Sunday, September 20, 2015

Pubs and Inns Part 1

You've seen the beautiful scenery, ancient relics, and fun loving family shots. Now it's time for the truly important things...the pints. A few years ago on a Disney trip, we began taking pictures of our drinks when we go out. Not sure why, maybe it's the Frazier version of a selfie? But, here we go - through our trip in pints.

Day 1 featured a visit to the Red Lion Inn, right next to Parliament. You have to be specific in defining this one because we passed at least 2 other Red Lion pubs during our travels - in fact, one of them was less than a mile from this one. This one is a Fuller's pub, so our draughts are from that fine brewery. We have Margaret's ginger ale, my ESB, and Denise's London Pride Ale.


Dinner was at Great British Fish and Chips, which is a chain fish and chips shop, but the manager treated us well (or at least made us think he did) and I got a massive piece of fish. Not a true pint picture, but here is Denise toasting our arrival (and, yes, I know you saw this picture back on the day 1 blog post). We simply shared an Efes Pilsner with dinner.






Day 2 featured two very nice stops for pints. At the Mad Hatter Hotel (another Fuller's establishment) we started off with the ESB and London Pride again. I'm fairly certain that the ESB was responsible for my Jenga loss...  The second round went to some pints less readily available in the US - the Bengal IPA and the Porter.


In the evening, we had checked into our hotel, the Oakley Court, and enjoyed the pints they had at the pub onsite. Some UK microbrews from the Crafty Dan label of Daniel Thwaites Brewery. Nice and rather interesting to have their take on American style brewing.










We don't have any pint pictures from day 3. After our long day of touring Southwest England, we stopped at the local nearest our B&B in Horley, the Foresters. It made no positive impression as things were poorly labelled, service was lackluster at best, and they truly didn't want to take our food order. So, to keep you satisfied with our pub posting, here's the map of pubs in Horley.

Day 4 featured quality pints in both Dover and Alford. In Dover, we got lunch at the Castle in their cafeteria and enjoyed some pints unique to the area.
And on the drive back to Horley, we stopped in Alford for dinner at the Pheasant, which was a Marston's pub. Unlike our previous night, the service and atmosphere here was great. It didn't have a lot of character, but great staff and that makes up for everything! Sadly, we don't recall which pints those are, but guaranteed they were delicious.

Next post we will head north for more pints across northern England and Scotland!

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Day 9 - better late than never

Yes, I'm well aware that is has now been almost 6 months since our trip and I am only just now finally getting around to finishing things off, but...life has been busy and there have been many things to do in the meanwhile. I'm sure your vast appetite for Frazier family touring blog has only grown in the time away...right?

We started the morning with a drive west to Stirling to visit the castle that many consider one of the finest in all of Scotland.
As you can see, it was a bit foggy upon our arrival (which may have assisted in the wrong turns along the way...or maybe not). But, the clouds soon parted and Stirling did not disappoint.














In addition to being beautifully preserved and affording amazing views, we got to experience a musical demonstration of the hurdy gurdy, Margaret got to chat for a bit with a Mary Guise (mother of Mary Queen of Scots), we played some period games on the courtyard, saw a very early carving that predicted the arrival of Starbucks 700 years later, and paid a short visit to my king, Robert Bruce I of Scotland.

























We also enjoyed lunch at Stirling before heading back east toward Glenrothes. Along the way, we had found a smaller and far less touristed-up castle that we wanted to visit. Above the town of Dollar was Castle Campbell. After ascending a quite steep and somewhat unpaved road we parked in the lot and then hiked our way up to the castle. The view along the hike was quite tantalizing!

Once we got to the castle itself, we were sad to learn that there was a significant power outage which made it unsafe to visit the interior. So, we did a decent length hike down the Dollar Glen and enjoyed some beautiful views along the way.













Once back in Glenrothes, we headed back to the Fettykil Fox for a second night of delicious food and drink. And, sadly, our last night in the UK. The next morning was a relatively early wake-up call and drive to the airport in Edinburgh to return our car and begin the trip back home. An amazing visit to be sure. Hopefully it won't be another 6 months before the Pub post that I have promised!

