We have been looking after Sarah's nephew this weekend, and given that he is 3 years old it gave me the perfect adult excuse to book some tickets to Cadbury world and get loads of freebie chocolate under the guise of it being an educational trip for him. I am not sure who was the more excited; me or him.
Getting to the factory started off straightforward enough as there were signs on the approach to Birmingham telling us which junction to get off at, but once we started getting in to Birmingham proper, when we really needed directions, all hints of where to go disappeared, leaving you to either follow the chocolate smell or hunt out large concentrations of Oompa Loompas.
Still, somehow we got there just in the nick of time, we had a 12.20pm time slot and were worried that they would be sticklers for punctuality and refuse us entry, but we needn't have worried for as soon as we entered the building, chaos reigned. The queuing system left a lot to be desired, and was clearly not set up by any god fearing Englishman, as it meandered around the entrance hall. There were multiple queues forming for different times and no one knew which queue they were supposed to be in. Still, it gave us ample opportunity to people gaze and I found some of the sights startling.
A particular favourite was the family in front of us who thought it was sensible to give their 2-3 year old a baby bottle full of full fat coke (presumably to help him wash down the vast quantities of chocolate he was about to consume!!!) - I bet they must have fun getting him off to sleep at night, although maybe thy replace the Coke with Tennants Super Strength at about 7pm.The queue was full of tears and tantrums, and I was thankful that Sarah's nephew was a cut above the normal Cadbury world child, and just waited patiently and politely until we got inside.
The tour itself was actually rather good fun, with a suitable mix of interaction and information, as well as plenty of free samples of chocolate. There is a walking time tunnel explaining the history of chocolate and how it got to Europe, then there was a couple of shows explaining how Cadbury's grew for a humble shop to a global brand, and we got a behind the scenes view of the factory where we could see the chocolate being made and packaged up including free samples of the still warm and melted chocolate they were using - which were lush!!
The highlight of the tour for me though was seeing the animatronic gorilla from the advert playing the drums. I tried to get a photo of it, but it was too dark and he was behind a protective, reflective screen.
Once the tour finished we went into the Cadbury shop and bagged ourselves a few chocolatey bargains - things like mishapes which you can buy a large bag of for silly money. We headed home feeling a little bit sickly, but still not sickly enough to nibble a bowl of mishapes later on that evening......
Sunday, 5 May 2013
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Killing two metaphorical birds with one stone
My birthday present from Sarah this year was a day of learning how to use my camera with specific emphasis on capturing the ideal pictures of birds. Before everyone thinks that is have gone all paparazzi and am taking photos of topless celebrities in Cannes through some telescopic lens, i can assure you these birds were of the feathered variety!
The location was the Hawk Conservancy Trust in Hampshire, and upon arrival i could tell that i was the completely wrong demographic for this sort of pastime, seeing as the rest of the group were in the age range of 60-80 and clearly looking for things to do in their retirement before the father time finally caught up with them. Unperturbed though, i assembled my kit and waited patiently for the trainer to arrive.
One thing should be noted about photography; there is an element of lens envy, which is not dissimilar to comparing penis sizes - the size of your lens is important. However it is also a sign of social status too, and i could tell the retirees had way too much disposable income by the fact that they all had white lenses (even a dullard like me knows that a white lens means serious moolah has been spent out). One chap even had an iPad 2 which he could link up to his memory card and see his shots on the fly (forgive the pun). Still there was one lady on the course who came along with a small compact camera, so i didn't feel completely emasculated.
Also, i took enjoyment that even the lenses of the rich retirees were completely overshadowed by someone else, not in our group but wandering the trust, who had a lens so big that it would have put the Hubble telescope to shame - i swear with that thing he could have zoomed in to see the amoebas on the ticks on the bird!!
Also, i took enjoyment that even the lenses of the rich retirees were completely overshadowed by someone else, not in our group but wandering the trust, who had a lens so big that it would have put the Hubble telescope to shame - i swear with that thing he could have zoomed in to see the amoebas on the ticks on the bird!!
