Goodbye England & Scotland!

After 20 days, it was time to say goodbye to the UK. We had a 4 hour drive to Heathrow from York and took the time to stop at the famed Sherwood Forest to break up the journey. It was a re-education of the story of Robin Hood. Was he real? Or folklore...Our last walk in England was pleasant with the weather holding up. We stopped briefly at a local pub for our last English fish & chips, as well as sticky toffee pudding. It was then straight on to Heathrow. We were happy to report that the Hertz rental return process was quick and easy. They didn't punish us for having a 95% full tank. The shuttle to Terminal 5 also came quickly with a very friendly driver. Before we knew it, we had checked in and were enjoying food and beverage in the BA lounge.

Some reflections in no particular order:
The first one that came to mind was that although we enjoyed our trip, as a destination, it didn't quite come anywhere near the top. Perhaps this was partially influenced by the difficulty of driving a minivan through narrow country roads and finding parking in tiny villages! We also moved at a cracking rate like crazy Australians who were used to driving large distances. Perhaps if we had slowed down, the trip would have had a different feel to it.

Scotland was gorgeous, especially the Hebrides. If we had our time over again, we would have spent a little bit more time so we could have done more hikes.

Edinburgh is a cool city. Pretty and with a great vibe. Glasgow was great as an overnight stop but not worth spending more than a day.

After a while, all the tiny villages blurred together. So I would suggest picking a couple of seaside ones, a couple of inland ones and leave it at that!

The edges of Sherwood Forest that once used to cover most of the county

Hints of the story of Robin & his merry men everywhere

Time for our last walk!

The Major Oak, believed to be a place of gathering

Last pub meal!

Massive fish and chips

Great way to say goodbye to England!

Neither Here Nor There

We waved goodbye to Scotland to make our way back down south. The departure from the Hilton was rather painful, but that's life. We have noticed a disturbing phenomenon whereby the dodgy UK Chinese restaurants start looking increasingly appetising! When Alnwick Chop Suey House starts conjuring flashbacks of Wile E Coyote daydreaming of  roast bird whilst staring at the roadrunner you know that you have serious withdrawals. We are all drooling over thoughts of Singapore. That was only heightened by the visit to the "fryery" at Alnwick Castle. Don't get me wrong (not sure if Lara would've written dgmw there), the castle was amazing, but the fried offerings didn't leave any of us feeling great.

Alnwick Castle was the only sightseeing recommendation from Johnny, our awesome Novocastrian (the original) au pair. We normally get excited about the physical componenets of castles... the walls, the cannon, the dungeons etc. Alnwick Castle did not disappoint in this regard. In fact it was the site of filming of the broomstick flying tutorials in Harry Potter. There was also a fun little dragon "scared ya!" walk through that provided some giggles. What really captured our attention, however, were the State Rooms on the inside! Two story bookshelves, dining tables that required a telegram from one end to the other and walls completely covered with priceless oil paintings by artists that we regularly mix up at Pub Trivia at the Bayview were simply amazing. It was also interesting to see the odd colour family photo of the current Duke and his family who still reside there! Nanna and Grandpa skipped the castle to explore the pretty town of Alnwick and do a bit of shopping and, by all accounts, had an equally wonderful time.

Alnwick Castle as seen from the distance across the Aln River

Impressive exteriors. No photos of the intererior allowed though. :(

The arrival at the York Central Novotel was relatively smooth with easy, complimentary parking out the front. We would have to survive with Tesco granola yoghurts and free hotel apples for breakfast tomorrow, after the hot chip butty that's probably a good thing. We walked along the river to diagon alley (The Shambles) and then on to the Minster. The Minster was so much more impressive! Diagon alley is cute and photogenic, but the stores are only OK. The "Store that shall not be named" was similar to other Harry Potter merchandised stores in the UK in that the offerings are not particularly imaginative and grossly overpriced compared to similar items at Harry Potter World in Florida. We did, however, find a neat board game store and lolly shop and dropped a few shekels at each.

It's a pity that we din't have time to explore inside the Minster which was closed for the day. It was much larger and more impressive than we had anticipated. Just thinking that something like this was built 700 or so years ago over 125 years is simply mind blowing.

A quick, compulsory stop by the Disney store to grab another red, black and white mug preceded a dinner of roast pork with rolls, Yorkshire puddings or vegies at the York Roast Co. It was a different style of course but not as memorable as Oink in Edinburgh. This would be our last dinner in the UK. The next big decision... rice, noodles or both!

