Wales

First off, I've hit 1000 views which is pretty cool, and I'm glad that people back home are interested in what I've been up to!

For my final walk of the trip, a few of us headed up to northern Wales to Snowdonia National Park to hike Mt. Snowdon, the 3rd highest peak in the British Isles.

We arrived Saturday evening after a lengthy car ride from Bath with the husband of our program administrator, Nick. We stayed at a very nice B&B in Llanberis with a very homey feel. Immediately upon arrival, we met Paul and Emma, hiking friends of Nick who try to do a hike somewhere in the UK every weekend. They brought us to a very good Indian restaurant, and I had my first real curry experience of Britain. Curry is a favorite of many Brits, and this restaurant lived up to that expectation. After some confusion as to how and what to order, I had a very good meal before heading back to the B&B to rest up before the walk the following day.

After waking up and having a home cooked breakfast for the first time in who knows how long, we arrived at the car park which began our walk. It was a pretty cloudy day, but it wasn't as wet as we had feared, and we were all pretty excited to set off.

This pass went all the way down to the
sea in the north

Fortunately, the weather held out for us all day, with only minor drizzle hitting us for the last few hundred vertical feet near the top. It was a good walk, but it was not as challenging as was Hellvelyn. There wasn't much scrambling or climbing to be done, as the path was pretty steady all the way up, but the mountains here were much more rocky than the Lake District. There weren't really any rolling foothills as there had been surrounding Hellvelyn, and instead it was more of just mountain after mountain rising towards the clouds in a row.

There's actually a railway here that takes people
to the top!

Hard to see, but the tiny dots on the trail in the bottom right
is the rest of our hiking group.

All in all, it was a really good hike, although it didn't feel like as much of an accomplishment as Hellvelyn. It was certainly enjoyable, and Wales itself was beautiful.

The following day, the weather wasn't very friendly, so we headed out to check out nearby Caernarfon Castle. This was interesting, as it was pretty much as-is. It was very open, and there wasn't many parts that were off limits unless the floors were crumbling. The only addition to the castle in modern times seems to have been a few exhibits on the history of the castle and the royalty of Wales, but it was very cool to have the freedom to go anywhere, including the tops of most of the towers, in a castle that still had a medieval feel about it.

When we were finished exploring the castle, we all piled back into the car and took the long ride home, bringing to a close the final weekend trip of my time in the UK.

Bath

Our final organized trip of the term was a visit to Bath, a city started when the Romans discovered the presence of hot springs in the 1st century AD, shortly after their arrival in "Brittania." When the Romans left, the city fell into disrepair before a new, Georgian city was built atop the ruins of the original. However, this did allow the preservation of some of the original Roman structures and statues, as they were not cleared out, just built on top of.

Our day started with a train delay and we arrived about a half hour later than planned. Once we had arrived at the station, we met our tour guide and began to walk. Bath is a very small city and our tour took us all the way across it, covering some of the historical and architectural high notes. However, the main reason for our trip began after a short lunch.

We had tickets for entrance and audio guide tour of the Roman Baths, where the exhibit covered everything from the history of the location, lifestyles of the Romans living in "Aquae Sulis," and a tour of some of the rooms which made up the original baths. This was a very cool step back into roman times, as many of the rooms have not been altered in 2000 years. The museum portion showed us a model of the original compound, portions of recovered architecture overlain with projections of what they most likely looked like when all of the pieces were in place, and artifacts recovered from the site over the years from coins to curse notes. The Romans had carefully excavated around the spring source, and then built piping systems to bring the water to different rooms, each with different purposes. Some were meant to be used similar to a sauna, some similar to a whirlpool, and some solely as swimming pools.

Roman Coins

Portions of the columns and pediment from the original structures

Head of the Minerva statue which was worshiped here

At the end of the tour, we even had an opportunity to drink the water, as it is infused with minerals from its journey through the British rocks over 1000s of years, and supposedly has healing powers. I'm not sure about the healing part, but you could definitely taste the minerals, and it had a pretty metallic aftertaste, although it wasn't actually as terrible as advertised.

Once finished with the Baths, we had a little time to kill, so one of my roommates and I headed to Bath Abbey, which is adjacent to the entrance to the baths. It was a pretty cool, very large and open, church, and we even happened upon a choir practice, so we had a bit of a soundtrack to our visit.

Finally, it was time to grab a snack and meet back at the train station, as a few of us were heading on from Bath to the northeast for a weekend hiking trip!

Edinburgh

The weekend after Mid-term break, we took the train ride up to Edinburgh to spend Saturday night and all day Sunday in Scotland's capital city.

Edinburgh was a very cool city, and felt extremely relaxing to me. It is probably my favorite city of the ones I have visited so far, and I would have liked to spend more time there than we had!

We began, Saturday evening, with a tour of the city shortly after arriving at our hostel. It quickly became clear that there was not much redesigning of the roads done in the older parts of the city. The majority of busy-ness is still centered around the Royal Mile, a road which stretches from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace, and many of the original alleyways are still in existence. We walked along the former city wall, up the Royal Mile, past the cafe where JK Rowling wrote large portions of her first Harry Potter novel (!) and past the grave of Greyfriar's Bobby, a dog who had sat on his owner's grave for 14 years, and then finally up to Edinburgh Castle at sunset. Following this, we had some very good baked potatoes, and wandered for a little while before heading back to the hostel for the night.

