Plan…Travel…Repeat

Second day of the tour and I think I have finally acclimated to England time. It was much easier to get up this morning. I am not sure if it was more excitement for the tour or just getting back to my normal sleeping pattern. Either way the day got off to a great start.

The morning was spent visiting Ightham Mote. Although I heard it pronounced a hundred times I still cannot say it. Anyway it was a rambling medievalhouse that was updated during the Tudor time and then several times through their years up to the 20th century. Various rooms along the tour were set up in the different time periods. So we saw a great hall from medevial period, a solar from Tudor and then a couple of small bedrooms crammed in sometime in the late 20th century. An American bought it and kept it from being destroyed and he came for his allowed 14 weeks a year occasionally bringing some grandchildren along. He also had the largest pool table I have every seen. It was at least 50% bigger than what we see today. It basically took up a whole room that was the length of one of wings of the house. There was also a gabled dog house in the courtyard. They claim it is the only surviving early dog house in England (they said when but can’t remember if medevial, Tudor or Elizabethan. It was for a Saint Bernard so it was quite large. They encouraged climbing on for a photo op but I decided I would pass on the opportunity to play a dog.

The chapel in the Mote had great ceiling paintings from the Tudor period when Henry was married to Katherine. They were quite faded but still had some color.

Val and I took the tower tour which was the perfect tower tour for me, it only went up about three floors. Not vast views but we got some nice photos.

After a quick lunch at the cafe we headed back to Hever for an afternoon of enjoying the grounds and gardens. The gardens at Hever are extensive. During the Victorian age someone added a Italian collanade with a maze right in the middle. There was also a rose garden,a wonderful hedge garden cut into chess pieces, grape vine arbors, a small orchard a hand dug pond ( much bigger than you would expect) and a secret path that led up to a chrysanthemum walkway. They were all beautiful. Not sure what was my favorite but I think it was probably the chrysanthemum path. The flowers were as big as my hand and bright bold colors that really stood out from the green leaves. Val and I wandered around enjoying the views and taking pictures.

We also walked through the small village church where Anne Bolyn’s father is buried and also saw a local house with a thatched roof.

Before dinner we had another guest who spoke of Tudor clothes. She had recently discovered an alter cloth at a small church and determined that it was Tudor period cloth of silver. I didn’t understand all the references to cloth of silver or cloth of gold but basically they work gold or silver into thin strips like thread that are then woven with wool or silk to make cloth. I myself think it would be scratchy but would not have mattered because only royals got to wear or own it. The fact that it can only be royal has led her to believe it might be one of Elizabeth’s gowns. For someone who had thousands of items surprisingly they have very few items of clothing from Elizabeth. Seems there was a fire at the palace that held all her household goods.
They also said things even cloths were passed down to new queens. So Harry’s wives probably had some hand me downs.

For dinner we went to Penshurst Place which is a large manor/castle home. It was dark so not great outside pictures but made for the perfect setting for a medevial keep. When we entered the long room with the fire pit in the middle lit by candles it felt like we stepped back in time. However they quickly handed me a glass of proseco and I was glad I lived in the 21 century. Dinner was wonderful. A little less spectacular than the first night in Hever but still very nice. It was in a more modern part of the castle set up for receptions. No historians at our table tonight. We have met a wonderful group of women who have become friends on previous trips.

All in all another great day.

The official tour begins today at noon when we meet everyone for lunch in our hotel. However that leaves us with a bit of time in the morning for some rushed sightseeing so I will start with that. (This way I have some pictures for the day.)

Someone from the group yesterday recommended the National Potrait Gallery as an option for the morning. The gallery was within walking distance, free and opened at 10. Not sure how long it would take to walk there we headed out at 9. Of course this morning we went the right way and arrived at about 9:15, which included a stop to grab breakfast on the go. We found a wonderful spot appropriately named Bread. We grabbed cheese and tomato and pesto filled rolls which were delicious.

Once we arrived we realized we were around the corner from Trafalgar Square with great lions guarding the Nelson monument. While taking photos we noticed Big Ben in the background and decided to go on a photo stop tour instead of waiting on gallery to open. It was a great decision as the walk took us past several iconic locations or should I say photo ops.

