London 3

I took a day trip to London one day. I decided to tour Westminster Abbey. I couldn't take any pictures inside, which is really sad because it was one of my favorite churches inside.

Lots of famous people are buried at the Abbey, including Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and has memorials to John Keats, Lewis Carroll, T.S. Eliot and a whole bunch of others. It had so much history. I'm really sad Gavin wasn't able to tour it with me.
I went during the Poppy Appeal, which is a fund raiser England does for the families of the military serving in the war. The Abbey had poppies lined up for all of the different branches and squadrons.


I walked along the Thames past the London Eye.
View of Parliament and Big Ben.
Inside the Tate Modern, which is the big, new modern art museum. It only features British artists.
I didn't tour much of it, but I did get to see some interesting pieces.


Yes, those are real dead birds.

Next to the Tate Modern is the Globe Theater, where Shakespeare's plays were performed. This replica of the theater wasn't built until the 1970s.
London was decorated with a ton of lights for Christmas. It was really pretty.
Last time we were in London, we watched them put up this sign.

Chepstow

A friend told me that Chepstow, Wales had a really cool castle, so I decided to make a day trip out there. Chepstow is basically across the river from Bristol.

Since it was in the middle of the week and really cold, I had the castle to myself.

The entrance.

The castle was built in 1067 A. D.

This is the big dinning room. You can see the where the second story was.

The river Wye and Chepstow.




I love the Welch countryside.

After the castle, I walked along the main street and checked out some of the antique shops there.

Chepstow City Gate, which dates back to the 13th century.

Part of the Port Wall. It wasn't built so much for defense of the city, but to control who could get in and out of the city. The only entrance was the city gate.

I found this out after I visited, but J.K. Rowling actually attended a primary school there.

The Lake District

The next day, we planned it a little better and went right into the heart of the Lake District.

The Ulverston Lighthouse.Everything was so pretty and green.
We drove to a town called Bowness-on-Windemere which is right on Lake Windemere. We took a boat tour to little village called Ambleside for lunch.

Gavin was highly amused that I was taking pictures with mittens on. It was cold!

The guy who sold us our boat tickets told us that it was only a 5 minute walk to Ambleside from the dock. He lied to us. As soon as we get off the boat, there was a sign saying it was a mile to Ambleside. It was a pretty walk, though.

The High Street of Ambleside.

We stopped at a pub for lunch. We didn't realize that a huge football game was going on at the time. It was a little odd for me because I was sitting below the screen and it looked like everyone was staring at me. It was a very enthusiastic crowd. The boys sitting at the bar behind Gavin made Gavin jump a few times.

Lake Windemere is a huge, long lake. It was really pretty. We were there a little too late for the falls colors.

Some guy was water skiing. It was way too cold for something like that.

This is the hotel we stayed at the last couple of days were were there. It's supposed to be a castle.

The next morning, we drove through the Lake District looking for various water falls.

We drove up along the other side of Lake Windemere. This is towards the bottom of the lake.

The water was so clear.

We walked along this cute trail to find a waterfall.

This waterfall took us awhile to find it, but it was well worth it. The night before, Gavin looked up trails he wanted to see and how to get there. We just kept missing the turn off for this trail. It was well-hidden in Ambleside.

There were several waterfalls along this trail. I wish we had more time to spend walking along it.

The train ride home was so pretty.