Where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

The next morning, we began our day with a tour of Edinburgh Castle. This was probably my favorite castle that we've seen so far. It is still an extremely well-kept castle with a very lived-in feel, though not with the feel of fantastic wealth, as other places we've visited have had. This felt much more like we were visiting someone's home.

There has been human settlement on the Castle Rock since at least the 2nd century AD, and a royal castle since at least the 12th century, so it was very cool to see all of the aspects that went into maintaining an operational defensive castle.

Cemetery for Officers' Dogs

Mons Meg, a HUGE cannon

Once we were done at the castle, a few of us ventured over to a hill we had noticed, which turned out to be an extinct volcano called "Arthur's Seat." A brief climb later, we were at the highest point in the surrounding area with a good view of the city to one side and the sea to another, which was very nice. The volcanic rock at the top was slippery, but it was a nice, warming walk on a cold day.

After this, we had a scheduled tour at the "Scotch Whisky Experience," where we got a brief overview of how Scotch Whisky is made and aged, as well as the different regions of Scotch classification, Highland, Lowland, Islay, and Speyside. We then got to pick one of these regions to sample a whisky from that region. I chose the Islay and I was very happy with that choice. The Laphroaig was very smoky and made me feel like it would go very well with relaxing in front of a fireplace, so I was pleased with that. We then got a glimpse of the largest collection of Scotch in the world, over 2000 bottles.

Finally, we had a nice group dinner with our administrator and her husband before going back to our rooms. We woke up early and caught the train home into King's Cross station, so I took the opportunity to snap a picture Platform 9 3/4, although I didn't feel the need to wait in line to get my picture with it!

All in all, I really enjoyed Edinburgh and would love to explore Scotland in some more depth. I could have spent a full day with the audio guide in the castle alone, so hopefully I'll get to come back to Scotland someday to see what the rest of the nation is all about!

Paris!

I've been slacking off!

For the last one I'm going to do about the week of Mid-Term break, let's talk about Paris, which we did for a single day.

We got up extremely early, wandered our way to the train station, and took the 3 hour journey into Gare du Nord. Once across the channel, we were above ground for the majority of the trip, and the early morning offered some very pretty views of the French countryside.

Once we reached Paris, we exchanged some money and searched for some breakfast. We shared crepes and an omelet, both of which were excellent, although the service was far from it. When we finally managed to get our check and get out, we made our way along Rue Saint-Denis down to the Seine River.

From here, we could see the top of Notre Dame, so we decided to head in that direction. I did not realize that this year marks the church's 850 year anniversary, so I was very impressed by that. It was awesome to be in the presence of something that awesome, never mind the subject of a classic Disney movie!

From here, we made our way back to the river, eventually finding our way to the Pont des Artes, a bridge completely covered in locks placed there by couples, so naturally, we found a small padlock and made our own addition to Paris!

Then we continued west along the river, finding our way to the Louvre. Although we didn't have the time to go in, it was pretty cool to see the iconic pyramid exterior in person!

After a quick lunch, we found our way to the Eiffel Tower. Again, it would've been cool to go up, but even if we hadn't been under time-constraints, I probably wouldn't have wanted to stand in that line, although I would like to go up it someday.

Finally, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe, and wandered down the Champs-Elysses for a while before picking up the subway back to the train station. Although I was less than impressed by the subway system after having so much experience with London's "Tube," it was a very fun day.

I did feel a bit out of my depth, similar to Amsterdam, about being around so many people who are speaking another language, and I didn't feel as comfortable with the city itself as I do in most places. However, I would like to go back and do some more in-depth tours someday, and maybe follow that up with a vineyard tour!

Combo Ticket Fun

This is the first of my follow-up posts to Mid-Term break!

We purchased a combo ticket to the Eye, the Aquarium, and Madame Toussauds, though we didn't do all three on the same day.

For the Eye, we upgraded to the Fast Track tickets which I would say is absolutely worth the 10 pounds it cost to skip the entire line. No waiting and no stressing about the heights! Each capsule is essentially a small room. It has the benefit of being extremely stable, but the drawback of sharing with a whole bunch of complete strangers. However, after pushing the strangers out of your way, the views are pretty awesome. You can see pretty much every area of the city, and all of the major tourist sites excluding the Tower of London/Tower Bridge. It's a 30 minute ride, but it doesn't get boring at all, as there's always something to look at and the capsules are equipped with 4 tablets which provide detail about any notable buildings that are visible out the windows. The view of Big Ben and the houses of Parliament from above is one of the best I've seen of the city so far.

Immediately after the Eye (and I got my commemorative coin!), we made the short walk down to the aquarium. I didn't get many pictures in here, but it was a pretty decent aquarium. It seemed relatively small, but it was family friendly and all of the tanks seemed to provide a pretty realistic environment for their inhabitants. It was worth the visit, but it doesn't rival the New England Aquarium in Boston or the Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans.

We didn't get it in on the same day, but we did eventually make our way to Madame Tussaud's. We were greeted with a nice long line in the rain, even though our combo ticket was supposed to have acted as a priority ticket. I was not happy with the situation, but we didn't have much choice but to wait. Once we got in though, it was very cool. Neither of us had ever been to one, although it would be cool to go to one with more of an American focus. I can't say I cared too much about the cricket players. Nonetheless, it was a good time and we were both impressed by the realism of the models. It would definitely be something that I would want to visit in other cities!