England Trip Part I

My parents are here visiting for a few weeks so we decided to snatch the opportunity to make a trip to England without the crazies (or, in other words, our three boys.)  Five days is not long enough to see everything we wanted but we sure saw A LOT!

I had to take a photo of Hyrum driving on the wrong side of the car.  It was totally crazy driving on the left side of the road, at night, in the rain...I'm so glad Hyrum was doing the driving!

We stayed the night in the town of Avebury.  This town has a much larger stone circle than Stonehenge but is less well known.  It was really cool to walk around the fields with the sheep grazing near 3,000 year old stone monuments.

This picture is probably one of my favorites.  I love old graveyards and then to have this beautiful old church as well, I was in "medieval club" paradise!

Next stop, Stonehenge.  I really enjoyed this stop.  I wasn't expecting it to be so amazing but it's really a cool site.  The stones for this structure were brought from hundreds of miles away.  They were placed in very specific spots.  But why?  I think that is why this site is so cool, no one really knows why this structure was built and it's neat to make up your own theories.

Next on the tour, Salisbury Cathedral.  We almost missed this stop because we were trying to condense our trip so we would have more time in the Cotswalds but I'm so glad we stopped here.  This was a beautiful Cathedral with an amazing steeple, "Britains tallest spire", the worlds oldest clock was on display here PLUS they have an original copy of the Magna Carta.

This is a great photo Hyrum took of the interior of the Cathdral.  I love the Cathedrals reflection in the baptismal font.

On to the Cotswalds.  This group of villages is what most people think of when they think of England.  Beautiful thatch roof cottages, narrow lanes, green meadows.  I think the fog and clouds only added to the atmosphere.  

The best thing to do in the Cotswalds is to take advantage of all the public walking paths.  These paths connect all the villages and they go right through private fields with horses, sheep and cattle grazing.  Farmers have rights to use the land but the general public have rights to walk through the land.  It was so cool, we kept having to go through all different sorts of gates designed to keep livestock contained but allow foot traffic through.

We ended our day in Stratford Upon Avon.  We had tickets to go to a show put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company.  The play was about the making of the King James version of the Bible.  It was a wonderful play and I'm so glad we got to see something put on by the RSC, even if it wasn't a Shakespeare play.

The next morning we walked around Stratford a bit.  This is a picture of Shakespeare's grave.  He was buried in the same church he was baptized in as an infant.  They even had the baptismal font on display.

We left Stratford and drove 2 hours to Cambridge.  This town was probably one of the highlights of our trip.  It was amazing to walk around the college that was home to so many amazing thinkers, 88 Nobel Laureates, plus academics from Isaac Newton to Alfred Tennyson to Charles Darwin.  So much beautiful music, wonderful writing and scientific thinking came from Cambridge, it was a real treat to walk through so much history. 

I had to add this photo.  The University of Cambridge has 31 distinct colleges, each with their own colors.  I thought it was cool to see all the uniform socks lined up for sale in the store window.  We debated getting the boys Cambridge t-shirts to start brainwashing them young:)

We took a tour of Cambridge with a guide and that was very interesting.  I'm glad we spent the time and money to do that because she gave us so much history and so many fun stories we couldn't have picked up just from walking around the town on our own.  We stayed for the Evensong services which were held in the Cathedral of Kings College.  

This is a photo of the Cathedral at Kings College.  Check out the worlds largest fan vaulted ceiling!

What an amazing experience!  The Cathedral is simply amazing and the sound from the singing just echoes throughout the entire place and almost vibrates within your own chest...yes, Cambridge was a highlight of the trip.

That night we drove back to the airport, dropped off the rental car and took a train into London...more to come in the next post!