Floating down to Camelot

After dithering for a while, we decided on North Wales for our now-traditional late June holiday, since you can never go wrong with castles and mountains. We wanted to go to a slightly different area than last time, when we stayed mere inches from the Menai Bridge, and - after much more dithering - ended up settling on Criccieth, lured there by a Balcony With A View.

( Castles, mountains, level crossings and wind )

Agh. Once again, I fail dismally in my "I'll try to be better about posting and reading" resolution. I never even finished writing up our Cotswold Way holiday, and here we are, returned from another trip. I'm still writing it up, though. When in the Lake District, we were trying to remember details of our previous holiday there in 2017, and my then write-up caused us much amusement and cries of, "oh yes, I remember that!" Would I remember a single thing in life if I didn't write it, I wonder? (And how much has been forgotten over the last few years, when I've been so bad at doing so.)

Oh well... Last October, we had a weekend in Grasmere for a family gathering, which reminded me that the Lake District has been my Best Place Ever since I was 8, and obsessed with Swallows and Amazons. So we duly booked a week in Grasmere, staying just a few hundred yards from where we'd stayed in October.

( Lake District: an enormous post with pictures )

Oh dear. I've really not done well with that whole "let's get back to reading and posting things here" resolution of two months ago. So here I am, returning to my usual habit of coming here only when I want to post another immensely long post-holiday write-up. Maybe I'll do better from now on...

Anyway... We needed to be in Bradford-on-Avon last Saturday for a day of dance, and didn't fancy doing it as a day trip, so decided to spend a week walking there from the north Cotswolds. Well, the thought process wasn't quite as simple as that, but... well, that's really what it boiled down to.

( Following the acorn )

A few weeks ago, we had a long weekend in Cambridge for our wedding anniversary, going there by way of Hatfield House and returning via Audley End. Typically, most of my pictures ended up being comical lions.

( Comical lions, grumpy angels, a heron, a Wheel of Doom, and some towers )

Yesterday I posted 8 months late about a short holiday we had in Jersey last October. By that standard, today's post is barely late at all, since it's about a holiday we had in early May, in the Wye Valley.

Yes, early May. That time when it rained virtually every day - remember the Coronation? - before turning to non-stop sun the day after we came home.

( Dodging rain showers in the Wye Valley: an overlong account, with pictures )

Here is the last installment of our North Devon holiday. I never got round to writing up the holiday we had last summer, which is a shame, since my memory is dreadful, and unless I make a written record of what I've, I forget all about it. I've frequently had to refer back to my old holiday write-ups to remind myself of where on earth we went and what on earth we did when we got there.

Anyway. Here goes:

( North Devon: the final part, with a short guest appearance by Cornwall. )

Sometimes it seems as if half the photos I take are of comical medieval animals...

( A gallery of fanciful animals from Bath Abbey )

Last Tuesday, Bunn expressed the intention of leading me all the way from Cornwall to Devon, where she would abandon me in a mine-riddled forest for me to find my own way home, or die trying. (Or something like that.) Curiously, I was more than happy with this suggestion, so waved a cheery goodbye to a dopey Pellinor - "I'm off to get abandoned in a forest!" - and headed off.

( Curious things ensued )

We had a day trip to Winchester on Saturday, where we managed to squeeze a small amount of history and heritage in the small gaps left in between mid-morning tea, lunch-time tapas and mid-afternoon tea, after which we discovered that all the history and heritage closed at 4 in the winter, so we headed back to Southampton to wrestle with shops for a bit, then have yet more food.

( Some photos )

As you could probably guess from all the comical animals I posted yesterday, we returned yesterday from a week exploring the Bay of Naples. Here follows far too many photos, and much rambling.

( Roman bits and pieces, entertaining fumaroles, and a goat: rather an epic post, with loads of pictures )

We've spent the last two days walking on and around the Ridgeway, and the day before that walking around Stonehenge. The weather couldn't have been better; today, especially, felt like a pleasant June day. Well, actually, today's weather couldn't have been better... for people who actually remembered to put on sun cream, rather than walk for 6 hours in the sunshine while carrying it unopened in their rucksack. Rather sunburnt now, but surprisingly unhobbly, given that we walked 57 miles in 3 days.

