Monday, September 12, 2011

London-2

Here are some notes on our visits to lesser-known London sites.

When we came out of Westminister Abbey we chanced to look across the street and saw this dramatic building, labeled Methodist Central Hall – a good omen, as our next goal was to visit Wesley’s Chapel, where John Wesley, the father of Methodism, preached, and to visit his house, gravesite, and museum at the same location.


First, though, we got something to eat at the Wesley Cafeteria at Methodist Central Hall.


Who knew Wesley had a cafeteria?

We decided to take a taxi across town and the helpful doorman hailed one for us and off we went. It’s amazing to us how ably London drivers maneuver through these narrow, winding, traffic-laden streets.

I somehow failed to take a picture of the chapel, so here's one from the internet on a sunny day.


Inside the Chapel:


Wesley planned the Chapel to be “purposely modest.”  It’s nothing like the gorgeous cathedrals and abbeys we’ve seen, but it is still charming.

Margaret Thatcher was married here and her two children christened in this church. This altar rail is her donation to the Chapel.


A friendly volunteer, pip pip, cheerio, and all that, told us that Sunday attendance is around 400 and the church is very active in its part of the city.

I had seen on the Chapel’s website that a recital was scheduled for 1:00 pm and so we timed our visit to coincide with that so that we could participate in an event at the Wesley Chapel. The recital was by a powerful baritone, accompanied by his father, apparently (same last names), doing a German operatic piece, Sechs Monologues aus Jedermann. It seems that Jedermann has been visited at dinner by DEATH and told to pack his bags. This, as you can imagine, was pretty unsettling to Jed, as demonstrated vocally, accompanied by loud piano noises. A little of that goes a long ways.  Reading ahead in the program notes told us that things turned out pretty well for Jedermann in the last Monologue, so we slipped out.

Another volunteer had come on duty and he took us on a tour of Wesley’s house. Wesley had the house built, a small, vertical, four-story building, for his own use (he married late in life, unsuccessfully - his ministry consumed him) and also with rooms for visiting clergy and their families.

One interesting item on display is an electrical spark generator. Wesley became interested in electricity through his contacts with Benjamin Franklin when he was in London. I asked the guide if Wesley bought the machine from Franklin or if it was a gift. He said he didn’t know, hadn’t been asked that before, but would try to find out.

A little background on Wesley, for the non-Methodists out there: He was born in 1703, one of 19 children born to Samuel and Susanna Wesley, only seven of whom survived childhood. When John was young, he was trapped in a burning house, but was miraculously rescued. Susanna said that convinced her that God had a special purpose for him.

He went to Oxford and was ordained as a Church of England minister. He and his brother Charles, who eventually authored hundreds of poems that became hymns (Oh for a Thousand Tongues to Sing, Hark the Herald Angels Sing,  …. ), went to America, to Georgia, with intents to bring Christianity to the Indian tribes and colonists. That didn’t work out, so they returned to England. On their sea journeys, they had been impressed by some Moravians on board. When storms threatened, the Moravians' faith gave them a serenity that the Wesleys didn’t have. Something was missing.  Back in London, John attended a Moravian service and, in his famous phrase, felt his “heart strangely warmed” by the presence of God. God cared about him personally. It changed his life; it changed his theology.

He and Charles organized Holy Societies. These groups began developing, in essence, a method for living a Christian life, hence the name. John began riding around the country, preaching his message to large crowds. Out of this grew the Methodist Church.  John, though, never left the Church of England, even though it disapproved of him.

More historical information here.

Behind the church, tucked in a small graveyard backed by a modern office building, is John Wesley’s grave.


Frank, our guide, told us that Susanna Wesley was buried in the cemetery across the street, Bunhill Cemetery. Moreover, he told us, there are some other famous people buried there – John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, and Isaac Watts, a prominent early-day Methodist preacher and hymnist. Wow! Had to check these out. Crossed the street and walked up to a map that identified famous-person graves and Pow! The most prominently displayed person was the Rev. Thomas Bayes.

Some of you know that there is an area of statistics called Bayesianism. Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid, even though my thesis was Bayesian.  Some of you heard, and still recall, Kathleen Diegert’s essay at my retirement party on my life as a closet-Bayesian. Now, I’ve got no quarrel with Bayes himself. He proved a fundamental mathematical theorem. It’s the way others have used and abused his theorem in almost theological ways that bugs me. Anyway, I was glad and not a bit uncomfortable to pay respect to Bayes's gravesite.