We walked down White Chapel past Downing Street and the Prime Minister’s Home which was not only blocked off by security but also behind scaffolding. We saw the Horse Guards, War memorials (the one for women of WWII is supringly moving), Westminster, the Parliment Building and Big Ben. So we saw quite a few sights. On a side note the line for the Abby was long but not horrible when we first walked by around 9:30 when we walked back by closer to 10 it was at least 5 times as long. So if that is ever on your travel plans go early.

We also walked out to see the gate that leads into or out of Trafagar Square. Sadly neither of us looked down to see that it actually lead to buckingham Palace. It was pointed out on the bus we brought back memories of walking from the palace to the gate with my mom back in 2002.

It was a nice and busy morning running around London but it was time to go meet Alison and start the tour. We got back right at 11 and picked up our tour information. Alison was handing out the information and took a few minutes with everyone. I was as excited to meet her as I have been anyone. She seemed as excited about the tour as I did she was much more vivacious and outgoing than I expected. I assumed wrongly she would be more bookish and serious.

We had a bit of time before lunch and I would remiss not to mention the worst glass of lemonade I have ever had. There is not enough sugar in the world to have made that glass enjoyable. I had sit to wait on what I soon discovered was the very edge of the bar. Instead of moving I decided to order a drink but of course not being a coffee drinker and it to hot for tea lemonade was I thought my best option. When she brought it out I was happy to see it was full of ice and until that first sip I was happy with the decision. But alas it was horrible. I felt like I was drinking lemons. So far the worst $4 ihqve spent.

Back to the tour, lunch was casual and we met a few more people and had one of the historians, Julian Humphreys at our table. His main focus our military or battle sites and by far the biggest character on the trip. He kept the conversation going and kept us laughing through the meal.

After lunch Alison gave a brief overview of the Tudor time period and characters and pointed out some of what we would see on the tour. She also introduced all the historians including Sarah Gristwood who wrote or last book club selecrion Game of Queens. Also on the tour is Nicola Tallywho is currently studying Tudor and royal jewelry. I can’t wait to talk to her about that.

From lunch we headed out on the bus for Hever. It is not to far from London so thankfully we were not on the bus long. Hever was the childhood home of Anne Bolyn. It was later much much later purchased by one of the Astors. He spent a great deal fixing it up in the Tudor style he even hired craftsmen that did all the work by hand with Tudor styled tools to maintain an authentic feel. He created what is now the hotel portion. It has the appearance of a rambling manor bit hides behind the house so not seen in the grand view.

We were treated by Henry VIII and Anne Bolyn upon arrival. Since we were from “Spain” and currently his enemy we were very graciously allowed to enter the castle. He was the perfect person for part which they continued when we came down for drinks.

From drinks we toured the main house. It was decorated with period pieces but none were actually from the Bolyn house hold. When she was beheades they fell out of favor and the house was given to another wife. It did have two of Anne’s Book of Hours. In one that they think she was carrying with her on the way to the scaffold and her death she wrote “Remember me when you do pray”.

There are alsome some great portraits in the house and other artwork but those two pieces are the highlight.

After the tour our “Queen Anne” demonstrated the Tudor dress. She had a replica of a Katherine Howard dress which she had made and showed how everything went together.

Our first “gala” was in the dining room of the main house. It was very elaborately decorated with a huge medieval fireplace and held two long tables. We picked our spots and I got surprisingly lucky. Val and I were down on the far end with only a few spots left. I guess instead of moving people two of the historians who had not placed their place cards down ended up down by us. One was Julian Humphrey that I mentioned before the other was Tracy Borman. If you ever watch any PBS specials on royal palaces you have probably seen Tracy. She is head of the historic palace national trust and works out of Hamptons Court she was a lot of fun. Probably in her late 30searly 40s she again was not what I expected as a historian. Her most recent book is about the private lives of the monarchs and we spent some time discussing whether Americans were more prudish and whether she should keep on the parts about personal hygiene and all that entails. She said her publisher wants her to take it out for the American release but she does not agree. We discussed the romantasism of the time because all those unpleasant issues are never addresses. June brides doesn’t come from the fact that June is a great month as far as weather to haves wedding but because people had just switched from their one winter outfit to their one summer outfit and had there annual bath. I can only imagine how bad everyone smelled.between her and Julien conversation flowed freely and I was very happy to get to talk to her and somewhat miffed at an older gentleman sitting on her other side that somewhat dominated the conversation.

