United Kingdom

We arrived in London, very early in the morning around 6 AM, after a long 24 hour plane ride (with a short layover at Singapore). People were already putting on their overcoats, mufflers, and jackets as they were leaving the plane. We also put on whatever layers we had with us and entered the terminal. The airport was cold and uninviting; the passport control line was long as well. We had landed in one of the old terminals and were told that their new one was much better (I would say that of all the terminals we’ve been to, the Inchon Airport in Korea was the best).

Not haven’t booked a single hotel or having an itinerary for the UK, except the rental car, we really didn’t have a place to go to, that early in the morning. Fortunately, the business class of British Airways included an arrivals lounge pass, which we put to good use. After a hot shower, massage, use of the internet, and a full breakfast (we were glad that we switched to British Airways from Qantas at Sydney), we felt much better. Since we had visited England before, we decided to skip London altogether and start from the town of Bath. We promptly picked up our car (with a portable navigation system, without which we would have been totally helpless) at the airport and started to drive west.



The Stonehenge was on the way to Bath, so we decided to stop by. As it was with everything else in England, it required an entrance fee. It didn’t have much significance with us other than massive stones erected mysteriously by ancient people some 5000 years ago, so we were just happy to able to witness the stones, take some photos, and leave.

Even with the navigation system, we got lost many times, especially when the roads were unmarked or marked but not readily visible. After many wrong turns, we saw this vista of the town of Bath, and only then did we know that we were getting close. Bath is one of the most visited towns in England, famous for its Roman bath and charming Georgian architectural buildings with parks, shops, and museums. It is also a vibrant town with many young people attending a university there.

Of course, being famous for its therapeutic waters, we were hoping to take a dip in the roman bath. This is a picture of the actual bath built by the Romans, which was open for tours but not for bathing. In fact, the water looked cold and they said people haven’t taken a bath in there for decades.

On the way out, we learned that just down the street is the Thermae Bath Spa. The modern spa (in the photo below) was to be our oasis for the evening.

Now, this is worth the admission, where we can actually go and soak inside the hot mineral water. A line had already formed and we joined the locals for their evening special, where dinner was included as well. The long soak in the open-air rooftop thermal pool with terrific views of the city, as well as the hot steam rooms, was refreshing and then to leave with our stomachs filled was an extra bonus.

Many times we never know what we will get with our lodging choice. Even with the aid of Trip Advisor and Expedia, it’s always a mystery. The night we arrived in the UK was the Friday the 13th. When we arrived at the hotel, it was dark and the front door was locked (or at least I couldn’t open it), and no one seemed to be around. We rang the bell and knocked, but no one answered. It really was spooky waiting outside of this old building. Joanne then went around the building and found a group of Japanese students all gathered in the den. The manager finally came out and checked us in. What a night…

The next morning, we were pleasantly surprised with the view outside the window. The hotel was located in a quiet English countryside, few minutes away from Bath. No wonder we couldn’t find a single light on the night before. We had no idea that the building was a manor house built in the 1700’s.

From Bath, we decided to pay a visit to our old friends, Jane and Bill. That is, Jane Austen and William Shakespeare. Joanne is a fan of Jane Austen and knew that Jane used to live around Bath, from reading many of her novels. I put Jane’s one time residence in our GPS and dropped Joanne off so she could say hello.

Bill’s residence was in another nearby town called Stratford Upon Avon and was easier to find. It was anticlimactic since he wasn’t around to greet us. Since it was Saturday, there were lots of people who came to visit as well. We paid a visit to his birth place, to his school, to his wife’s childhood house, to his mother’s childhood house, to his children’s houses, and finally to his resting place. We didn’t get to see him, but I hope that at least, he appreciated our efforts.

Our next night’s lodging, to our surprise, was even more majestic and grander of a manor house. We had to drive through a long driveway (or a carriage way as it is called here) after driving at least a mile from the main road via a private road. After the huge manor house came into view, we were beginning to think that if all of our future accommodations in England could turn out to be this way…. of course not.

The manor house was sitting on several hundred acres and came with it’s own lake, chapel, stables, spa, and swans. It was no wonder that we thought we were lost when our navigation system pointed us to a road that was seemingly leading us to the middle of nowhere.

