Visiting the Queen

I realized today it has been over 2 weeks since our last post.  This is because we have had our first guests – my mom and dad.  And we have spent the last week visiting England and Ireland with them. 

This post is focused on three days in England, mainly because I haven’t gone through the Ireland photos.  I think we took a combined 1,500 photos on this trip between the 4 of us.  I wrangled the England side down to my favorite 300, which I will post for you here.  Just kidding – I’ll keep it to just a fraction of that.

And without further ado, here is a photo commentary tour through England with us!

We started our trip in London, and since we only had the day there we set out right away for a lunch of fish and chips.  Since everyone but my dad has been to London before, we deferred to him to choose the itinerary for the afternoon.  He went with the Tower of London.  We saw the crown jewels, the multiple towers, and Dad pretended to be a member of the Royal Guard.  And my mom and I made a friend.

We also were very close to the Tower Bridge.  Here we are when the weather was briefly nice, and here is the bridge again during the thunderstorm.

Our last stop before dark was Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

The next morning, we picked up our rental car and Noah braved driving the wrong other side.  We took off towards Leeds Castle, where birds like to pose.

And so do the people.

The castle was as beautiful as I remembered, and the storms held off until we were ready to go.  Very considerate, England.  

We also spotted a white peacock.  And for about 30 seconds, I had my mother convinced that the pigeons were peahens. 

We spent the evening in Salisbury, famous for their cathedral.  

The next morning we met with our wonderful tour guide, Pat, who took us out for a very educational tour of the various henges in the area.  I had no idea there was so much more than just Stonehenge, and it was amazing to learn things about the area.  We started out at Woodhenge.

The next stop was Stonehenge, but we started across the road first.  Here we hung out with the sheep and learned about the various henges in this field – I know I had no idea about all of this when I went to Stonehenge after high school! And side note – there were so many fields of canola growing, and for just a few weeks a year they bloom yellow flowers before harvesting.  I think both Mom and I were a bit obsessed.   

Noah also loved laying down in the field of sheep shit to try to get the shot.  He is the real photographer – the only one who got dirty taking photos.

Sadly, this is as close as we got to Stonehenge.

Just kidding. 

But one thing we did that was pretty awesome is we walked along the Avenue up towards the stones, which is how archaeologists think the people did it thousands of years ago.

Next stop – Bath, England.  Naturally we stopped and toured the Roman Baths.

Next door to the Baths is Bath Abbey.  We toured the inside – the ceiling was magnificent.  

After dinner we headed to Bristol, where we would catch our flight to Ireland in the morning.  Next post – Ireland!