England: Middle Bits

If you go to London, you will be left with the impression that England is entirely populated by tourists.

To learn that England is not entirely populated by tourists, stay with real English people! I was the guest of some very lovely people in the middle of nowhere! This involved a lovely thatched roof cottage, which was older than America (the cottage, not the people). It was a really great break from tourists. Tourists are the bane of my vacation! (Clearly, there is no double standard here...)

The town was very small, and very cute. It had a church that was very small and very cute.

Proportional place of worship!

With faces! 

Stone cold.

And from this tiny town, we took a day trip to the much larger but pretty small city of Lincoln. This city contained a very large Cathedral. Perhaps disproportionately large.

Small town, big cathedral.

This Lincoln cathedral is pretty huge and elaborate. Much less cozy than the tiny church. Contains highly elaborate stonework. Such as the green man hiding in an archway below: 

Decoration within decoration,
because the masons had nothing better to do.

And drove over a massively enormous bridge, which was once upon a time the longest suspension bridge in the world. Now it's not the largest, but it remains disproportionately massive.

Bridge in the middle of nowhere: suspension of disbelief
made easy.

This is getting disordered--somewhere in there, in England, I went out driving with a couple of cool people. No, of course I didn't drive, I would have ended up in the wrong lane, and it would've been awkward.

We blazed by the Stratford upon Avon tourist trap.

House: not quite authentic.

Really, the most authentic part was the gift shop!

Not pictured: Shakesbear shirts. 

And Stonehenge! We found some stones.

Stonehenge is a dish best served old.

Oh yeah, and there was Liverpool.

I still have no idea why these towers were being towed...

The straws that broke the Costa's roof.

Very unfortunately, I ran out of time and didn't get to see the slavery museum. I wanted to compare/contrast the presentation to Virginia's approach. (Later, in Glasgow, I went on a slavery walking tour, which was all about merchant triangle traders. Sorry, the chronology is starting to fracture around the edges). But I did see the Beatles museum! It was a rare example of audio tour done right.

And you can't hang out in Liverpool without going to the precise and detailed replica of the most popular venue of the Beatles' heyday. The Cavern!

Second Cavern replica I walked into that day.

Unforgivably unchronological tangent:
Back in London, once upon a time there was a train station:

How do you know when the King's Cross?

And I think that's about it for England.

Bath: when in England, do as the Romans

Bath is highly recommended. Showers are OK too. If you have functional eyes or a casual appreciation for history, you may want to go there. And you will probably find much to recommend. (Unless you're Jane Austen.) If you're a tourist, you'll find the city perfectly sized for a day-trip. If you stay for a couple days and make friends, you'll leave way too soon.

The city has lots of nice architecture that isn't anything like early colonial brick. 

Notable bits include an Abbey that has nothing to do with Abbey Road! 

Had I gone inside, I would've been a fan.

Bath also has the first semicircle in Britain!

The Royal Crescent, rumour has it, houses a Python.
By the size of the structure, it's a really big one.

But you don't go to bath to look at a crescent. You go to look at the bath. It wasn't recent, but maybe you've heard--the Romans were in England once upon a time. And when they were in England, they decided that the supply lines were getting too long to trek back to Rome for a daily bath. So they built amenities. 

Or at least they took a Celtic shrine site, and between year 60 and 370, built a temple and some baths. They left the tub.

Romans once bathed here. Possibly dyed green; certainly dead now.

 Actually the water wasn't green then. There was a big roof covering the whole thing, so that the Romans didn't have to stare at the 11th century abbey. Thanks to the roof, no algae grew in the bath, and bathing was more effective. Unfortunately, the pipes bringing in the water were made of lead. To make matters even healthier, this was a religious center as well as a spa. People with a chip on their shoulder came from all over to write petty curses in tiny sheets of lead--most commonly due to stolen swim trunks. The complainers then took the sheets and threw them into their enemies' bathwater to give them extra lead poisoning. Kidding. But they did throw the curses into the water, and sacrificed something. (If the lead curse sank, the gods heard them. If it floated, the laws of physics were obviously suspended, and someone turned into a cow.)

Cubist terra cotta warriors.

These columns used to hold up a floor, which was raised so that they could do something with the temperature. The Bath Rooms had names like frigidarium (cold bath) and caldarium (bubbling cauldron bath). Presumably the floor was not invisible then.

The really old bit pretty much cracked itself up, and the nice above ground strucure is Victorian, so you can't even stick an ankle in the water. In the museum you can see some old Roman things that have been archaeologed out of the ground. Like the Medusa.

Medusa needed a shave; Perseus obliged with a Sweeney Todd cut.

This mysterious face was discovered around the baths. It's called the Medusa because of the fashionable snakes-for-hair look. This seems bizarre to anyone familiar with Medusa, lady gorgon, who wasn't actually reputed to be a bearded lady or married to anyone closeted. This is pretty clearly a dude. But there are some other theories floating around. Something about Oceanus, a water god, or a Celtic sun god, or that time your uncle got drunk and tried to wear a Christmas wreath.