Anyway, aside from the lens envy, the group were all reasonably nice; the retired University professor whose anecdotes always started with the prefix "one of my research students......" or "when i was at the University....."; The strange man from Portsmouth who hadn't done anything wrong at all, but people naturally kept a distance from (he made a gaffe later in the day which justified this feeling of weirdness); an 80 year old retiree from Bedford way; a mother and daughter combo from god-knows-where and some Welsh folk.
The purpose of the day was to a) understand my camera and b) learn how to get some good shots of birds. The course didn't disappoint in the number of birds we got to see, like photographic hors d'oeuvres they were wheeled out one after another for use to photograph. It was a combination of perch shots (shots with them sitting in a tree or on a stump) and "action" shots where the trainer gets them to fly from one designated area to another, allowing the group to catch them in flight.
The day started off with Owls and boy were there a lot of different varieties to go through - we started with a Tawny Owl called Troy, then a Milky Eagle Owl called Tolkien, a Eurasian Eagle Owl, a Great Grey Owl (Molly), a Snowy Owl and a Barn Owl.
I have to say i was quite happy with my perch shots, but the whole action shot area of the business is not something i am cut out for just yet - i snap away like a crazy tourist, but almost every shot is worthless as either the face is blurred, or the bird isn't even in the shot....
After the Owls, we sat down and had some lunch, which was actually rather nice, we were led up to some log cabin past all the peons who paid for a normal ticket, and were made to feel very VIP looking out on the balcony at the flying display below (a kestrel was demonstrating its hovering ability). I had some lovely soup and regaled my table with tales of birds i had seen before being sent out once more unto the breach.
The afternoon session was more Eagles and Vultures, which was a welcome relief as i was getting a bit owled out. We started off with a hooded vulture, a relatively small vulture by the sub-species standards.
The trust was having to pick and choose which birds it brought out for parading, as some of them had obviously performed in the flying displays earlier, and so having been fed they were less likely to be coaxed to flap their wings for the silly humans with the big lenses. As if to illustrate the point, after a couple of flights back and forth the vulture lost interest in flying and so next we were treated to seeing a Bald Eagle (called Cheyenne). The wingspan on this bird is massive, approx. six feet and the beak and talons are enough to make you think "i don't want to piss one of these off!" I was impressed as they arranged for his flight to go over the top of us, and so we were treated to incredible close ups of him flying past - he was so close to me, i could feel the wind from his wings! Indeed there were a couple of occasions when i had to take evasive action to prevent myself getting impaled by a bald eagle - i don't know where i would stand on my life insurance!
Next on the menu was a training demonstration with a Saker falcon called Drifter. They have a piece of meat on the end of a rope (lure) and swing it around their heads and so to get fed, the falcon has to try and catch it. This mimics as best as possible their prey in the wild and allows them to hone their hunting technique. I have to say, the speed and agility of these birds is amazing (still nowhere near as fast as a Peregrine in a stoop), and as an added bonus we also got a demonstration on how the bird got her name, as she soon got tired of the lure game and flew off over the hills. All of a sudden there was an almighty commotion of terrified cawing and hundreds of crows flew up into the sky - it was clear that they had met Drifter, and a part of me smirked at the thought of the poor sods below the being rained on by crow shit. Needless to say Drifter moved too fast for me to get any meaningful pictures of her, as by the time i had found her in the sky, she was gone.
We returned to the vulture world for our next bird - an African White-backed Vulture. This was considerably bigger than the hooded vultures we saw earlier, but they realised that the crowd enjoyed being "buzzed" by the birds so repeated the feat with this one. Once again i got some reasonable perched shots but the quality dipped really low when trying to capture the bird in flight. Still its size meant that it moved slow enough for me to find it in the sky and get some moderately in focus snaps!
