhibit has many outstanding pieces dredged up from two ancient sunken Egyptian cities. (The ground subsided, became mushy, liquefied, and there they went. The website has the technical explanation. Venice, beware.)

After the Egypt exhibit our brains were already reaching storage capacity for these things so we had to pick and choose carefully what to see next. Surely there's nothing like this museum? Almost all of human history is here, in one gallery or another. You look at the museum map. You want China 8th century CE? Go to this gallery. Italy, medieval? Go to that gallery. We chose the Sutton Hoo exhibit in gallery 40.

I had become interested in Sutton Hoo after doing some background reading in preparation for our time at Hadrian's Wall. This led to reading about the end of Roman Britain, then to the next wave of invasions and early Anglo-Saxon England, and how the next wave of immigrants absorbed elements of Roman British culture and integrated them into a new hybrid. So...Sutton Hoo.

Discovered in the 1930s in rural southeast England. A huge burial site for a very important Anglo-Saxon leader. A 90-foot ship, laden with treasures of all kinds, buried. WW2 halted excavations, which were resumed in the late 1940s. The treasures are beautifully displayed and explained, of course, in this gallery: remains of shields, cauldrons, belt buckles, swords, jewels, all manner of objects. Sutton Hoo shows the sophistication of early Anglo-Saxon culture (it may date from the mid or late 600s).

Afterwards: the best dinner of our lives, at Ottolenghi's NOPI.

To be continued....
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 01:49 AM
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EYWandBTV - thank you for the explanation about Donne's poem. If I knew that he was preacher at Lincoln's Inn Chapel, I'd forgotten. Nor did I know about them tolling the bell at the death of a Bencher - i don't think that they do it in the Temple but who knows?

Looking forward to your description of the meal!
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 02:07 AM
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I think he's buried in the church
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 02:58 AM
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BTW, wiki, FWIW, says that Donne was admitted as a member of Lincoln's Inn, but doesn't day say anything about his being the Chaplin of the Chapel; it also says that he was married in St Paul's which would make sense as he was Dean there for a while.

Further researches required!
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 06:47 AM
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We are now hot on the trail of John Donne...the Lincoln's Inn web site has a PDF on his life. It says he was named Preacher of the chapel in 1516. So would there have been two different offices, typically, in a church at that time? The Chaplain being the other one?
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 07:03 AM
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EYW&BTV - that archive from Lincoln's Inn is fascinating. You're right about his being appointed Preacher there [in 1615, not 1516!]; i have to say that I've never heard of such a position, but you learn something new...

http://www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/images.../johndonne.pdf

it also says that he gave it up in 1621 when he became Dean of St Paul's which ties in with the wiki article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne

It is quite possible that they would have several people appointed to slightly different roles; as in a Cathedral where there are still myriad positions to fill.
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 07:18 AM
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Right, 1615. I hate when my computer makes historical mistakes
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 09:48 AM
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Finishing up London: after the British Museum, we went to Euston station to print out our tickets for the next day's trip to Penrith on the edge of the Lake District and also for our later trip from Galashiels in the Scottish Borders to Glasgow. Easy, smooth. Checked out the layout of the station so we would know where to go the next morning.

Then on to the British Library just a couple of blocks away (this is a convenient neighborhood, easy walks to many sites and stations and tube lines). The special exhibit room is a dizzying place: scores and scores of precious manuscripts and books. We zeroed in on: a fragment of St. John's Gospel, 3rd century CE; the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest surviving complete manuscript of the New Testament; Michelangelo's letter to a friend, advising him how to choose a wife (how would M. know??), the tax rolls of King Canut; and Nelson's unfinished letter to Lady Hamilton.

Nelson's letter breaks off after he wrote: "I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the [Battle]....A group of [enemy ships] was seen off the Lighthouse of Cadiz this morning, but it blows so very fresh and thick weather, that I rather believe they will go into the Harbour before night. May God Almighty give us success over these fellows, and enable us to get a Peace .... " After he death in the battle, the letter was found on his desk and eventually given to Lady Hamilton. At the bottom of Nelson's letter she wrote "Oh miserable wretched Emma - Oh glorious & happy Nelson."

We pulled away from the library in the early evening, back to the hotel briefly, then took the tube to Oxford station to walk to Ottolenghi's NOPI restaurant on Warwick Street. Emerging from the tube at the Regent Street intersection we were engulfed in London energy--a musical trio was blaring out jazz-technofunk-hiphop music, young people were dancing around, the throngs were moving everywhere, and British flags were strung all across Regent Street as far as the eye could see. And clear skies and no rain!