The Shambles, the inspiration for Diagon Alley

Just another Wizard shop unfortunately

Only a brief stop...

York Minster

Our last dinner in the UK!

The Lakes District

Today we drove from Liverpool to Glasgow through The Lakes District. It was a case of another day, another AONB - although this time a it was little more O than before. One day for the Lakes may have been a little bit nuts but it was that or none so we tried to get value for time. We drove straight through Windemere and arrived at Chester's on the River for our walk which would take us from a cafe to a pub and back again - an easy sell to the olds. The road to Elterwater follwed the river, was mostly level, shady and entirely pleasant. The meal at the Britannia Inn was fantastic! The ploughman's lunch was massive and all quality and the wild mushroom stogannoff also deserves a special mention. We had walked quickly on the way to ensure a table. On the return we took a much more leisurely stroll except Malcolm who sprinted the last half mile because the cider was challenging his bladder capacity.

We didn't have time to climb the "Lion and the Lamb" in Grasmere, but somehow found time to join the queue for the much hyped Sarah Nelson's Grasmere Gingerbread. The verdict.... believe the hype! This was the best gingerbread that we have ever had... so good that we have ordered more online.

We finally crossed into Scotland and arrived in Glasgow just in time for the canapes to be served in the execturive lounge at the Double Tree Hilton. The Hilton's in the UK have been very generous with their Honours offerings allowing all 7 of us to have breakfasts and lounge entry despite only having one gold and one diamond member in our party.

Our initial impressions of Glasgow was that it was not a particularly attractive city. We were too tired to take an evening stroll of the city - exploration would have to wait.

The River right next to Chester's on the river

The start of the path

The children are off!

Mossy stone walls

Path opened out to fields...

...and water

The water was crystal clear

We walked to get here

Time for lunch!

Ploughman's lunch

We stopped in Grasmere for this

The line was LONG!

So good...

Hello Scotland!

Made it to the executive lounge

Driving To Liverpool

Today was a low-key travel day as we continued north towards Scotland. Our destination was Liverpool. We made multiple stops to break the journey up mostly so that Nana could get out and stretch to relieve her chronic back pain. We loved the Marks & Spencer mini food stores attached to the petrol stations. It certainly brought back childhood memories of the biscuits I ate as a child in Singapore.

One notable stop was Gloucester. It was conveniently en route for us to see the magnificent Gloucester Cathedral. Built in its current form at around 1100, the Cathedral was famous as the burial place for King Edward II as well as housing one of England’s oldest medieval stained glass windows. For the children, however, the drawcard was that it was used as the majority of interior Hogwarts scenes within Harry Potter movie series. For the die-hard fans, details of these were readily available on the internet. If you were a history buff, there were many more interesting facts about Gloucester Cathedral such as - Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn stayed for a week in the 1500s and the room they stayed in remained named the Henry Room. You need not be into history though, to appreciate the beautiful interior.

The Cathedral was hard to miss

The imposing central tower

Impressive entrance

The massive Norman columns untouched since their completion in the late 11th century

Can you imagine the Harry Potter scenes...

Examples of the gargoyles so restoration can be funded

....And the children do this

We made a detour crossing into Wales, the country with words of unpronounceable string of syllables, to buy telescopic fishing rods with reels. Unfortunately, our detour meant that we could not stop at Chester as originally planned, instead only driving through the best preserved walled city in England. Continuing north and crossing under the Mersey River, we finally arrived at Liverpool at 5pm. We dined at the reportedly newest and funkiest place to be, the Baltic Markets. It was essentially a glorified food court. The food was hit and miss. Some were tasty, others such as the souvlaki, were just awful. It served as a reminder for us to stick with what the English did best, English food or Indian.

The DoubleTree Liverpool was our home for the night. It was a gorgeous hotel, modernised tastefully with elegant interiors. It was a shame we didn’t have time to enjoy their facilities. We ended our day with a quick visit to The Cavern, the club famous as the birthplace of the Beatles

Wales!

Our detour so we can come here and buy fishing rods

The Brewery right outside the Baltic Markets

No doubt as to which city we're in

Baltic Markets

One of the more tasty meals. Korean. Not quite authentic but at least enjoyable

The Albany luck comes through. Prime parking spot right outside the Hotel entrance

One cookie for each of us

Cheers! Free drinks! Thank you Hilton

Victoria Street, Lliverpool

Just to say we've been there...