Next on the list was another demonstration, but with nine Black Kites. Having been to Wales and seen the Red Kites being fed, i knew roughly what to expect, and before long there were kites zipping over us gracefully swooping and soaring chasing each other for the meat they were being fed. I found the Black Kites a little less exciting than the Reds, but that is because the Red Kites i saw were actually wild and coming to be fed, whereas these were trained to come and be fed - a subtle but important difference i felt.
By this point in the day, the light was starting to fade meaning that any chance of capturing action from the Kites was nigh on impossible, and so we retreated to the hides on site to watch a Heron feeding demonstration. This was a rather odd way to end the day really considering that the whole site is dedicated to birds of prey, but as i am a bit of a fan of Herons i did not mind in the slightest. Indeed there were a goodly 15 Herons we could spot on the site and i managed to get a couple of shots off before the light went completely.
After this it was time to say our goodbyes and make the long journey back to civilisation (well if you can call this town civilised!!). All-in-all though it was a thoroughly enjoyable day, packed full of birds of prey and one i will not forget in a hurry.
After the Owls, we sat down and had some lunch, which was actually rather nice, we were led up to some log cabin past all the peons who paid for a normal ticket, and were made to feel very VIP looking out on the balcony at the flying display below (a kestrel was demonstrating its hovering ability). I had some lovely soup and regaled my table with tales of birds i had seen before being sent out once more unto the breach.
The afternoon session was more Eagles and Vultures, which was a welcome relief as i was getting a bit owled out. We started off with a hooded vulture, a relatively small vulture by the sub-species standards.
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| accidentally good action shot..... |
The trust was having to pick and choose which birds it brought out for parading, as some of them had obviously performed in the flying displays earlier, and so having been fed they were less likely to be coaxed to flap their wings for the silly humans with the big lenses. As if to illustrate the point, after a couple of flights back and forth the vulture lost interest in flying and so next we were treated to seeing a Bald Eagle (called Cheyenne). The wingspan on this bird is massive, approx. six feet and the beak and talons are enough to make you think "i don't want to piss one of these off!" I was impressed as they arranged for his flight to go over the top of us, and so we were treated to incredible close ups of him flying past - he was so close to me, i could feel the wind from his wings! Indeed there were a couple of occasions when i had to take evasive action to prevent myself getting impaled by a bald eagle - i don't know where i would stand on my life insurance!
Next on the menu was a training demonstration with a Saker falcon called Drifter. They have a piece of meat on the end of a rope (lure) and swing it around their heads and so to get fed, the falcon has to try and catch it. This mimics as best as possible their prey in the wild and allows them to hone their hunting technique. I have to say, the speed and agility of these birds is amazing (still nowhere near as fast as a Peregrine in a stoop), and as an added bonus we also got a demonstration on how the bird got her name, as she soon got tired of the lure game and flew off over the hills. All of a sudden there was an almighty commotion of terrified cawing and hundreds of crows flew up into the sky - it was clear that they had met Drifter, and a part of me smirked at the thought of the poor sods below the being rained on by crow shit. Needless to say Drifter moved too fast for me to get any meaningful pictures of her, as by the time i had found her in the sky, she was gone.
We returned to the vulture world for our next bird - an African White-backed Vulture. This was considerably bigger than the hooded vultures we saw earlier, but they realised that the crowd enjoyed being "buzzed" by the birds so repeated the feat with this one. Once again i got some reasonable perched shots but the quality dipped really low when trying to capture the bird in flight. Still its size meant that it moved slow enough for me to find it in the sky and get some moderately in focus snaps!
Next on the list was another demonstration, but with nine Black Kites. Having been to Wales and seen the Red Kites being fed, i knew roughly what to expect, and before long there were kites zipping over us gracefully swooping and soaring chasing each other for the meat they were being fed. I found the Black Kites a little less exciting than the Reds, but that is because the Red Kites i saw were actually wild and coming to be fed, whereas these were trained to come and be fed - a subtle but important difference i felt.