( Photos and write-up of Stonehenge, The Ridgeway and associated sites )

We want to visit Pompei, Herculaneum and similar nearby sites next spring. Given that we spent over 8 hours in Ostia and failed to do more than half of it, we will need a LOT of time in each site. I'm thinking we'll need a full week in the area. Does anyone have any tips on where to stay? We want to travel around independently by public transport, so would want a base that has good transport links, but is also nice in itself, and with a varied choice of eating places within walking distance. I'm also in the market for recommendations of places to visit that aren't the obvious ones - and indeed for general recommendations (and anti-recommendations) for holidaying in this area. (EDIT: I'm kind of leaning towards Sorrento as a base, but am willing to be persuaded otherwise.)

We've just had a couple of days in London. Sunday afternoon didn't go quite as planned, since the Golden Hinde was closed for a private function (grr!), Southwark Cathedral was busy holding a service, and London itself was very cold - far colder than we'd envisaged when packing clothes back in the balmy summer sunshine of Friday evening on the island.

On Sunday evening, we went to the Globe to watch The Tempest as groundlings. I've never been to the Globe before, and The Tempest isn't a play I know. (I did Macbeth for 4 years running at school, interpersed with occasional other tragedies.) It was interesting to see how the play used the space and the close proximity of the audience - sometimes in a way that made me glad that I wasn't on the front row! It was all very funny, not just the scenes that were obviously there for comic relief, but also in some scenes that looked to me as if they could easily have been played quite seriously. I feel the need to seek out a DVD of a different production, for comparison.

Yesterday we went to the British Museum to see their Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition. Despite the timed, limited entry, it was very crowded, but very interesting. The exhibition space was arranged like a typical Pompeiian house, with exhibits that matched the purpose of each room.

After we'd finished it, we stayed in a broadly Roman idiom, and went to the various Roman sections of the main museum, then added in some Bronze Age and Iron Age for luck. (Annoyingly, the Anglo-Saxons were being redeveloped.) I was surprised by how many exhibits came from hoards found in the last 20 years; I tend to think of Stuff In Museums as being stuff that was found over a hundred years ago. There were so many hoards that I now have a vision of an ancient Britain absolutely littered by bemused people wandering around with maps, saying, "Now, where did I put it?" I was also surprised to see that a mere two things was enough for something to be called a "hoard." I wonder if the same is true of hordes.

It was another icy cold day yeserday, but we wrapped up warm and headed off to the uncharted wilds of the north island, otherwise known as Winchester.

( Photos of Norman and medieval things, mostly vaulting and carving )

Today it seemed like a good idea to head randomly out from Mitcheldean without a map, compass or phone with a working signal. I'd intended to follow big paths, but the big paths soon became boring. I saw a narrow track that headed into the deep woods, and my super advanced ranger skills told me that it had been recently used by a horse. I reasoned that horse riders were trustworthy sensible souls who wouldn't set off on a path unless it led somewhere sensible without lurking Doom happening en route, so followed it.

To cut a long story short, about half an hour of spiralling path and many, many bifurcations later, I had to conclude that, A, I had no idea where I was, and, B, that I couldn't give up and retrace my steps even if I wanted to, since I'd no idea how I'd got here. Just as I was beginning to get rather worried, I emerged on a small road with a cottage on it. I made a decision on which way to go, based on a vague impression of where I thought Mitcheldean might possibly be, and soon reached another junction. Several decisions later, I finally emerged from the trees... and there was the church tower of Mitcheldean down below me, exactly where I'd hoped it would be. I felt like a relieved medieval pilgrim who has finally sighted home. I would like to claim it as a victory for my sense of direction, although I feel that I could just as easily have emerged to find myself in Cinderford, or Wales.