By the next day, we finally arrived at St. Andrews. St. Andrews, of course, is in Scotland and it is where the ‘home’ of golf is. The town is also known for other things as well. Besides being a university town where Prince Williams graduated not too long ago (a very reputable university as we found out), there were ruins of an old cathedral from where you can see the whole town from high above in the bell tower. There was an old castle, a large cemetery, and even a long sweeping beach where “Chariots of Fire’s” running scene was filmed.

Even though we were in St. Andrews, we didn’t have a booking for golf. People in the states pay a ridiculous sum of money to assure a round of golf at the Old Course. We simply walked into the clubhouse and put our names in the draw (there’s a daily draw where half the slots are filled by random name selections) for the next day’s tee time. We waited patiently till 3 PM when they posted the names. To our delight, we found our names on the top of the sheet, going out the first thing in the morning at 7 AM. I really preferred a 9 AM tee time but decided not to push our luck. I turned to Joanne and said, “how could it be easier than getting a tee time at Rancho Park?” Since our early tee time meant getting up early, we got that night’s lodging at a nearby B&B (ours was the first one along this row of B & B's, a short 3 min. walk to the course). The owner, being a golfer herself, understood and got up even earlier to cook our breakfast. We thanked her for our comfortable stay and of course, for the breakfast. I would encourage everyone to come during the ‘shoulder season’ like we did; it was much easier to play golf anywhere and booking rooms was no problem.

It’s 7:30 AM and we still hadn’t teed up. We had to let two other groups go ahead of us because we had to wait for a caddie to show up. The rental clubs and especially the golf bag weighed a ton and pull-carts were not allowed. There were no caddies at the caddie shack when we arrived because they were all ‘on call’ during the off-season. Our caddie, John, was born within 400 yards of the St. Andrews Old Course and knew all the breaks and told us exactly where to play the ball.

Our golf partner, Oliver, a recently retired investment banker from London, said ‘what a glorious morning to be playing at St. Andrews.’ He said it was his first time at the Old Course as well. The rental clubs, however, didn’t come with our best games in the set, so we were just happy to pay our respects to the ‘home’ of golf.

The St. Andrews has seven different courses. The newest one is called ‘The Castle’. It is the second most expensive to play. The course wasn’t open for play when we were there but we stopped to check it out. It is situated high on a bluff and had many holes with beautiful views of the ocean, the castles, and the cathedrals of St. Andrews.

The next day, we signed up to play the Carnoustie course. The hospitality was much warmer than at St. Andrews (since people beg to play at the home of golf they don’t have to be as nice). We had a much better outing, although it is considered to be a more difficult course than St. Andrews.

Done with our homage to golf, we drove further north, going through the highlands of Scotland. The scenery was much more rugged and it definitely got colder on our way to Inverness and Loch Ness.

When we were eating lunch in St. Andrews at The Grill Restaurant, we met the nicest manager, who recommended us to have lunch at The Kitchen on the River or Mustard Seed when we visited Inverness. We chose the former but when we arrived, the restaurant was full and we were told to return much later. However, a gentleman from the local town who overheard this offered us his table! We asked him to join us for lunch and the three of us had the most pleasant lunch. As he called it - it was in his destiny for us to meet. We had the best meals in the UK at these restaurants.

Loch Ness is a long skinny lake where as legend has it, a monster resides there. People are still searching that elusive monster. When we got there, the lake was as calm and peaceful and there was no monster in sight.

This castle is called Urquart Castle and is nestled on the edge of the Loch Ness. The drive along the lake was very beautiful. I can imagine how much prettier it will be when summer comes along.

We passed many small towns like this along our drives through the highlands. There were many Bed and Breakfast places in towns. We stayed in one of them at Glencoe. We had another full and hearty Scottish or English breakfast that comes with scrambled or fried eggs, sausages, ‘Canadian’ bacon, grilled tomatoes, black pudding (a blood sausage), deep-fried hash browns and toast with orange juice and coffee. After two more weeks of eating this, we were simply packing in the food for fuel. I don’t think we will ever choose to eat another “full and hearty English breakfast” for many years to come.