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| For all you Trekkies out there, this is 1 of 9 |
By this point in the day, the light was starting to fade meaning that any chance of capturing action from the Kites was nigh on impossible, and so we retreated to the hides on site to watch a Heron feeding demonstration. This was a rather odd way to end the day really considering that the whole site is dedicated to birds of prey, but as i am a bit of a fan of Herons i did not mind in the slightest. Indeed there were a goodly 15 Herons we could spot on the site and i managed to get a couple of shots off before the light went completely.
After this it was time to say our goodbyes and make the long journey back to civilisation (well if you can call this town civilised!!). All-in-all though it was a thoroughly enjoyable day, packed full of birds of prey and one i will not forget in a hurry.
Monday, 3 October 2011
Tintern and Raglan
The August bank holiday was a pre-arranged week off for Sarah and I to spend some time together. It was on one such day that we decided to hop over the border into Wales and clamber around on some ancient buildings. Wales is full of such places, and so we planned out a route to visit Tintern Abbey; the inspirational ruins for painters such as Turner and poets such as Tennyson and Wordsworth so I figured that a visit here was bound to get my creative juices flowing.
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| The Tintern Abbey "money shot" |
Situated in the Wye Valley, you couldn't dream of a more idyllic setting; it is a 12th Century Cistercian abbey, which succumbed to Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, and after someone nicked the lead off of the roof (so you see Daily Mail, these things happened even way back before swathes of immigrants flooded the country too!), it subsequently fell into decay.
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| The roofless abbey - that must have been a lot of lead!!! |
It is now looked after by CADW (the Welsh version of English Heritage), who have grasped technology by the horns and dotted around the site a variety of bluetooth hotspots where you can download factoids to your portable electronic device of choice. I am afraid I am still a bit old-school when it comes to things like this, and prefer the feel of a reasonably priced guidebook rather than some text on a screen. I was happy as a sandboy walking around the abbey, but to make me even more appreciative of the scene, a buzzard decided to soar above us - i tried to get an arty picture of it in shot, but the damn thing has eagle eyes, and clearly decided it didn't want to be on camera, so buggered off down the valley (or up the valley, I really don't know).
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| View from the Abbey of the Wye Valley - B-e-a-utiful |
After a swift half in the pub across the road from the abbey (I always love the fact that just across from almost every church there is a pub, so on a Sunday the flock can gather to hear moralising tales about self restraint before piling out of the church and into the local boozer) we moved up towards Raglan Castle, for our second visit of the day. There is a slight linkage here, as the lead that was nicked off of the roof of the abbey was actually used in the later construction of the castle.
Anyway, I have always had a fondness for castles with moats, as I like to imagine them filled with crocodiles and large snakes etc. (OK, a lot of my images of castles come straight out of Hollywood!). On the moat part, Raglan did not disappoint me in the slightest, with a big moat around the great tower and my imagination is good enough to pretend that the piece of wood floating in the moat was in fact a partially submerged croc too.
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| Impressive approach to the castle, even if there were no crocs in the moat |
Raglan castle is actually what I would class a proper castle too, in that it has actually seen a battle fought at it, rather than some posh stately home done out in the style of a castle. Royalists (defending the castle) were eventually defeated by the Parliamentarians here and it was after this that the castle was destroyed.
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| The great courtyard - something they cobbled together..... |
We walked around the site and even managed, despite her fear of heights, to get Sarah to climb up to the top of the great tower to admire the view (which I think she did through her fingers). We were blessed with both the weather and the number of people visiting, the former being warm, and the latter being few, meaning my misanthropy was kept to a minimum.....
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| The great tower at Raglan Castle - it was - erm - great! |
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Wells, Wells, Wells
On a chance trip down to Somerset to catch up with some of Sarah's family, we decided to make a weekend of it and pop in to visit the country's smallest city, Wells. It has a few redeeming features, but the principle one for me was it was the main location of the riotous British film Hot Fuzz. Yes the one with those two from Spaced.
I had vague ideas that i would visit the model village and get a photo opportunity of me being impaled a la Timothy Dalton on the miniature church steeple. Alas though, further investigations uncovered that the model village used in the film was actually in Buckinghamshire, and as tolerant as Sarah is with my whimsy, i felt asking her to drive halfway across the country for a quick photo opportunity would have met with short shrift.