Thence to NOPI. The following is for foodies, others may skip. NOPI is one of four establishments which Yotam Ottolenghi operates in London. We have three of his books and have been looking forward to this dinner. The restaurant itself is beautifully designed, mostly white tile and white painting brick, with brass touches all over. The hanging brass lamps were modeled after the lamps in the Haifa market. The ground floor is a little more formal than the downstairs room, which has a bistro feeling, an open kitchen, and two long tables where guests all sit together. We took the upstairs room to have windows and our own table.

The food is an original interpretation of Arab and Jewish cuisines of Jerusalem. We started with coriander and ginger gin martinis. Then the following dishes with stars for the stars:
-->*courgettes [=zucchini for us yanks], lemon, Greek kefalotyri cheese, and a secret ingredient [to be revealed later];
-->***roasted aubergine [= eggplant], sorrel yoghurt, turmeric radish, almonds;
-->***burrata with toasted coriander seeds, peach slices, and plum wine;
-->***sauteed octopus, preserved lemon, Jerusalem artichoke, and greens
-->***twice-cooked baby chicken, chili sauce, lemon myrtle salt
Almost all the dishes, as you can see from the stars, were truly outstanding, really pushing the taste envelope.

Advice for people going to NOPI: bring money. But it's not that bad. Our dinners for two, with two cocktails, three starters and two mains, two desserts, and two brandies, including service = £160. Not bad for a peak dining experience. And this would be the only such splurge of the trip. Definitely worth it.

End of evening. Morning begins: catch the 10:30 a.m. Virgin train from Euston station for the 3-hour ride to Penrith. Service was great. They offer strong wifi and, depending on your train schedule, breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and even late evening dinner. After our brunch the attendant was constantly going up and down the aisle offering more tay [= tea] and coffee, biscuits and chocolate. And it was on this train that I first tasted the finest achievement of British cuisine: a bacon butty with brown sauce. Just what I needed as I settled in for the ride through the countryside.

Arriving in Penrith, we met cousin Sheila, picked up the rental car, and headed off to Keswick in the northern part of the Lake District for our family reunion weekend, waiting for the arriving of daughter P and son-in-law K and their daughter E.

A word about the rental car: Enterprise offered just what we needed, a one-way rental, pickup in Penrith and then drop-off eight days later in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders. The cost was medium but not immoderate.

Next up: Keswick, lake, and stones. (Right now we just arrived in Haltwhistle, preparing to take on Hadrians Wall tomorrow.)
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 11:42 AM
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from burrata with toasted coriander seeds (which I had to look up) to a bacon butty
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Old Jun 19th, 2016, 01:20 PM
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And it was on this train that I first tasted the finest achievement of British cuisine: a bacon butty with brown sauce>>

please don't let Yotam hear you say that!

I've never been to any of his restaurants, and unless they open one in Exeter or further west, I'm not likely to, which is a shame [I think].

looking forward to reading more.
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Old Jun 20th, 2016, 01:12 AM
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Keswick, stones, lake, and beyond:

Quick, efficient service at the Penrith Enterprise office, easy drive to Keswick, checked in at Howe Keld, on The Heads, a short walk from the town's Hope Gardens and the boat launch at the lake, Derwentwater ("water" is used to mean "lake" in Cumbria; what does "derwent" mean? All shall be revealed later when we take the travel quiz).

Keswick is a pleasant town, formerly serving as an economic hub for the sheep-raising areas and now transformed, unabashedly, into a tourist service town. It does it very well, IMHO. Most visitors are over 40-somethings but still there are many families with young children, and many, many dogs. All the pubs are dog friendly, especially the Dog and Gun, the most popular pub in town. If you go, be sure to try the local ale brewed specially for this pub, the Woof and Bang, or the Old Peculier dark ale.

All six of us took a boat tour around Derwentwater. The day was slightly overcast and the palette of colors was muted, many tones of gray and silver. We got off at one of the half-dozen piers, Ashness, and walked along the shore for an hour, then hopped back on the boat back to Keswick. There's a boat leaving every 30 minutes to circle the lake.

In the afternoon we drove out to the Castlerigg stone circle. This is about a mile away from Keswick but we were feeling lazy so we drove. The circle is at the crest of a high, broad meadow surrounded by distant mountains. The sun had emerged and it was a brilliant, bright afternoon, with the white clouds casting moving shadows on the mountaihsides.

A couple of dozen people were visiting the circle. It is said to predate Stonehenge by a thousand years. I wonder how the experts go about estimating timelines such as this. Cumbria has many stone circles and this is the largest one. Experts debate the purpose. Astronomical, religious, ceremonial meeting place, or primitive marketplace? All of those? I lean toward the astronomical-religious.

The site itself feels very spiritual, high on the meadows, with imposing mountains all around. The gods often lived on mountaintops (e.g., Yahweh), or the mountains themselves were alive. In any case, we stayed a long time on the meadow, walking around the stones (they are four to seven feet high), visiting the sheep grazing in the meadow, and walking along the high stone walls separating the meadow from the farm beyond. The entire stone circle meadow is now National Trust property with explanatory markers at the entry gates to the meadow.

