Category: England

After a great experience in Oxford (check out Pat’s post) we had our sights set on Cambridge and high expectations. I booked an Airbnb private room within walking distance of the city center for three nights.   Finding Our Spot Two hours before we could check in, we arrived in Cambridge, so we found a…

  Evolution and Genius Let’s be honest, humankind, as a species, really hasn’t evolved much since we crawled out of the primordial soup. The proof is all around us. Violence is rampant, we still lack compassion and empathy, and greed and corruption abound. But every once in a while, something magical happens. Something so beautiful…

I’ve always loved blues music in almost all its incarnations; Mississippi blues, Chicago blues, and especially English blues. But I have always thought it odd that the British had adopted what is essentially American Black roots music as its own. Artists like John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac belted out the…

  Some People Have Radar, We have Pub-dar We arrived in Colwall, England a couple of hours early for our pet-sit through trustedhousesitters.com, in a cold, grey, drizzle. In fact, you may as well keep that image in mind and I will let you know when the weather was otherwise. Anyway, we were early and…

England can certainly be overwhelming with all its traditions, antiquities, literature, and ales. I mean you have the Victorian period, Georgian architecture, Roman ruins, Shakespeare (see Carrie’s last post link here), the oldest universities on the planet, hell, the whole damn island seems like an UNESCO site. Speaking of UNESCO, it seems that almost anything…

It Doesn’t Get Much Cuter than Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon: Shakespeare’s birthplace, resting place, and many points in between. It’s a beautiful town. Boats up to 60 feet long, and no wider than an NBA guard is tall, ply the canal. Musicians play under gazebos in perfectly manicured parks. Tudor-style houses slouch here and there. And, of…

“Living is easy with eyes closed. Misunderstanding all you see. It’s getting hard to be someone But it all works out. Let me take you down ‘Cause I’m going to”…   Liverpool! For a flower child of the 1960s, a trip to Liverpool is a must. After all, it’s the home of the Merseybeat pop…

Traveling in an Expensive Country Can Be Fun Neither one of us speaks British, but we decided to brave it anyway and headed off to England after our Portugal adventure. The main problem for cheapskates like us, however, was the value of the pound relative to the US dollar made food, lodging, hell, everything very…