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| Church where Tim Messenger gets in-spired... |
Still, Wells is a wonderfully quaint little town (sorry, city) and the weather was actually rather pleasant, so we wandered up and down the main street ticking off the places used in the film from my Eye-Spy book of Hot Fuzz filming locations. We saw the church where the village fete is held (and where the intrepid yet dixlesic reporter,Tim Messenger, gets killed with falling masonry), we also saw the fountain which the youth's graffitti, the Somerfield store which is owned by Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton), the Swan Hotel which Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) stays in, the local pub that they all drink in, and the
Bishop's Palace where the townsfolk (sorry, cityfolk) reveal their diabolical plan to Angel....
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| The fountain of yoof.... |
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| The hotel where Angel stays |
I was somewhat disappointed that i could not get a full photo opportunity of the high street where the final shootout takes place, because some inconsiderate town planner types had decided to designate Saturday as a market day, and so the whole square was covered in stalls selling all manner of objet d'art.
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| Alas, the Somerfield store from the film is now a Co-operative |
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| The local pub (well the exterior of it at least) |
Having got my fill of snapping the locations from the film, we decided to go and see the reason the city got it's charter - certainly, the size of the place does not justify it being classed as a city - and that is the wonderful Wells cathedral.
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| The frontage of Wells cathedral, rather impressive |
Those who know me, will be well aquainted with my love of ancient buildings and monuments, and this really did tick all my boxes. It is a 10th century cathedral, and the frontage was truly spectacular, with an amazing array of statues and sculpltured scenes from the bible (i am presuming).
Following this, we started to make our way back home, but i couldn't resist asking Sarah to take me via Wookey Hole. Disappointingly it had nothing to do with Chewbacca or proctologists, so i just grabbed a snap of the place name before turning her around and getting us the hell out of the place (i swear, she has the patience of a saint!).
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| the name is more amusing than the place |
Monday, 18 July 2011
Warwick Castle plc
My love of Castles knows no bounds and on a nice sunny spring day Sarah and I decided to head off to Warwick for an afternoon of fun (not that sort of fun!!). This was in part due to an offer i managed to get whereby i could purchase two tickets for the price of one. When you arrive at the ticket office you suddenly see why this is a necessity, as the price of the tickets requires most people on a normal wage to take out a second mortgage in order to get into the place. Also, rather ingeniously, these 2 for 1 offers are so common that we didn't even need to present the ticket to the lady in the kiosk, she just took our word for it, making me feel like it was purely a device to get me to the castle gate so they could start draining cash from me.
On top of this, you are presented with a variety of ticket choices which makes deciding what you want to do rather confusing as they seem to have changed the castle from a historical building into something like a cross between Alton Towers and Starbucks. "Can i have a standard ticket with a dash of the Dragon's Tower, with shot of Dungeon visit please". This ticket choice would probably set you back about £45. Not forgetting that we had to pay £5 car parking for the privilege of coming to this place.
The haunted tower, as it used to be known when i was a lad, was now the Dragon's Tower from the popular TV show Merlin (an extra £8 charge to go in here and get annoyed by 3D special effects.....i bet the ghosts have long since buggered off in disgust....).
However, it did have some redeeming features, namely entering the living quarters of the castle and entering a turn of the century dinner party where we were introduced as "Lord and Lady Beamish" to the assembled guests. Obviously they realised that anyone who could afford the entrance prices to the castle must have the wealth of a minor royal!! The turn of the century living history was actually quite good fun, but not nearly as much fun as Henry VIII who was walking around the castle grounds booming out proclamations that would make Brian Blessed seem timid.
The weather was wonderful, so we camped out on the grounds and watched a Bird of Prey demonstration, which always cheers up my "feeling ripped off" mood. It was not bad, and i enjoyed the Bald Eagle who would not listen to his handler and when released he flew up into a large tree and refused to come down. We then felt obliged to sit and watch a rather amateurish meant-for-kids sword fighting display in the main courtyard. After watching Henry VIII wandering around trying to marry some of the mums, and threatening to behead a few noisy children (which would have been most welcome!), we decided it was time to "head off" ourselves.