The grave areas were locked and there didn’t seem to be a caretaker about, but, just before we gave up we saw him - the caretaker, not Bayes. He unlocked the gate so I could stand by Bayes’s grave.


I did feel some regret in the following way. My statistical hero is Sir Ronald A. Fisher, of England of course. I had planned to visit the Rothamsted Agricultural Experiment Station, where he had worked and developed fundamental statistical methods, but we hadn’t made it there and wouldn’t have time to – it’s NE of London, but not far. He died in Australia and is buried there.

My second statistical might-have-done was to visit the office of the Royal Statistical Society in London. Turns out that that office is not too far from the Wesley Chapel, but I didn’t realize it until the next day, which was too late. Here's a picture of Fisher and I encourage you to learn all about him.


Sorry, Sir Ronald, that I didn't do more to pay homage while we were in London.


The British Library was one of Rick Steves’ highest rated (three-stars) London sights and in reading about it on Monday I saw that it was open late on Tuesday evening, so off I went.  Susie had had enough walking for the day, so she studied British modern culture on TV (I think).

The main Library attraction is its amazing collection of ancient documents. You can see two early copies of the Magna Carta, which, the narrative explains, established the principle that the King was subject to the law, not above it.

You can see musical scores written by Mozart, Handl, Mendelssohn, and others. I remember reading that Mozart didn’t make mistakes: he sketched in all those notes and musical signs and got them right the first time – every note, sharp, and flat, and more. Seemed to me, though, in what was displayed, that he had a few corrections, but nothing compared to other composers.

There are ancient Bibles, laboriously and elegantly hand-written and beautifully illustrated. There are also foundational documents for several other religions.  Also, some early copies of Shakespeare's plays.  Which reminds me: our guide through John Wesley's house said that Wesley possessed a copy of these plays.  After Wesley's death, the person to whom his possessions were entrusted burned the Shakespeare plays.  The theatre at the time was regarded as not reputable, especially for a theological figure like Wesley. 

You can listen to Virginia Woolf talk about her writing (this tied in with the London Walk I took the next night that had a literary theme) and much more.  And you can see handwritten lyrics by the Beatles.

Additionally, the King’s library (collected by one of the King Georges) is housed in its own separate four-story glass-walled chamber within the library.


Near the British Library, which is a modern building, opened in 1998, I saw this building, the St. Pancras (not to be confused with pancreas) Hotel and thought it was worth a picture.


(Do you remember when we used to really worry about using too much film and taking too many pictures?)


Rick Steves recommended walking tours of areas in London, so I showed up at a London Walk billed as a Literary and Pub Walk. (At London Walk you don’t sign up, you just show up at a designated Tube exit and look for a guide bearing a London Walk sign.) Our guide was Brian, a wry, friendly fellow. He told us a mix of stories about literary and royal notables.

One of the King’s scoundrel-relatives was told by the King that he would pay off his debts if he would marry a German woman with the right connections. This ne’er do well agreed, but didn’t go to Germany himself. He sent his mistress to find him a German wife. Big mistake (said Brian). She found and brought one back that was not only ugly, she smelled bad. Brian had some funny quotes that answered the question, How bad did she smell?

This walk was in the area of the British Museum (a three-star site we didn’t visit), which, until 1998, housed the British Library. The Library attracted several literary types to live in this part of the city. Both Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin were registered readers in the Library. Brian told us that while in London, Lenin worked as a tour guide. Thus, in many of his statues he has one arm upraised, Follow me … .

We went by a building that housed the Faber and Faber publishing firm (there was only one Faber who thought his company would sound more established if he added another Faber to the name). T. S. Eliot, while a director there turned down George Orwell’s manuscript of Animal Farm, with a comment to the effect that, the book needed more public-spirited pigs.

Brian also told us about a literary and intellectual group that were called the Bloomsbury Group.  That group included Virginia Wolfe and its members generally gathered in the part of London we were visiting, called, then, Bloomsbury.