At the peak of the Highlands, one can see a panoramic range of mountains. The site was once the training ground of commandos during the World War II. There is a monument of soldiers who died at WWII looking out over this view.

This picture was taken near the Edinburgh Castle. The men in full kilts were getting ready for a wedding ceremony and were happy to oblige our request for a picture. Joanne loved their purses and they were more than willing to trade. Joanne declined saying their purses were too small.

The sweet sounds of the bagpipes blowing, gave us more sense of where we were.

The buildings below the Edinburgh Castle – they all looked full of history and each with a story to tell.

The Edinburgh Castle sits high in the middle of the town. It had exhibits of Scotland’s crown jewels that had long been hidden away. Inside the castle was also the oldest building in Edinburgh, St. Margaret’s Chapel that dates back to the 11th century.

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland and is rich with history and proud identity that is distinctive from its neighbor to the south, England (although Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland, and England are all one country now: the UK).

Inside the castle, there is a building that once housed the prisoners of war. We saw carvings of graffiti in the dungeon cells and wooden doors from even the Americans captured during the Revolutionary war of 1770s. I could not believe that the British brought them all the way here from the US.

When in Scotland, instead of wine tasting, one goes to scotch whiskey tasting. Since I needed to drive, I could not try all of the samples, so I asked for the local’s two most popular ones among the single malts to be savored later.

We passed through Liverpool. Of course, Liverpool is famous for the Beatles and they sing about Penny Lane which is in Liverpool. We got near the street and found two local boys who eagerly helped us to find the exact spot where the Beatles crossed the street for the album cover. They told us that the Beatles “experience” exhibit (museum) was located in a different part (Albert Docks) of the town.

Before getting to Cambridge, we passed through the town of Sherwood. Sherwood is known for where Robin Hood used to hang out. Even though it wasn’t Halloween, we saw little kids with their cute Hood outfits on.

Inside the forest, there were many trails, but we chose a short 30 minute walk to see the ‘Major Oak Tree’.

The legend has it that Robin Hood and his band of ‘Merrie Men’ would use this very tree (said to be more than 1150 years old) as their meeting and hiding place, before setting off on their adventures.

The chapel of the King’s College in Cambridge is world renowned for its gothic style architecture and is considered one of the greatest buildings in Europe. Started by the King Henry 6th, it was completed in 1545, and took almost 100 years to build.

On the alter, placed below the magnificent stained glass windows, is ‘the Adoration of the Magi’, a priceless painting by Rubens, donated to the college in 1961. They even lowered the level of alter to accommodate the painting.

Even more impressive than the outside of the chapel, is the inside with its intricate fan vaults. The vault is the largest of its kind in the world and to think that the King ordered just a plain ceiling – the master mason discarded the original plan and replaced it with this masterpiece.

The campus of the King’s College – there’s a sign that says only the senior members and theirs guests may walk on the grass.

In front of the Trinity College is an apple tree. I didn’t know, until I saw some people taking pictures with an apple on their heads, that this may be the same spot where Sir Issac Newton is said to have discovered gravity. I was later told that indeed the tree is from the seedling of the original tree that Newton sat under when one dropped on his head.

The Bridge of the Sighs at St. John’s College– it is a covered bridge that is named after the original one in the city of Venice. At Cambridge, they call their gondolas, ‘punts’. These punts are available to rent on their River Cam, crossing many bridges. Perhaps, the name of the town and the university came from this; Cam–bridge.

This is the “Round Church” in Cambridge; built around 1130, it is the second oldest building in Cambridge and one of only four surviving medieval round churches from the 12th century.

In England, the spring was in the air with many blooming daffodils, cherry trees, and forsythia. Yes, UK was cold and rainy at times, but the weather was not as bad as we expected. Before leaving Australia, the weather forecast had called for rain for the next 10 days straight. However, the sun came out just in time for us to go out and enjoy the day without worrying about getting wet.  We returned to London for our last night in the UK to meet up with a fellow Aussie traveler that we had met in Japan.  We enjoyed her company and dinner at a local pub but we were glad to bit farewell to UK. We found UK, especially London was one of the most expensive cities in the world.  They even charge a so called 'congestion fee' for driving in the city center.  The rental car, for example, cost more than three times that of Australia, and five times that of New Zealand.