The day was compounded when i discovered that i had the camera set to "video" mode, so instead of getting any nice pics of an expensive day, i got some meaningless video clips! (hence why this is a "text only" entry)!! Anyway, to summarise, my advice for anyone wanting to go to Warwick Castle is: don't go unless you have won the Euromillions the night before!
On top of this, you are presented with a variety of ticket choices which makes deciding what you want to do rather confusing as they seem to have changed the castle from a historical building into something like a cross between Alton Towers and Starbucks. "Can i have a standard ticket with a dash of the Dragon's Tower, with shot of Dungeon visit please". This ticket choice would probably set you back about £45. Not forgetting that we had to pay £5 car parking for the privilege of coming to this place.
The haunted tower, as it used to be known when i was a lad, was now the Dragon's Tower from the popular TV show Merlin (an extra £8 charge to go in here and get annoyed by 3D special effects.....i bet the ghosts have long since buggered off in disgust....).
However, it did have some redeeming features, namely entering the living quarters of the castle and entering a turn of the century dinner party where we were introduced as "Lord and Lady Beamish" to the assembled guests. Obviously they realised that anyone who could afford the entrance prices to the castle must have the wealth of a minor royal!! The turn of the century living history was actually quite good fun, but not nearly as much fun as Henry VIII who was walking around the castle grounds booming out proclamations that would make Brian Blessed seem timid.
The weather was wonderful, so we camped out on the grounds and watched a Bird of Prey demonstration, which always cheers up my "feeling ripped off" mood. It was not bad, and i enjoyed the Bald Eagle who would not listen to his handler and when released he flew up into a large tree and refused to come down. We then felt obliged to sit and watch a rather amateurish meant-for-kids sword fighting display in the main courtyard. After watching Henry VIII wandering around trying to marry some of the mums, and threatening to behead a few noisy children (which would have been most welcome!), we decided it was time to "head off" ourselves.
The day was compounded when i discovered that i had the camera set to "video" mode, so instead of getting any nice pics of an expensive day, i got some meaningless video clips! (hence why this is a "text only" entry)!! Anyway, to summarise, my advice for anyone wanting to go to Warwick Castle is: don't go unless you have won the Euromillions the night before!
Saturday, 16 July 2011
Roaming Baths
This is a retrospective post, having visited Bath several weeks ago but, for completeness I thought I would write it up.
Bath is a place i visited when i was a child, but alas time has dulled my memory somewhat, and so we decided it might be a nice day out to pop over there and visit the Roman Baths. It is a strange town, merging the old and the new clumsily together, but I did enjoy the variety of knitted jumpers most of the residents of the surrounding area seemed to insist on wearing. It made me realise that Noel Edmunds was not wearing those jumpers on Noel's House Party for a bet/dare/charity, but because they are considered de rigueur in the West Country!
Still, you could tell when we got closer to the Baths as the knitted jumpers started to thin out and the number of people with expensive looking cameras started to increase in frequency. Obviously, being a major source of tourism dollars, the buildings surrounding the Baths were lovely and well maintained.
Sarah and I joined the queue of Asian tourists, and i was already moaning at the price of the tickets, which were £12 each. Now, i am not a skinflint, but shelling out over a tenner to see a place where the Roman hoi polloi scrubbed their spuds was excessive to my mind. It never ceases to amaze me how much we can charge for entrance to some of our national treasures (see future post on Warwick Castle!). For perspective, i paid ($40 or £25) for a three day pass to see all the temples in Cambodia. I need to remember though that our museums in London are all free, so it is not all bad...
