Category: England
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44 years ago, I started here
In the Fall of 1978, 44 years ago, I was living in North Hollywood, California, just beginning my career as a professional illustrator in the entertainment world after leaving art school. I had never been to Europe or the UK, and was just beginning to earn a reasonable living from art after subsisting in student…
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Cold days in London – camping in a hotel!
It’s cold here in Holland Park, just west of London! The nights are below freezing and the days barely above freezing, with hazy skies filtering whatever warmth the sun might have offered away, the chill multiplied by the damp. Snow dusts the tree limbs across the street and steam rises from mouths of people walking…
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And off we go!
It’s been almost exactly 2 months since we returned to Denver, with about 2 weeks spent on the east coast during that time. It felt a bit odd, although familiar at the same time, to move out of our comfortable bedroom at Tom and Susan’s nice house in Boulder, where we had stayed during this…
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Unimaginable riches!
After three productive and friend/family-filled days in Liverpool, we took the train down to our friend Helene’s house in Surrey, just southwest of London. And there, up in the attic, were our suitcases we left before heading out on our 3-week bike trip which morphed into 2 1/2 months. This was the place that we…
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L’île de Batz for the day
About a mile and a half from Roscoff is the small island of Batz, home to about 500 residents. The island is mostly car free, and it’s small enough that you can get anywhere easily by bike or even by foot. In spite of being open for tourists, it retains an authentic feel. We took…
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A plane, a truck, three trains, two bikes and a boat.
We are back in England, but not for long. After just a month in Boulder, we flew to London, arranged to have someone pick us up with our two 50-pound suitcases and our two bicycles in cases. Today we rode our bikes from Cranleigh to the train station in Guildford, and then took the train…
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Nottingham, Watersports and then heading “home”
Our last stop on this chapter of our trip is Nottingham, home to old friends and also surprisingly recreational. Taking their dog Sydney for a walk, we strolled 3 miles around Regatta lake, a 2,000 meter (1.25 mile) long, six lane rowing course built in the early 1970’s on a former gravel works. It’s amazing,…
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Farewell to Liverpool, for now
We stopped back in Liverpool to drop our rental car, meeting up with our nephews and staying with Chris’ sister Helen. Then, we boarded a train for Nottingham, where we’ll stay for a few days, then to London Heathrow to head back to Colorado to do some lingering tasks. At the Liverpool Lime train station,…
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Sleeping in Henry VIII’s bed
…and Anne Boleyn’s…so it’s recorded. Well, we didn’t actually sleep in their BED, but in the room they reportedly slept in, the bed long gone by now. How did this occur? We stayed a night in a friend’s house in Kent, built starting in 1275 and updated and added to through the centuries, and named…
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A visit to Canterbury and the Cathedral
We were invited to spend a couple days with a friend in Kent, in the southeast of England. And so we got a chance to explore Canterbury, one of the most visited cities in the UK and famous for its cathedral. It seems like we’ve been on a mission to see as many of these…