After our final reunion dinner that evening, we left Keswick and set out to cross the Pennines to Haltwhistle and Hadrian's wall. (Um, forgot the mention food in Keswick: we ate at two very good restaurants, the King's Arms and the Royal Oak. They both served the fresh, hearty food of the region, beef and ale pies, veg, and mash, etc., a far cry from what Ottolenghi is doing in NOPI but excellent and faithful to the region's own traditions.)

Crossing the Pennines: we said goodbye to Sheila and the gang and headed out toward Haltwhistle, taking A686 from Penrith to cross the Pennines. We had heard that this is a picturesque route, giving a good view of the broad, open countryside. We had also heard that there are a lot of accidents. It's a favorite of motorcyclists and also of drivers who love to speed around the many hairpin curves. Undaunted, off we went.

The morning was misty and we could not see much of the countryside. Just as we reached the highest point, Hartside Point, 1900 feet, we had to stop. Police had blocked off the road with orange cones. Fortunately this is just at the entrance to the parking lot of the Hartside Top Cafe, "England's highest cafe".

We went inside for a snack and the waitress told us that two cars had collided head-on, "one idiot driving way too fast, collided with the oncoming car, and flipped over." Not clear if anyone was killed. Ambulances had come, police blocked the road, and tow trucks sooner or later would pull away the damaged vehicles. Should we go all the way back to Penrith and take the main road up to Carlisle and then over to Haltwhistle?

On the advice of the friendly customers dining around our table, we decided to wait it out. Usually all would be clear in an hour or so, much shorter than retracing our route back to Penrith. After good soup and tea and cake, lo and behold the route was cleared. And mercifully no one was killed. We did see the tow truck carrying one of the cars down to Penrith and it was badly smashed.

An easy, uneventful drive after that to the village of Haltwhistle and our outstanding B&B, the Ashcroft. More on that to come....
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Old Jun 21st, 2016, 12:50 AM
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Haltwhistle and Hadrian's Wall

We settled into our beautiful B&B in Haltwhistle and wandered through the extensive gardens. This was the home of the vicar in the 19th century and Geoff and Christine have poured resources and labor into restoring the property during their twenty years of ownership. Much of the decor is William Morris-style; Edward Burne-Jones, a Morris colleague, actually visited the property for a time.

Our first day we visited the Roman Army Museum and Housesteads and walked west along the wall to Milecastle 37, the finest surviving milecastle ruins. The Romans built small forts every Roman mile along the length of the wall and this one has the best remaining arched doorway. Both of these site museums, taken together, give an in-depth explanation of the complex story of the wall and the life of the larger outposts such as Housesteads.

Housesteads was a walled, heavily fortified camp housing 700 soldiers at the height of the wall's operation and beyond its walls lay the "vincus" or village, with perhaps 2,000 men, women, children, dogs, chickens, and all of the support operations of the camp. The same is true of Vindolanda, which we have not yet visited.

The landscape around this area is magnificent--broad, rolling meadows with criss-crossing stone farm walls stretching out to the horizon. We were truly blessed with sunny, clear weather, blue skies, white clouds, strong breezes, and many shades of green in the fields. I forgot to mention the sheep, hundreds of sheep, grazing all around. Watch your step as you are walking the wall!

Two excellent dinners around Haltwhistle: Carts Bog (so named because carts would get stuck in the bog) near Langley Castle and Milecastle Inn, a short way north of Haltwhistle. Both of them served hearty meals for the hardy folk around here. A high point for me was my wild boar and venison pie at the Milecastle Inn. Today I am waddling around like a duck because of all the meat pies, ale, and sticky toffee puddings I have consumed in Cumbria and Northumberland. As Mae West said so long ago: "Too much of a good thing is...wonderful!"

Today: Hexham and Vindolanda
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Old Jun 21st, 2016, 05:37 AM
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Oh, I'm looking forward to the next installment! I saw just a bit of Hadrian's wall years ago when visiting with an English friend, and remember that scenery you describe very well. It is truly magnificent. We also visited Hexham Abbey, which I hope you get to see. The interior was one of the most evocative I've ever seen. I especially recall the night stairs worn with the passing of many feet - I could almost see the monks silently coming down the stairs on their way to prayers in the wee hours of the night.
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Old Jun 21st, 2016, 06:43 AM
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DH spent a week last month walking along Hadrian's Wall with a group from the Ramblers [a UK charity which exists to promote walking in the countryside and runs holidays as well]. He had a great time and was blown away by the countryside as he'd never been to that part of the county before.

I foresee other hols in Northumberland in our future!
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