Friday, April 17, 2015

Day 8 - Heading North

After a second night in Melville Castle, it was time to head north. Personally, I had been looking forward to this day perhaps more than any. We were going to visit two places that I remembered very well from my youth and despite another day of somewhat grey, dreary weather we were up early and (after filling ourselves with traditional Scottish breakfast - no haggis today, though) were on the road heading north.

Our first stop was Loch Leven, a beautiful loch just a little north of the Edinburgh. In the middle of the loch is a small island with (you guessed it) a castle. This is where Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned for a time (before escaping to England only to be imprisoned there as well). Now, it is simply beautiful.



It was a short ferry ride over on a rather small ferry and then about an hour of exploring the grounds before the next ferry headed back.






From there, it was further north and east to the Scottish coast where we visited a favorite of the Frazier family from 33 years ago, Dunnottar Castle. 

This amazing castle is built on a column of rock on the coast of the North Sea and is famous as a hiding place of the Scottish Crown Jewels and infamous as a place where 167 people were imprisoned in the late 1600s in a very small room for 2 months because they would not swear allegiance to the king. With over 1300 years of history, it might be tough to find one thing worth noting, but...in the mid-14th century, the castle came into the possession of William Keith (and would remain in his family for 400 years) who was married to the niece of Robert the Bruce, one Margaret Fraser. While I expect the castle was in somewhat better shape when her namesake was living here, our Margaret Frazier certainly enjoyed visiting this castle and keeping a keen out for any puffins. They supposedly inhabit the cliffs below the castle, but we didn't see any. We did however see quite a few seagulls and also quite a few flowers growing straight out of the rock walls.






















After exploring and hiking our way back to the car, we were back on the road going even further north. Into the granite city of Aberdeen we went to see the Scottish Premier League match between Aberdeen and Partick Thistle. Photos of actual game action are not allowed, but I did want a photo of the entry to Pittodrie stadium. The game itself was exciting, especially the first half when Aberdeen nearly scored a few times at our end, but resulted in a 0-0 tie.

After the game, we just headed back to our new hotel in Glenrothes, but along the way enjoyed the view to the west of the Cairngorms. Once in Glenrothes, we had dinner at the Fettykil Fox, which is a small inn pretty much next door to our. We enjoyed it so much that we would return there for dinner the next night! Here is the view that we saw as we drove from Aberdeen to Glenrothes (yes, that is snow on the distant mountains).


Sunday, April 12, 2015

Day 7 - Edinburgh

We woke early to have our full Scottish breakfast at Melville Castle. And, yes, Denise and I really did try some haggis with our breakfast, with all it's lamby-oatmealy goodness. Meh. Once fueled up, we headed into Edinburgh for our day in town. Sadly, it was another drizzle-filled grey day, but that didn't stop us from having a great day.

First up, was Edinburgh Castle.

As usual, we got there a little early and enjoyed the uncrowded space in the morning and were among the first to gain entry. Once inside, we picked up a map and Margaret got a kids scavenger hunt and we got ourselves set for the first guided tour of the morning. Our tour guide was very good and we had a nice 45 minutes walk through the main sites of the castle, followed by a couple of hours of touring on our own. For a while, things cleared up a bit and we got a little sunshine to enjoy from the parapets of Edinburgh.




We enjoyed seeing the Scottish Crown Jewels and there was quite a bit of history for us to read in some of the displays in the castle. Margaret completed her scavenger hunt and particularly enjoyed a visit to St. Margaret's Chapel - which is the oldest part of the castle. It was constructed by her son, David I to honor his mother in the mid-1100s. When the entire castle was destroyed in the early 1300s to keep it from falling into English hands, the chapel was preserved. It can fit 20 people total and Margaret is now debating whether to have her wedding at Disney or here. Evidently she will be trading up for more wealthy parents some time soon.