We also got a science history story along the way. Leo Szillard (SPELL??) left Germany in the 30s and came to London to study physics. He had an idea that nuclear fission could be accomplished. Unfortunately, Rutherford, the head of the department, had gone on record saying that fission was impossible, so Szillard knew he wouldn’t get far there. One rainy evening, as Szillard was walking down the very sidewalk we were on, at a spot right over there, he got an idea: Here’s how to create nuclear fission. He hurried back to his room and wrote it up. He subsequently went to the University of Chicago where, with other eminent physicists, he succeeded in creating nuclear fission. From that followed the famous letter from Einstein to Roosevelt saying this knowledge could lead to a powerful weapon, and the atomic age was born.

Oh, the pub part of the tour. Brian stopped for a 20 minute break at a historic pub, the Queen’s Larder, mid-way through the Walk. Nothing very literary there.
The tube system almost got me on this excursion. I had been carrying both Susie’s and my Oyster (transit) cards. I thought I’d use one card on the way to the Walk, the other on the way back, in order to keep them balanced. Well, on the way I made an intermediate stop at Picadilly Circus to buy some souvenirs. I inadvertently used one card to enter the system, the other to exit. Foul! said the system, and wouldn’t let me out. I had just topped off the passes by adding five pounds to each when I left our hotel, so I couldn’t understand the problem. The system sent me to the assistance desk and the nice lady explained what I had done wrong. I showed her my receipts for the added amount and she put time back on one card so I could complete my evening travels. Next morning, though, both Oysters were dead again – they showed a negative balance! I bought enough time for another souvenir run, though.

I'm working on this posting on 9/11, from the Queens burough of New York City.  I went out this morning and walked across the RFK bridge across the East River to Manhattan, and at the bridge's halfway point I paused at 8:46am, the time at which the first plane hit the World Trade Center, to look at the Manhattan skyline and reflect.  A sobering moment that reminded me:  While in London I read a remarkable article in the Sunday London Times Magazine about the people in the World Trade Center who jumped, or tried to do the impossible escape of descending down the side of the building. The topic has been unofficially taboo for the last 10 years, but the author was obsessed about finding out. Turned out that the official NIST report had a list that identified several "jumpers." The author talked to some of their loved ones. Very, very painful memories, but most felt the ones they knew had made understandable decisions – they didn’t regard it as a (cowardly) suicide. We can only hope that we’re never faced with the same dilemma.

Also, one fireman was killed by a falling body. The fellow firemen who tended to him did not go into the building and therefore were not killed when it collapsed, so the man’s widow took some comfort from that. Really hard to think about, but I wanted to share this with you.


There is a program by which airline employees and dependents can fly standby on other airlines. Mandi set us up for this and we had a standby listing for an American Airlines flight that left Heathrow at 700 pm on Thursday. We went to the airport, though, around noon right after checking out of the Montana Hotel. While checking us in, the AA rep said, What are you going to do all afternoon? Then she said, The two o’clock flight is wide open. We’ll take that, we said. Not only that, we got excellent seats – right behind a bulkhead (lots of foot room and nobody leaning back in our laps) with an empty seat between us. New York, here we come.

Cheers again,

Susie and Rob

Sunday, September 11, 2011

London-1

In three days of touring we pretty well checked off the main sights on our London-must-see lists: St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Harrod's department store, the John Wesley Chapel and Museum, the underground War Cabinet Rooms and Churchill Museum, and the British Library.  Most of these sites do not allow interior photo-taking, but there are plenty of website photos available.  Here are some of our shots:


We took a tour boat ride on the Thames from the Tower of London to Westminster.  The tour guide was a comedian.  Told us he was multi-lingual: spoke English, Scottish, Canadian, American, Australian, ... . Described one building as "old and used;" said maybe that's why Prince Charles liked it.  Told us that Big Ben was named for the bell in the tower, which was named in honor of Sir Benjamin Hall.  Said, Good thing his parents didn't name him Richard.

Here's a shot from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral.  Love those dome climbs.


Here's a wartime photo of St. Paul's during the German blitz.  Despite, or maybe because of, its prominence on the London skyline, it was only slightly damaged in that period.  There's a hole in one wall that's been glassed over as a remembrance of that time.
Here's a picture of the nave ceiling I found on the internet. 


St. Paul's is where Prince Charles and Diana were married.  (Don't know why Prince Charles keeps popping up in these notes.)  Winston Churchill's funeral was there (I saw some dramatic 1965 film of the event later at the Churchill Museum) and Margaret Thatcher's will be, when the time comes.

