Brimham Rocks

This is Brimham Rocks. It's a collection of 'weird' rock formations that one can hike among, climb on, and rappel from. Too bad I didn't bring any rappelling equipment because I would have enjoyed doing that off of some of these tall towers. By the way, the word for rappelling in British-ese is 'Abseiling'. I did climb up on some of the rocks, however.

This is Denise Ford and Caroline Oliver posing for a picture as we hiked along. We had a bit of rain when we first got to the car park, but afterwards, the rain blew over and it was quite nice for us.
This is me up on one of the top towers overlooking the Dales below. Denise wouldn't come up here with Caroline and I because she's a bit nervous on high things.
Here is a picture of one of the towers from down below. It's obvious why this is a great rock climbing area.

I liked this picture because it was pretty with the flowers perched up there.
Here are the three of us underneath one of the rock formations. Denise was a bit put out because there was a little puddle just behind where I was sitting, but it was no problem to avoid it.This is one of the more stunning rock formations. It attracted a lot of people. We ate our lunch on a rock near here and had no peace at all because of the constant stream of people coming to look. It wasn't the best choice for a lunch spot because of that, even if the view was interesting.
This picture kind of give you an idea of the area in general. This would be a great place to bring a family full of kids; they would have a blast running and playing all over these rocks.
We managed to coax Denise out onto this overlook point, though she wouldn't go any further than she is here. We were lucky to get this shot because shortly after taking it a whole mob of people came along and wanted to stand where we were sitting.

After our afternoon walking around Brimham, we stopped in the little town of Pately Bridge so I could see the place. It's a quaint little village and is the proud home of the Oldest Sweet Shop in all of England. We popped in there for a bit and it's packed with sweets of every kind. It's that kind of shop that is probably the inspiration behind Honeydukes in the village of Hogsmede at Hogwarts. This was a nice day out and we enjoyed ourselves. We ended up stopping by Ripley again to get an ice cream cone!

Middlethorpe Hall

Here we are at Middlethorpe Hall. This hall was built in 1699 and is now a Hotel and Spa. But it has some lovely gardens and is a National Trust site. So Angela and I took a jaunt out there to see. The above picture is of the front of the Hotel.

This picture is of the back of the Hotel from the gardens. I like this picture! It turned out really nice, ey?
Here I am in the midst of the gardens. We had a lovely day with nice weather.

Here is one of the inner portions of the garden. It looks like this would have been the old stable when the house was a functioning home.



Here is the closeup of the fountain.

Here is a view of the larger portion of the garden. They have so many lovely flowers in England and I enjoy the gardens so much! You couldn't have a garden like this in Utah.

Fountains Abbey

I love Fountains Abbey! I've been here several times and never get over how beautiful it is. I've tried to take different pictures than I did before. And! They've altered the water gardens since I took pictures of those a couple of years ago, so some of these pictures will be totally new. The above picture is a favorite view of the Abbey from down near the water gardens.

Caroline Oliver was my adventure buddy this fine Saturday. Caroline is an out-doorsy sort of gal, so we've decided to try and get out a bit this summer and enjoy some places. She's never been to Fountains and really enjoyed it. Here we are resting ourselves on our walk round the extensive estate.

Here we are again, just before we head down into the renovated portion of the water gardens.

Water, water, and more water. There is something so peaceful and relaxing about water. I love it!

Here we are on the bridge crossing from one side of the water gardens to the other. There is a water fall behind us and a big lake as well.

We left the main estate down by the bridge and went out to hike a bit of the 'Seven Bridges' walk. Sadly, there wasn't much water in the rivers, but there were seven bridges of different kinds, though not all of them were worth taking pictures of.

This picture is on our way back into the main Fountains estate after our jaunt down the Seven Bridges trail. We also had our lunch out there next to the lake.

I liked this spot very well. Whoever designed it did a tasteful job, in my opinion.

After we left Fountains, we took a detour over to Ripley where they are famous for their soft ice cream. As you can see the store is packed! It's crammed into this little space between two big buildings on the high street.

And, as we sat by the lake enjoying our lunch, a little family of ducks came by. So enjoy them. The little ones aren't that old and are so cute!

Windsor

There were other interesting things to see in Windsor itself, so I decided to do a separate posting for the non-Castle attractions. The shot above and the one below are about one of the most highly acclaimed architects in English history; Sir Christopher Wren. I'm sure you've heard of him at some point.

The above picture is certainly a modest house for a person who rebuilt 51 of London's churches, including his Masterpiece St. Paul's Cathedral, that were destroyed in the catastrophic Great Fire of 1666. That fire reportedly consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St. Paul's Cathedral, and most of the buildings that housed the city government offices. One estimation claims that the fire destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the City's 80,000 inhabitants. The fire raged from 2 September to 5 September. Anyway, I didn't know Christopher Wren lived in Windsor, but it seems from what I've been able discover, that little is known of his Windsor life and that he lived here when a boy.

Eton College, established by Henry VI in the 1440s, is also located in Windsor, so we took a jaunt down there to see some of the buildings. Being a holiday weekend for the Royal Wedding, none of the buildings were open, but the outsides of them were interesting. The above picture is of the chapel. Eton boys attend church every Sunday, no matter what religious persuasion they are. The Eton website says, 'College Chapel dominates the Eton landscape both physically and spiritually. Whether as a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or atheist, this space challenges us to come to terms with what it stands for . . . And so the school requires boys to experience it, whatever their persuasion, for it stands for the requirement that each human life come to terms with its place in the great scheme of things, whether or not in the way that Henry envisaged.'

Here is a building that is just up from the Eton Chapel. I haven't been able to find out what it is, but the architecture is interesting. Being close to the church, perhaps it has something to do with the religious personnel who must staff the chapel.