The historians switched places during the main course and now I had Nicola Taly and Tracy. They had similar interest in clothes and jewelry and they talked a bit on it but there was more eating than conversation in this course. Dessert is when Alison took the seat beside me and Sarah Gristwood sat across. Finally the gentleman who must have been a bit intimidated by Alison did t dominate the conversation. Sarah talked primarily with the two people on her side so I have not been able to discuss our book club book with her yet but before the trip is over I should have plenty of time to do that. Alison will not be with the tour every day so I was very excited to getting talk with her through dessert. As I said earlier she was very easy to talk to and treated all my questions as serious questions howeverstupid I might have sounded. (Most of the people on the trip or much more knowledgable on the Tudor reign than I am so at times I feel a little inadequate.)

After dinner Tracy Borman gave her talk on private lives of the tudors and it was crazy how elaborately they lived. Even the kings know as frugal spen obscene amounts on their clothes.

After dinner we met for cocktails and got to meet some of the other guests. Surprisingly the other couple from Texas is from grannies about 30 miles from my mom.

I forgot to mention that several of the guests did dress in period clothes. I was very sad I didn’t do it. But there is always next time and right now I am pretty sure I am going to save up so here can be a next time.

Overall a great first day for the tour.

I am always sad to have a trip come to an end but it is good to be home. Margaret and I saw some incredible sights and had a great time.

Saint Petersburg has been the must see destination on my travel list for a long time and I have been watching this cruise as a way to get there. This trip came around so fast it is still hard to believe that I finally made it to Russia. I can’t wit for everyone to see my treasures this Christmas. Yes there is room for more Christmas decorations at my house.

Back in Copenhagen for the final day of our vacation. It has been a great trip and I am sad to see it come to an end.

We were supposed to stop again in Sweden but the seas were too high to tender into the port. We had an excursion to go to the castle that Shakespeare used for the setting of Hamlet. We really had not visited any “castles” everything was more palaces in the other cities so I was a little disappointed but not too bad. It did save us a little money. We got back not only our excursion costs but also some port fees.

The schedule was to arrive in Copenhagen at 8:00 and head into town to see the Tivoli Gardens at night. Instead we got to Copenhagen by noon and toured the gardens in daylight.

We had spent an evening and morning in Copenhagen when the vacation just started but there were several sights we hadn’t seen including the gardens.

The cruise ship provided a free shuttle right to the gates of Tivoli Gardens so that is the first thing we did. It was a perfect day to tour the gardens and they were beautiful. It is said that Disney got his idea for Disney world at Tivoli Gardens and I could definitely see the similarities. The pictures don’t do it justices. The flowers again were everywhere and well displayed. It was a nice mix of beautiful quiet paths, restaurants and rides. The rides were well designed and fit into the atmosphere really well. They must really enjoy hanging upside down because most of the rides left the riders dangling way more than they should. I could have tried them out since I bought the wrong ticket and paid for unlimited rides instead of the cheap just walk through. Of course I didn’t discover this until I was back on the boat so no rides for me. There was a great carousel with a giraffe I would have loved to try out.

After the gardens we made our way back to the waterfront area through the shopping district. I was in hopes there would be some street vendors selling paintings or other handmade crafts. Sadly we didn’t ever come across any and the area was crazy busy. It was nothing like the quiet morning we had earlier. Then we basically had it all to ourselves. Today you could hardly walk down the sidewalk.

We came across a sailor’schurch on our walk. It seems to be a very popular type of church in the port cities we have visited. It has some great wood carvings and the doors were beautiful.

We checked out the amber museum store again but we didn’t find anything we couldn’t live without. I am really glad I bought in Germany it was much cheaper than any other I saw.

We continued our shopping quest but everything was more just normal shopping than what we were looking for. We did stumble on a poster store with stacks of vintage posters. Sadly no room on my walls for any additional posters. So after a regretful glance of all the great posters I had to leave behind we continued on our way.

We soon stumbled on the palace gardens which were more grassy fields than flower gardens. There was some crazy statutes with one nymph looking like she was peaking out of the bushes. It was one showing of a little humor that was otherwise missing in the very clean and streamlined city. The palace wasn’t what I was expecting it was more fortress manor house than palace. It was not at all opulent like what we saw in Saint Petersburg.