Parliament.  I used to be a frequent watcher of CSPAN's broadcast of Prime Minister's Question Time.  On this trip, though, just got the picture; did not visit Parliament in session.  Thought this was a pretty good picture from the upper deck of a bus.


Tower of London - where we saw the crown jewels. Also listened to a Beefeater guard/tour guide tell us about all the executions and imprisonments here.


 The nearby Tower Bridge.


  Westminster Abbey (on a cold and rainy day).


This is of course the scene of the Prince William - Kate Middleton wedding.  Many famous people are buried or memorialized here and at St. Paul's Cathedral (as if you didn't know).  A few that stand out for me: Handel, Darwin, Chaucer, Florence Nightingale (known in my circles for her use of statistics to define and fix health problems), John Donne (for whom the bell tolls), Samuel Johnson, and T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia). These luminaries make the buildings even more impressive.

While queuing for the Abbey, we saw two men with pink umbrellas.  


When exiting, we saw this: two photographers snapping similar shots of their ladies.  No, those two cars weren't moving or honking.  It's easy to stereotype Japanese tourists and this scene pretty well captures it.


Buckingham Palace. We were in luck. When the Queen is at her Scottish palace during the summer, as was the case now, the Palace tour is greatly expanded so you can see more of the state rooms. Outside, the BP looks like a government office building, but inside, once again, it’s all grandeur.  Awesome, in fact.


A couple of internet pictures inside the Palace.



Kate's wedding gown is now on display in the Palace.  There was an accompanying video in which the designer explained  the symbolism and engineering incorporated into the gown - you royal wedding enthusiasts out there probably know all about it. 

I took this picture of a back window in the palace just in case the Queen might have sneaked back into town for a change of clothes and would wave to us from the window. Didn’t happen.


Out front, here are the Palace guards and the Palace leaf-blower.


There was no changing of the guard (or the leaf-blower) scheduled this day, but we wouldn't have anyway, because our Shirley friends had told us that it is a madhouse – people shoving and crowding: rude. So, we hiked to a bus stop, then rode a bus over to the Westminster area in order to tour the underground War Cabinet rooms and Churchill Museum (another three-star item on the Steves list).

Susie decided to sit this one out – too expensive relative to her level of interest. (All these top sites are pretty pricey, but you often get audio sets as part of the package.) We/I didn’t think too much about how long I might be in the museum, so we didn’t set a time to meet. There wasn’t a convenient indoor place to wait, so Susie took up a station outside on the steps. She couldn’t stray too far because we didn’t have operational cell phones. Well, I was in the museum an hour and twenty-five minutes, MUCH longer than what Susie had anticipated. I had tried to hold it to an hour, but there was so much to see and hear. Those Churchill wartime addresses to the nation are riveting.  Worse, it had gotten windy and rainy. I hailed a taxi and we had it take us to a warm, dry place for lunch.

Here's an internet picture of the entrance to the Churchill Museum.  (Kind of a strange picture, don't you think?)


That is not Susie huddled outside the door, but it's indicative.

The underground War Cabinet rooms were very interesting. From 1939 until the war's end in 1945, these secret rooms beneath the Treasury building, near Downing Street, were used by Churchill and company to run the war.  Among other historical treats, you can listen to a recording of one of his phone calls with FDR.


I was thrilled: there were data charts posted - production of fighter planes, etc.


A particular highlight was a film of two classic, older British women reminiscing about their time on Churchill's staff and working in these secret rooms.  They were laugh out loud funny.  They said Churchill was natural and earthy in his staff conversations, not dramatic as in his speeches.  Said he didn't smoke as many cigars as you might expect; only carried them to chew on and gesture with.  One lady who apparently transcribed his phone calls said he often closed his conversations with "KBO," which she dutifully typed.  After a while a Churchill aide said she didn't need to type that.  Did she know what it meant?  She said No.  Well, it stood for Keep Buggering On.  Sort of a predecessor of our LOL.

Another area of particular interest: the Museum had several displays pertaining to shipping supplies from the US to England across the North Atlantic in the face of German submarines and warships.  My dad served on US Navy escort ships at that time and later wrote his PhD thesis on this aspect of WWII.