This picture is of the Library. It is across the road from the previous picture.
This is a sample of the living accommodation of Eton boys. You can see a pair of the lads near the centre of the picture. They were everywhere as we walked along. It costs £9,954 per half [i.e. term; there are three terms in a year] to attend Eton if you are not on some sort of a scholarship. If you want your boy to have extras, like music, fencing, judo, or rowing then you have to pay more for it. There are 70 King's scholarships (established originally by Henry VI) who receive 10% of the total fee amount, which doesn't seem like very much. However, it appears that Eton college will work with boys who are offered scholarships and still can't afford the reduced fees. Interesting.

And then, this curious picture is of a Swan sitting on her eggs. We stumbled across her as we tried to find our way off an island in the middle of the Thames. I think she was as surprised to see us as we were to see her. We did eventually find our way off, but our wanderings on that strip of land were part of the highlights of the trip. I think Angela thought I was crazy to go exploring in such a random fashion!

This is our strip of island! Don't be deceived because that bridge thing you can see on the right is inaccessible to pedestrians from either side and we were unable to get off that way. The Swan's nest was right on the tip of land that is poking out. So? How did we get ourselves onto that strip of land in the first place? Well . . . we took a walk and . . . (you'll have to ask me about it some time).

Windsor Castle

Look at this! We were in Windsor the last weekend in April. This first view is of the Windsor Castle overlooking the town. If you don't already know this, Windsor Castle is one of the main residences for the Royal family and they spend a large portion of their time here each year. Windsor is just outside of London to the West.

If you can't already tell from the bright blue skies in these pictures, we had a perfect day for our visit. It was a bit on the cool side, but so beautiful that we couldn't have ordered a better day. The above picture is part of Windsor Castle as you come up from the town below. There is quite a steep hill to get up here.
This is another view of a different part of the Castle. And down below you will see me and Angela in front of the biggest tower. We have our sweatshirts on because its still cool, but we will shortly remove those and not need them except when standing in the shade.

Did you know that Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world? I didn't know that, but its history goes back 1,000 years; all the way to William the Conqueror who founded the thing in the eleventh century.

The above picture is taken from looking down into the Mote. They've turned the Mote into a garden and it's very lovely indeed. I guess if you have a Mote and you don't want to fill it with water, this is a very good thing to do with it rather than just having an empty dike.

You can't have royalty in residence without having the Royal guard somewhere near by. Talk about concentration. I wonder what the guards think at having their picture taken by so many hundreds of thousands of tourists who come to visit here. We got there just in time to see the full changing of the guard at 11.00am. It was quite a ritual, really, and there were a pair of guards who kept going back and forth across the plaza for some unexplainable reason. I bet they know every single inch of the ground like the backs of their hands.

The changing of the guard came complete with the brass band. At the bottom of this blog you will hopefully find a very brief segment of the guards marching and another one of the band playing just so you can get a feel of it all (wouldn't upload for some reason, so I'll try again another day and see if it works then). The band was quite good in my estimation.

This is part of the other housing that is inside the Castle proper. I don't know who lives in these, but maybe the guards or some of the other staff who work here.

This is a picture of St. George's Chapel that is directly across from the picture you just saw. You can clearly see the Gothic architecture outside, but on the inside you will find tombs of 10 monarchs. Henry VIII is here, along with his third wife Jane Seymour, who died shortly after delivering Edward VI, Henry VIII's only legitimate son. Also buried here is the still born son of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife. Some scholars think that this still birth sealed Ann's fate as Henry wanted a male heir so badly and she wasn't able to provide him with one. This chapel is also the the spiritual home of the Order of the Garter, the senior order of British Chivalry established in 1348 by Edward III. Chivalry has not died totally because its spirit is maintained here! Good to know ladies!

This is a picture of the main part of the Castle. All of the state rooms are in there. We were able to see most of those and they are grand indeed. I've been to quite a few Castles and other grand homes now and I haven't seen anything to compare with some of the rooms inside this Castle. Amazing. Especially the restoration of the rooms that were destroyed/damaged by the 1992 fire.
Here is another shot of the Mote garden as we came out of the state rooms and the display of Queen Mary's famous doll house. The doll's house is housed in a couple of different rooms because it is so big. Did you know that the doll's house took three years to complete and involved 1,500 craftsmen, artists and authors? That's some doll's house. It even has electric lighting, hot and cold running water, and flushing toilets. As we looked at it and saw all the servant's quarters, kitchen staff rooms, fancy cars in the numerous garages, and so forth it struck me that only the aristocracy would think to have all that in a doll's house. Anyway, it was quite a sight, but I can't imagine anyone really playing with the thing.

Here we are in the little town of Windsor where we stopped to enjoy the sunshine and have our lunch. No need of sweatshirts now! The woman on the left is a friend of Angela's from Canada who was in town for the Royal Wedding (which took place the day before we came here) and came over from London on the train to meet us. She was very nice, though I can't remember her name now. Sorry!

This is a picture of a hop-scotch board that was laid in the stonework near where we sat. I thought it was instructive and for those of you not up on the history of England's monarchs, then this provides a lovely overview.
I'm down on a bridge crossing the Thames for this picture. Have you noticed how many airplanes are in these pictures? Well, that's because Windsor is very near Heathrow Airport and planes were taking off every few minutes all day. One of the humorous bits of the day was overhearing a younger guy, probably in his mid 20s saying to the girl he was with: 'Why did the royal family build this castle so close to the airport?' We laughed about that all day! I'm not making that up, either. He really did say that. Sad to say, that doesn't say much for his history instruction, now does it? Poor man. I hope he learned something once he visited the castle.