Once we got into the Baths, it really was a surprise at how much you got to see and walk around. I felt slightly guilty for moaning about the £12, as i definitely got value for money. Yes, there were obviously Baths, but also we got to see the springs, some of the Roman finds they discovered when excavating the site, there were temples there too, and also a variety of people dressed in period costume mingling in with the crowd and trying to make us feel like we had stepped back into the past.
Clearly these people were frustrated thespians, who just loved hamming it up for the tourists, who loved the interaction. I did enjoy the priest character who was offering up a human sacrifice to Oceanus (i think), but i was not brave enough to go up to him and get my photo taken in case he offered me to appease the gods!
Bath is a place i visited when i was a child, but alas time has dulled my memory somewhat, and so we decided it might be a nice day out to pop over there and visit the Roman Baths. It is a strange town, merging the old and the new clumsily together, but I did enjoy the variety of knitted jumpers most of the residents of the surrounding area seemed to insist on wearing. It made me realise that Noel Edmunds was not wearing those jumpers on Noel's House Party for a bet/dare/charity, but because they are considered de rigueur in the West Country!
Still, you could tell when we got closer to the Baths as the knitted jumpers started to thin out and the number of people with expensive looking cameras started to increase in frequency. Obviously, being a major source of tourism dollars, the buildings surrounding the Baths were lovely and well maintained.
Sarah and I joined the queue of Asian tourists, and i was already moaning at the price of the tickets, which were £12 each. Now, i am not a skinflint, but shelling out over a tenner to see a place where the Roman hoi polloi scrubbed their spuds was excessive to my mind. It never ceases to amaze me how much we can charge for entrance to some of our national treasures (see future post on Warwick Castle!). For perspective, i paid ($40 or £25) for a three day pass to see all the temples in Cambodia. I need to remember though that our museums in London are all free, so it is not all bad...
Once we got into the Baths, it really was a surprise at how much you got to see and walk around. I felt slightly guilty for moaning about the £12, as i definitely got value for money. Yes, there were obviously Baths, but also we got to see the springs, some of the Roman finds they discovered when excavating the site, there were temples there too, and also a variety of people dressed in period costume mingling in with the crowd and trying to make us feel like we had stepped back into the past.
Clearly these people were frustrated thespians, who just loved hamming it up for the tourists, who loved the interaction. I did enjoy the priest character who was offering up a human sacrifice to Oceanus (i think), but i was not brave enough to go up to him and get my photo taken in case he offered me to appease the gods!
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Take Caer Leon
The final day of our weekend saw us heading back to Sarah's friends to collect her two dogs, Lola and Lacey. We then headed off the beach for them to stretch their legs before taking them on the long journey home. A small bit about the dogs; Lola is a bouncy, yapping Jack Russell, with a penchant for killing letters; Lacey is a laid back Labrador who has an appetite to put Mr Creosote to shame.
Lola Monkey - looking for something to bark at
Lacey Pups - looking rather exasperated at her sisterWe walked them on the beach, but it was not actually that much fun as the beach was a pebble beach rather than a sand one meaning every step was precarious. So, we admired the view for a few moments before heading back to where we came and after meeting up with a friend for lunch at a local pub, we made our way slowly back to England.
On the way back though i couldnt resist stopping off at Caerleon, a Roman town with a lovely ampitheatre and garrison. It is also a place steeped in Arthurian legend, with Arthur being crowned there (allegedly) and the ampitheatre being a possible source for the "round table" part of the legend. I always love monuments that you can clamber over, and the ampitheatre was one such monument.
On the way back though i couldnt resist stopping off at Caerleon, a Roman town with a lovely ampitheatre and garrison. It is also a place steeped in Arthurian legend, with Arthur being crowned there (allegedly) and the ampitheatre being a possible source for the "round table" part of the legend. I always love monuments that you can clamber over, and the ampitheatre was one such monument.
Source of the round table? It was more egg-shaped to meWe clambered around the ruins for a short while, and visited the remains of the garrison just across the car park all to the dulcet tones of a Jack Russell yapping at everyone who dared to pass by the car, before deciding we really should head off and return home.
Sarah likes clambering as much as i do....perfect match!
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