(A day later I was at Picadilly Circus in search of souvenirs when a friendly, chatty British man stopped me.  Wanted to know if I was an American, did my father or grandfather serve in WWII?  I told him.  He wanted to say Thanks.  Well, he also wanted to take my picture and sell me some.  I look forward to getting the pictures in the mail.)

BTW, a day or two earlier in this part of town we walked by the entrance to Downing Street.  Susie said, Did you take a picture?  No, I said.  You can't see anything behind the barrier.  Take a picture, she said.  OK, this one's for you, Susie: No. 10 Downing Street, somewhere back there.  Been there. Got the picture.



A palace of another type is the Harrod's department store. Huge, beautiful place and I've never seen such a density of clerks.  They're everywhere.  Here's an internet exterior shot (we were there on a rainy evening).


Here's my picture of the Christmas room: Babe in Toyland.


Harrod's was not too far from our hotel, so we walked home through foggy London town.

That's enough for this posting. 

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Blenheim and Oxford

UPDATE.  As this posting was being prepared we heard that our friends, Wayne and Pat Young, had lost their home to the wildfire in Bastrop, TX.  Such a tragedy.  They were away, traveling in their motor home, at the time, but are now back in Bastrop, helping others who lost their homes.  Our prayers and thoughts go out to them.  

Some background.  The Youngs lived in Ventana del Sol in Cedar Crest and were responsible for recruiting us to move out there.  They knew a neighborhood house would be just right for us and they knew it would soon be available. 


Saturday.

Just SE of the Cotswolds region is the Blenheim Palace, a world heritage site, among many accolades, and also the birthplace of Winston Churchill.  And it was outstanding!  Wretched excess done very well, and I mean that as a compliment. (By contrast, I've seen the Biltmore Estate in NC a couple of times and think just the opposite.  It's interesting: a Vanderbilt, Consuelo, became the Duchess of Marlboro, and thus the mistress of Blenheim, but I don't know if the Biltmore is patterned in any way after the Blenheim Palace.  Blenheim is about 300 years old; Biltmore about 100 years old)

Here are some internet pictures:




 More pictures here.

No photography is allowed inside, so here are a couple of our outside shots:



Susie's comment about these statues was, At Caesar's Palace, the statues talk.


You can tour the living quarters of the current Duke of Marlborough and we did.  He and his wife and staff live in one wing of the Palace.  The "State Apartments," examples shown above, are in the center portion and other wing of the Palace.  However, back in Churchill's youth, it was used as a residence.  Young Winston liked to sleep in a room adjacent to the library.

We also took an animated tour led by the ghost of a maid.  She escorted us through some of the dramatic events in the Palace's history.

After our Blenheim visit we drove a few miles further to Oxford and checked into a Travelodge.  Cost us more than a B and B with a lot less charm and service, but we went for convenience - the GPS found it for us and we were pretty sure it would have a room.  However, we had a heck of a time dealing with the double roundabouts to find and enter the parking lot.

One-lane roundabouts are great.  Multi-lane roundabouts are more of a challenge if you don't know what lane you should be in.  Some times there are road numbers on the lanes, but you have to be quick to recognize where you need to be and then get there.  Otherwise, it's go with the flow and find a place to turn around and try again.  I got adept at creative turn-arounds.  These complex roundabouts (as they're known mathematically) are the only places I got beeped at.  English drivers must keep one hand on the horn, because they're very quick to beep - in a helpful manner, not as criticism. 

We had tentatively planned to head from Oxford to southern England for most of the week, mostly in and around Bath, then finish our English days in London the following weekend.  But, as we thought about it, we decided we'd rather go on to London from Oxford, spend four nights there, then fly home.  Actually, we're going first to NYC to visit Mandi, Paul, and Kaci.  And 9/11 played a role in our thinking - thought we'd rather be in NYC for the 10th anniversary than in London.  And, if there was some terror attack or incident on that date, we'd rather be back in the USA and not possibly stranded here.  Etcetera, etcetera.  Had had about enough of roundabouts and cute villages, too.

On the way out of Oxford, we looked up a couple of C. S. Lewis locales, found one of them (more darned roundabout confusion) - his home, The Kilns. It's a private residence, but here are front and back pictures, what you can see over the hedges.  The outside staircase leads to Lewis's living quarters.