Enough about the bath of Bath. There is a city, too. And a very nice free walking tour that doesn't even want tips.

Walking tour talking point: soot.

 Fun fact: If you walk around the city of bath, you see a lot of very pretty pale stone buildings. But some eons ago when those chimneys (everywhere with the chimneys) were burning coal, there was a lot of air pollution. They hadn't invented cleaning in those days, so the city of bath used to be covered in soot and dirt. This house has been carefully left caked in dirt and soot to preserve the visual of a bygone era.

Inevitably, you'll get bored of all the pretty buildings and shops that are closed when you need them and streets teeming with American tourists. Escape on a nice river walk!

It's a nice controlled river. As you can see, the sky is more washed out than the banks. 

Not to be arch.

And don't forget Jane Austen. As I mentioned, Austen-tacious used to live here. She kind of hated her time in Bath. And by 'kind of', I mean, she agitated to move back to wherever it was that she grew up. Her parents said no--then her father died suddenly. They moved promptly back to wherever. Not that I'm suggesting anything untoward. I'm just saying that everyone ever told me to avoid the Austen museum. There is one, though. Might even be more informational than this blog post.

Brighton: Royal Pavilion, Beach, and Tiny Shops

Inexplicably, I found no daleks anywhere.

A thousand pardons; Wifi has been iffy in a few places recently, and I'm behind on life. Catchup time--Brighton! When I first got off the train, I walked past a BBC window and noticed this guy, Davros, watching the street:

But that's neither here nor there. People don't come to Brighton looking for aliens, they come for bachelorette parties, or "hen-dos." See, Bath used to be relaxation/party central, but a while back, starting about with Henry IV, Brighton usurped Bath as the tiny vice city vacation town of England. With Henry IV royal pavilion to oggle, the historical sea-bathing escape of Austen novels/that time period, Brighton continues to be a thriving beach community, with a massive LGBT population. In the city center, it's kind of like San Francisco or Asheville, but more posh. If you stay out closer to the beach, it gets a lot more like the Outer Banks.

Pause city talk. Let's talk about the palace, by which I mean The Royal Pavilion:

Henry IV's private pleasure palace; a postcolonial pastiche,

If you like decorative arts, you have to go inside of the castle. You can't take pictures inside, which makes it a horrible stop for a blog, but you owe it to yourself to look at the 16-foot chandeliers suspended from dragons.

The Pavilion was constructed to boost his ego shortly after the loss of the American colonies. Thus, to proclaim that England was still a rich colonial power, the place is infused with styles from India, as a reminder that they still had it going on, internationally speaking.  Meanwhile, the interior is a totally not-matching style mimicking China. The style is called "chinoiserie," because we need a French word for that.

Henry built this palace to chill out with his various long term committed mistresses. Evidently he didn't value any mistress's ability to take photos of the place; it's impossible to get a good angle anywhere.

You can't see the palace for the bushes.

Here is a photo of a postcard of the inside, which should give you an idea that there is more colour and life inside. It's overwhelmingly garish/beautiful/excessive.

This is the smaller chandelier without dragons.
On the bright side, it looks like it's on fire.

But let's backtrack. When you first get off the train from London, you can wind through the Lanes, which will transport you to what London must have looked like 200 years ago. While you have the option of sticking to the main street, you can also turn down narrow twisty alleyways to find Starbucks. Follow signs, since you will get lost, and wander into North Laine, which is a massive collection of independent shops. Among them, an Indian-Goth fusion store, and some other things that made less sense and were even more expensive.

Pedestrian mall: possibly only here because there is now way cars are fitting.

See, as evidenced by the tiny winding lanes and old buildings, they don't really build new things in Brighton. The emphasis on preservation makes it a good counterpoint to London, which, as I mentioned, is a blend of very old and rocketships.

A random backyard(?) Why not have it in the middle of shops!

Unfotunately, you can't get a good picture to demonstrate narrow winding streets when you are inside of them. Something about angles and visual blockades.

The streets: they were narrow. 

And when you get tired of shopping, you can go to the beach! And enjoy the nice weather!

Beautiful weather! Water is the opposite of warm! Beach! All without sand in sight!

By any definition of good, this is a beach. It's legitimately a nice place to sit by the sea and let the sea breezes cool you on a hot day (and this was taken in perfect beach weather). There's the pier with all the pier stuff, if you're into that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the above pic was taken while passing through. I was busy that day with all the tours and shops and things. I would leave the full day of beach enjoyment until tomorrow!

This was tomorrow.

On the whole, I like my beaches warmer. It was a nice place to walk around, if you wanted to wear a jacket and shoes and pants and then leave anyway because the wind was too cold.

Brighton: by all accounts a great place to live. But if you want to rent, you'd better have six months rent to pony up front. Not everyone does. Consequently, you will meet a lot of local residents in the hostels. Unless they get tired of having the same conversation, they are friendly and can give you good insight into viewing the city as a local. 

If you go hosteling in Brighton, stay at Kipps. Avoid the Smart Sea View, because it isn't.