On our walk back to Tivoli to catch the shuttle we passed the “bike rack”. It was near the metro station but not sure if it was the subway or just that it was pretty much the center of the city that made this a great place to park a bike. Regardless there were more bikes than I have ever seen. I don’t even think I have seen this many bikes at a triathlon. I also don’t know how a person finds there bike. Occasionally you saw one in a bright color but for the most part they were all black with brown utilitarian baskets.

We made it back to the gardens and back to the ship. We had a great last day. I hated to see the trip come to an end but our flight was really early the next morning so it was time to wrap up our Baltic adventure.

Lubeck Germany is a great medieval town with a nice mix of old and new (by new I mean around before 1920s).

Our stop was actually in Travemunde but we took the excursion to Lubeck and never made it into Travemunde which is a beach resort town.

The excursion was a walking tour through town and then cake at the supposedly best marzipan company with a little free time to wander on our own.

The bus dropped us off on the edge of town and we made our way to the center. It was Saturday morning but the town was eerily quite, no one was out and about for the first part of our tour. As with other towns the buildings had elaborate facades most of them added several feet of height to the building.

The city also had these strange alleys that were originally led to the gardens of the main house. The house owner had to cut access through the front of the house and then allow workers to have space to live in the gardens. Eventually the spaces turned into little apartments which are still lived in today.

One of the odd little things our guide pointed out was all the cat and dog prints on the bricks. Everything in town including the churches and the fortress wall were made by brick(typical in eastern Germany where no other material was available.) Our guide explained that it took over a year for the bricks to cure and they laid them out in fields to dry and animals just walked all over them. You couldn’t see the prints in most of the bricks because they only laid them with the top out in the strange little alley walls.

The only place we went into was a old medical facility. It was a slash between a church, hospital and retirement home which a new portion in the back is still used for. To stay in the home you pretty much have to agree to live like a monk so in that not much has changed. Anyway the “cells” of the original faculty were tiny little things that barely held what I estimate was about half of twin bed and one tiny little table.
The best news was that they hold. Christmas market in the building with a booth in each of the small rooms. Hopefully at some point I can come back and shop here.

After seeing the outside of the town’ cathedral we headed to neiderregger’s for a taste of their famous marzipan cake. Not expecting to like it I was pleasantly surprised. It was only marzipan icing which was not at all like the gummy crap we usually get in marzipan decorations. Regardless of how tasty the cake was the staff not so friendly. We could have tea or coffee with our cake not water and I am sure I offended her with the request. Then I went to the bathroom while they were serving and she wouldn’t leave my tea with Margaret again offended that Margaret even asked. I am sure they don’t like the tour groups coming through but our free time followed so no one stayed around long. Margaret and I of course were the first to leave.

Our first stop was the pretzel place down the street. The pretzels in my opinion were much better than the cake and super cheap. Less than 3€ for the pretzel and water. After our snack we wandered around a bit but it soon started to rain and we headed to cover. It was a good thing we did because this was no light summer rain. It got as cold as any day we had last winter. The wind was whipping around and even if you had an umbrella you were getting soaked. everyone’s umbrellas were flipping inside out as they ran for cover. Most of us were huddling under the church walkway looking like drowned rats. It was the last day I went out without my rain coat. One man in our group was wearing a plastic bag on his head. I am disappointed that I didn’t get a better picture of him.

As a group we decided to skip the rest of the walking tour and head back to the bus. We should have just waited because no sooner than we drove a few blocks the rain stopped. We decided to chance it and stopped at the fortress gate. The wall is no longer standing but the gate though leaning badly was still there. We all traipsed across the street for photos and walked through to return to the bus from the other side. Seeing a street artist I was tempted to stop and buy but didn’t have enough euros to make a fast transaction. Worried about getting behind I passed it up. Margaret surprised I did gave me her last euros so I could go back and get it. Even though we didn’t have a “convenience stop” on this tour the guide did not encourage shopping. I had to dart down the stairs and then still got caught by the light. It was the longest light I have ever waited through. I knew they wouldn’t leave me but I still had this awful panicky feeling. The light finally changed and I ran to the bus. All for no reason because another women didn’t stroll over for about five more minutes with no issues for making everyone wait.

Since we hadn’t finished the walking tour we had time to drive the road that circled the town. The lake also circled the town which made for a beautiful drive. As we drove out of the area the houses outside what once was the wall looked like what would be the oldest houses in our city centers.

Lubeck was a great and I would really like to go back especially for the Christmas market.