.
Our friends, Shirley Smith and Shirley Miller, are C. S. Lewis scholars and groupies and have visited England often.  They recommended the Montana Hotel in London, so we made reservations there.  Good price and good location.  We drove to Heathrow, found the Hertz return site easily, and turned the car in (whew!).  Then we took the tube to the Gloucester Road Tube Station, near the hotel, lugging our luggage through a light rain to the hotel.  London, We're here!

Next: Susie and Rob do London.

Cheers,


Susie and Rob

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

The Cotswolds

Thursday.  We’re headed south, for the Cotswolds, a rural area of scenic villages and narrow lanes.  But first we made a loop through Beatrix Potter country, still in the Lake District, not far from where we stayed in Ambleside.



Susie remembers Peter Rabbit books as a child and as a teacher and this was a special stop for her.  We didn't stop at the Potter's Hilltop Farm, too crowded, but here's what the countryside looks like:


We then made our way to the motorways that would take us south, through or around the cities of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham.  Our hostess in Ambleside had recommended the Cotswold village of Broadway for its charm and amenities.  The B and B she recommended there, we found out by email, turned out to be booked (and it turned out to be on a list of top 10 B and Bs in England!), but we still decided, in concert with granddaughter Kaci, to take a shot at Broadway.  After a long day of driving having to search for lodging can be a bit nerve-wracking (I'm told I can become "testy"), but we found a place just a five-minute walk from the Broadway town centre. We then found dinner at the Broadway Hotel - mostly behind that tree.



Marianne, the B and B owner,  had a vacancy, due to a no-show, so we got it – for two nights. Marianne's daughter (a medical doctor) and granddaughter (a teenager) helped Mum serve the breakfasts, so that was a nice family touch.

Friday morning we were treated to an aerial show by swallows who nest on Marianne's house.  Large numbers of them frantically swooped in toward their nests under the eaves of the house, but never seemed to land.  In this picture you can see they have made a deposit on a room - our window, to be exact.  



Next morning there was no such show and Marianne told me that the swallows generally depart in mid-September. Maybe they were getting a little testy planning their departure.
 
Broadway got its name because it has an unusually wide main street, typically named High Street in this region.  There are some outstanding cottages, estates, and shops along its way.  





Friday we meandered through the lanes and roads of the Cotswolds in a general SE direction.  Saw many elegant estates of this sort:


 Our Rick Steves guidebook highlights several villages in the Cotswolds, but says the real joy comes from discovering hidden-gem villages on your own.  I had seen Guiting Power on the map and thought it an interesting name, so when we came to a crossroads with a sign pointing in that direction, that’s where we went.  Here's a website picture.


 This is a pretty typical Cotswolds, and beyond, village.  I couldn't find the source of the name.  A couple of close-ups.



We also took a quick look at Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter.  The name is derived from an old English word for muddy place, not some gruesome event back in the day. 


The aforementioned villages are not very commercial, which means, not very promising for finding lunch.  Bourton-on-the-Water, from its write-up, looked like it might be a good place for lunch, but that town turned out to be full of tour buses, so we pressed on.  Saw a sign for the Lamb Inn and went in that direction.  As we pulled up, Susie said, If they serve only lamb, you’re in big trouble.  They had plenty of other stuff and we had a pleasant lunch in what we subsequently found out was the village of Greater Rissington. That roof is made of stone shingles.


The afternoon’s agenda was Stratford on Avon, about 30 miles away, north of the Cotswolds region.  That town was really jammed with holidayers.  Our guidebook proved very valuable: it directed us to a parking garage located right after we crossed a bridge over the Avon and entered down town: Turn right three times and enter the garage.  Got it on the second time around the block.   

Emerging from the garage, we saw a hop-off/hop-on tour bus, so we hopped on.  Actually, we queued up for a long wait.  There was a student field trip group in front of us of about 30 and it took forever for their sponsors to pay the fare and get their charges loaded.  Then, that bus took off and left us standing because it was late.  So, we got the next bus.

Rode the bus, got a couple of fly-by pictures, and went back to Broadway.  We decided it was enough just to see where Shakespeare was born and buried, we didn't need to go in.  Typical Tourists!

Here's the house Shakespeare was born in.




And here's an interesting light-post fixture, seen up close from the upper deck of the bus:




Tomorrow's agenda is to drive down toward Oxford and see the Blenheim Palace and maybe some of Oxford.  See you then.


Susie and Rob