Today we spent most of the day in the car. :( We woke up, showered, ate, and put our bags on, then walked about a mile to the car rental. After refusing the insurance and paying the congestion charge, we were on our way. The first challenge was to get out of London. We decided that Randy was the most comfortable driving on the left, so he would drive and I would navigate since I'm good at finding signs and remembering routes. So, with the help of Apple maps, we got out of the city which included driving across the Tower Bridge.
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| I saw this as we were driving out of London--what a great set of lights for bikes--especially when there is a separated bike lane. Boy, I wouldn't want to ride a bike in London! |
Then we got to the motorway and drove to Cambridge, our only stop for the day. We found the city center and a car park, then walked toward King's College. We soon found out that today was their graduation day. Yay for them, but more people for us. Also, most of the college grounds were off limits to tourists because of it. The scholars had their black robes with fur-trimmed hoods--not sure what that signifies--they looked very young, so I'm assuming just bachelor's degrees. The Tour de France is coming through here in another week, so there were signs and flags up everywhere celebrating that! We paid to go into King's College Chapel, which of course was beautiful. For a few minutes, I tagged along with a tour and found that when they were building the chapel, the ceiling (the arch) was held up with wooden supports. When they placed the keystone (which should support the entire thing), and removed the wooden supports, the ceiling fell 10 centimeters! Yikes! I read that one of the masons threw away the plans for a very similar ceiling and instead did a fan vault--good choice! It took about 350 years for the entire college to be built--many kings over time gave money, but with wars and such, the windows of the chapel were finally installed in the late 1800s! It ended up much smaller than the original plans, but is beautiful anyway! We also saw St. John's College and several others as well in addition to walking along the river. Most of the colleges limit where you can walk, so we couldn't walk very far on their grounds.
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| part of the graduation |
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| the fan vault |
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| wow--what carving! |
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| the courtyard in the center of King's College |
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| They are all squinting in the bright sun--and laughing because I told them not to squint! |
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| St John's College |
We saw the punters on the river, but when we saw it would cost us over $100, we decided against a ride ourselves. We ate lunch, then left because the children didn't seem that excited about walking around the town more. We found our way back to the motorway and I decided on a different route than Randy had originally planned and it worked well--fewer small roads, so I think we saved some time. We stopped at a roadside rest to get water (we left our water bottles, filled with water, in the refrigerator of our apartment!).
We arrived at our hostel in the Lakes District in Keswick around 9:30. The guy in reception was really nice, very friendly, getting us everything we needed--including giving us towels--you normally cost £2, so he said to keep them and if anyone asked, we paid for them! We have all day tomorrow to hike--it is very beautiful. Stone walls around the fields, sheep, rocky mountains--wait a minute, sounds a bit like Ireland, doesn't it? :) Well, it is beautiful; can't wait to hike tomorrow. I am sitting in the lobby near the front door using the wifi and I can hear the stream outside. The hostel used to be a hotel--I think it was Park Place Hotel. it is reachable by stairs then a walkway. It faces a very wide but shallow stream. We are on the 3rd floor. In Europe, the main floor is the ground floor, then you walk up to the first floor. So we schlepped our bags up to the third floor and to the end of the hall. The toilet and shower are down the hall, but we have a sink in our room. 5 bunk beds! I chose the one that is not bunked but is under the eave (angled ceiling). We found the only place open in town and got a few takeaway pizzas to share. Hiking tomorrow--spending a day taking in a week's worth of activities!
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