After the castle, we started to walk down the Royal Mile, taking in quite a few souvenir shops and lots of fancy Scottish shops. We headed just a little off the main path for lunch at The Elephant House, famous for J.K. Rowling spending a lot of time writing Harry Potter books here. We later learned that it was mainly the 2nd and 3rd books that she worked on while visiting this coffee house/restaurant. It was a nice little place with lots of elephant decor and truly unique graffiti in the ladies' restroom. Much to our benefit, we were seated at a table with a Scottish couple (who had spent some time living in the US in Chicago as teachers), who had some insight that saved us a lot of time. We had planned to head next to Holyrood House, the royal palace in Edinburgh, but it turns out that for Good Friday it was closed to the public. Most likely a good thing because the additional walking was likely more than we needed and the draw of the palace wasn't all that great to begin with. So, instead, we simply crossed the street and visited the Scottish National Museum. Lots of very interesting displays on the history of Scotland and we also checked out some exhibits on geology, animal vision, and Jackie Stewart. We were a little tired and had another half hour to kill before our next activity, so we took a little break in the museum.

But, now it was time for one of Margaret's biggest highlights of the trip, the Potter Trail. Our tour guide was Will and he was excellent. In fact, the tour was quite excellent. (and here's a plug if you happen to be in Edinburgh and interested  http://pottertrail.com/ ) The main features were seeing sights that inspired things in the books - graves of people whose names match characters and likely inspired Ms. Rowling, the private school that highly influenced Hogwarts, and the sights around the university where Ms. Rowling studied. Lots of great information in addition to quite a bit of fun.











After the tour, we visited a couple more shops on the Royal Mile (and picked up a few souvenirs) and then headed back to our hotel. The evening at the hotel did not go quite as planned - we had hoped to sit in the lounge and have a drink while playing a board game for Margaret to relax and enjoy, but there was a wedding going on and everything was focused on that and not the other guests so much. So, we grabbed the trivial pursuit and headed back to our room to enjoy. I leave this post with a picture from the Scotch Store on the Royal Mile. Sadly, this is not a drink we will be able to enjoy any time soon...

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Day 6 - York to Edinburgh


On our 6th day, we were up early and walking into the city centre of York. Of course, that meant passing through one of the city gates. There is just something amazing about the fact that this city has had walls around it for over 2000 years. The gate pictured on the left - Bootham Bar - dates from the 11th and 14th century. Some pretty impressive history!

Once through the gate, we made our way to York Minster. Denise had looked on the website the day prior and saw that it was not going to be open to touring due to Easter weekend services (we were a little frustrated that this information hadn't been posted a couple weeks earlier!), but still wanted to get a look around.

When we arrived (after a little bit of aimless wandering through the streets of York) we saw that the front doors were, in fact, open, so in we went and asked what we were allowed to see. While certain sections were off limits (sadly, including the undercroft), we were still allowed to walk around and, much to our delight, we got to hear both the choir and the organist practicing a little bit for the services! While I was quite impressed with the pipe organ (especially since we were hearing it being practiced), Denise was more of a fan of the gargoyles on the exterior.






















After the cathedral, it was time to head back to our B&B to start the drive northward. But, not without walking along the top of the some of the city walls.

Our first stop as we drove north was Alnwick (ahh-nick) Castle. This one was one of Margaret's top destinations for the visit. In addition to playing host to a recent episode of Downton Abbey, it was also used as Hogwart's Wizarding School in the first two Harry Potter movies.
Alnwick has used these associations to create quite a few enjoyable activities and displays in the castle. The state rooms here were really interesting, as the castle is still in regular use by the Duke of Northumberland and his family and the rooms were decorated with an interesting combination of items from the 1400s to today. We particularly liked the library with thousands of ancient books right next two a couple of beanbag chairs and a HDTV. The Downton Abbey displays included actual costumes and descriptions of how they made the castle look period appropriate for that show (and caused a lot of stress to the staff). After touring the facilities and getting some lunch, Denise and Margaret got their (highly anticipated) broomstick lesson.
 Denise managed to find herself chosen as one of the pupil to demonstrate excellent broomstick skills, but as you can see, both of them really were very successful. I will refrain from any kind of witch comments.
We also did a little shopping at Alnwick and Margaret came home with some buttons and Denise and I got some locally produced mead.

