Stone Circles

We've passed the one year mark of living here in England, but because of pregnancy and life with a newborn, we haven't done a lot of the traveling and touristy things that we want to.  So this weekend we took advantage of the nice weather and drove down to see some of the standing stones we have within a couple hours drive.

First up: Stonehenge!

At the visitor centre there is a large stone on a wood platform and logs.  This is how they speculate the stones were moved when Stonehenge was built. 

After we ate lunch in the café and looked at the exhibit in the visitor centre, we took a shuttle bus (you can also walk) over to the stones.  Yes, they are just a bunch of rocks, but it's so iconic and it's really pretty neat to see.

Surrounding the stones is a mound and a ditch, and around that is the roped off walkway where we could walk all the way around the circle.  (One part actually gets you quite close to the stones, but then you go over the mound and the rest of the time is outside of that.)

We learned that, if you stand right in the centre of the circle, a certain rock marks where the sun sets at Winter Solstice and there's an "arch" opposite through which you can see the sun rise at Summer Solstice.  Apparently on a normal day there are approx. 10,000 visitors to Stonehenge, but people also travel from all over to experience the solstices there.

After a stroll through the gift shop, we headed out, aiming for Avebury, which is basically on the way home from Stonehenge.  This is a much larger stone circle, divided into four sections by roads.  One key difference here is that you can go right up to the stones and run around among them. We stopped for a "snack picnic" under the shade of a large tree, and then headed back down the hill to the stones on our way to the little farm which now serves as a museum and café for the site.  There is also a manor and gardens, but we were too late in the day to fit it in.

Cardiff Day Trip

We had a long weekend for the bank holiday (plus Andrew's half-term break) and while we spent most of it relaxing at home, we decided to be ambitious and take a day trip to Cardiff!

We planned it for just one day because we have a new baby and I was not interested in cramming our new family of five into a little hotel room, especially while we have a baby who wakes multiple times during the night to eat.  And while we had several things on out list of things to do and see, we were able to fit it all into our one day so it worked out really well!

The drive was about an hour and a half from home to our first stop: Caerphilly Castle.  This castle is the real deal!  We've been to several castles since moving out here but this one is by far the most intact and open for exploration.  We were able to climb the spiral staircases up into the towers as well as around the grounds.  We said hi to the baby dragons, and there was even a little setup on the grounds with tents and costumed actors doing all kinds of things like sword fighting and archery demonstrations.

Next we headed into town for lunch.  Though there were lots of great options on the high street, we ended up at McDonald's (because kids).  After lunch we walked around and took a look at all the shops. The little market streets were so neat- they are clear-ceilinged streets with small shops.  A lot of them were closed (due to the bank holiday probably) but they were still neat to see.

Once we had our fill of wandering and shopping, we wandered over to Cardiff Castle, which is right at the end of the high street.  There was a lot to see here: the keep, the house, the bomb shelter tunnels (within the castle walls), and the Welsh soldier museum.  We didn't do the guided tour, but apparently some of our favorite shows have filmed here!

Our next stop was Cardiff Bay.  We didn't have anything we wanted to do here, but rather landmarks we wanted to see.  We took the train (which was a welcome break for my feet even though it was only about a four minute ride) and then it was just a few minutes walk to the bay.  We stopped for a bit in front of the Millennium Centre and I fed the baby while the big boys played with the water tower fountain (aka Torchwood).  We went over to the water and made a quick stop at Ianto's shrine (another Torchwood entrance).

By this time my feet were killing me and it was about dinner time.  There were a lot of restaurants at Cardiff Bay, but we decided to head back to town, get in the car, and stop for food along the way home since we were already going to be getting home late.  If/when we come back to Cardiff we'll have to make a little more time for the Bay!  But the only thing I wanted to see but couldn't was the Doctor Who Experience.  It closed back in the fall, before we had a chance to go, but there were still directional signs up for it all around Cardiff Bay, just to taunt me.  Lame.

We crammed a lot into that one day and though it was tiring, it was also a lot of fun!

York

We decided to spend half-term break up in York. Unfortunately we had some cold and wet weather while we were there but we were able to find some fun indoor stuff to do on the rainiest days to stay dry.

Day One:

We spent some time at the National Railway Museum and the Yorkshire Museum.  The Railway Museum is free (donations appreciated) and the kids really loved it.  Actually, Aaron and I enjoyed it too.  There are tons of engines and coaches, and a huge warehouse with old signs, furniture, motors, and other train paraphernalia.  

The Yorkshire Museum isn't a huge museum, but it has a lot of neat stuff about the area, including a bunch of Roman artifacts.  They have some interactive stuff for the kids to do too, which is great.

On day one we also walked on the city walls.  It's a pretty neat way to get around the city.  We just walked one section of the wall and felt satisfied with that.

Day Two:

We went to the Jorvik Viking Centre first thing in the morning.  We had to wait in line outside for a while since we didn't book timed tickets ahead of time, which was unfortunate but not terribly unexpected.  I thought it was a little overpriced, but it was a neat little ride though the Viking village.

Next we walked over to Clifford's Tower, which gave us a pretty nice view of York but it was cold and windy.  It's also pretty small so I'm glad we got in free with our English Heritage membership.

Then we walked across the street to explore the York Castle Museum.  There was a surprising amount to see there, including an indoor village street, a bunch of classic toys, a huge WWI exhibit, and real prison cells.

Day Three:

We went over to York Minster for the morning.  They have these neat backpacks for kids filled with activities and stuff for them to use while walking around the cathedral (magnifying glass, flashlight, binoculars, etc.).  The kids loved it.  The cathedral itself is gorgeous, and even has a cool little museum in the lower level.

Then we walked over and did some shopping on The Shambles.  There were so many cute shops!  We found one that sold Christmas ornaments and décor (all year round, it seems) and bought a cute, and very British, ornament.  We stopped into Monk Bar Chocolate and picked out some goodies.  And of course we had to walk through each of the Harry Potter themed shops, which were mostly clustered together near the end of the street.  It definitely felt a bit like shopping in Diagon Alley!

Day Four:

We ventured outside of York for the day.  We had originally planned to take the steam railway all the way to Whitby, but the service wasn't running to all the stops so we decided to drive instead.  But we couldn't miss the opportunity to stop by Goathland Station, which was the filming location of Hogsmeade Station in the first Harry Potter film.

After lunch at the station tea room, we headed on our way to Whitby Abbey.  I partially wanted to stop here because of it's connections to Dracula- in the novel, this is where Dracula, disguised as a dog, gets off a boat and climbs the 199 steps up to the Abbey.

We also squeezed in a stop at Helmsley Castle and Rievaulx Abbey right before they closed for the day, before we headed back to our hotel in York.

Day Five:

Before heading home, we spent a good portion of a day exploring the ruins of Fountains Abbey.  This was one our favorite ruins that we've seen so far.  It was huge and had enough remaining walls that we actually could get a bit of a sense what the rooms were, in at least a good portion of the abbey.  It also had huge grounds with some buildings still fully intact, including the water wheel at the mill.  They also had a nice café where we got a hot meal before getting back on the road for our drive home.