It was then back to the road and further north for a brief stop in Bamburgh. A small town along the coast (that we have already decided we WILL visit again) with a simply amazing coastline. The castle there is still occupied and was therefore closed by the time we arrived in the evening, but we still walked around it and out to the beach to touch the North Sea for a moment and also look out at the islands of the coast - which also feature castle and abbey ruins. This was to be our last stop in England before crossing the border into Scotland.


After our beach walk, it was back on the road to Edinburgh. We arrived at the castle where we were staying for the next two nights (yes, really) and then went back out for a quick, late dinner at the Melville Inn - which we really enjoyed. Finally at 9pm we were back at the castle and into our beds to get rested up for our day in Edinburgh!








Monday, April 6, 2015

Day 5 - Heading North

Our fifth day in the UK meant our big driving day as we headed northward. We had a quick breakfast in Horley and then began our tour of the M roads from London to York. First stop was a (relatively) quick drive through Oxford. No stops or pictures, just a drive through and chance to say that we had driven through Oxford. Despite looking over every pedestrian quite carefully, Denise did not spot 19 year old hot guy Rob Lowe (both a cheesy 80s movie and annoying recent commercial reference at once). We then were back on the highway to get to our first major destination of the day, Warwick Castle.

Warwick is a bit of a 'Disney-fied' castle, with a lot of entertainment options throughout, recreations in the majority of rooms (wax figures), and shows throughout the day. Initially, we were going to go to the Princess Tower which features a story and interactive activity for kids where you rescue the Princess Felice. Once there and aware that it was geared to girls ages 3-8, we moved on! And just in case you were worried Denise did not need any saving. So we visited the Time Tower which uses video and projection technology to tell the story of the history of Warwick. Then it was over to the State rooms which (as the story goes) they are preparing for a large banquet with many guests staying over.
As you go through the rooms, there are wax figures of the serving staff preparing the rooms and audio to go along which sounded like an episode of Downton Abbey. The other half of the state rooms are far more historical, with recreations of events that actually occurred and people who really visited or stayed in the castle. Then it was outside to walk through the mill and watch the trebuchet (really huge catapult) display. Again, a great story was told of the attack on the castle (funny because the actors in the show are speaking of their impending victory when we knew from the history that they were going to lose). Then it was further around the back to the Peacock Garden with many hedges shaped like peacocks and quite a few wandering around, including this guy...

Then we walked through the Horrible Histories display area (basically signs and a couple actors describing all the uses of excrement during the middle ages) and took some silly pictures. Then a short walk through the rose garden, which at this time of year was more of a stump garden. Once we had finished our touring of Warwick, it was just a short drive over to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare. We had already chosen not to do the actual building tours of Shakespeare's family homes and where he was born and his grave - we were just going to walk the area and see the homes from the outside and stop off for lunch. And that is just what we did! There was a little bit of drizzle around, so we dodged raindrops into quite a few little shops and took a few pictures and walked through the lobby of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (a show was on, so we could not really enter). While the outside of this house below may look somewhat nondescript, it is the house where Shakespeare was born and just to the left is a huge museum/tourist mecca for those willing to sacrifice their well earned pounds.

Once full of food and a little touristed out, we headed to Kenilworth Castle and Gardens.

 This is one I have some memories of from my youth and I was quite excited to visit it again. And it did not disappoint. We got the audio tour guides and walked through the ruins while hearing the stories of the castles history. It was quite magnificent at one point and hosted quite a few very important people. The ruins are still very impressive and we really enjoyed the tour. Margaret in particular liked the children's audio tour as it had some interactive activities for her to do while touring. Here are just a few of the many pictures that I took while there. We definitely hope to return to this one again some day and have more time (and better weather).



Once done there, it was time for another couple hours of driving to get to York, where we were going to spend the night. Of course, our longest drive of the trip had to coincide with our first real traffic of the trip, so three hours later, we finally got to our B&B in York and checked in. It was just about 9pm, so we took a quick walk to the first place with food that was open and Denise and I got a pizza and Margaret got some chips (fries). And then, at long last...we got to sleep.