Archive for October, 2008

Edinburgh

I am delighted by this city! It was one of Scots, who said that Paris could become such a city, if it hadn’t been spoiled. This is one of the most romantic and inspiring cities in the world. When you walk along the streets (especially in the early dusk), there is a feeling that you are in a fantastic city. One of its shrouds is the Edinburgh Castle which is very beautiful outside, and extremely interesting and intricate inside.
As I wrote before, I traveled with my beloved wife, and so, a beautiful conclusion of the day was going to Edinburgh Witchery restaurant situated 100 meters away from the castle. Attention! The restaurant must be booked two weeks in advance. In our case delicious food, romantic atmosphere, and two bottles of good wine played their role.
It is better to stay in one of two hotels: Balmoral 5 * or Hilton Caledonian 5 *; in both of them you should book a room overlooking the castle. In addition to the view they are bigger and better. We chose a budget option: Hilton Caledonian.

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Glasgow

The worst town during our travel, there is nothing to see nor to do here, it looks like Frankfurt  a business city. It was the only place where we came back to the hotel at 8 pm. Fortunately the hotel rooms in Hilton Grosvenor are large and beautiful. However for the 1st time here we saw the Scottish pounds released by private banks: Royal Bank of Scotland, Halifax bank of Scotland, Clydesdale Bank (they are accepted in Scotland equally with English pounds).

Loch Lomond, Loch Katrin

These are 2 lakes and if you visit Lomond you should also walk continue

York

The choice of the hotel proved to be right: we stopped at Hilton York City hotel, the only 4* hotel in the centre and our windows overlooked the Tower.
The city which was founded by Vikings (York departed from Jorvik the name of the founder of the city) and it used to be the capital of England. It makes a great impression. You should visit York Cathedral (we were able to see it only from outside, as it was a graduation day), the museum of Vikings (or rather the amusement park, where they restored the way of life of those times and what is interesting they also managed to create the smell). And you can simply take a walk along the streets of this medieval town , some of them are still called by ancient Norwegian names.

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Chester

The capital of Cheshire (the cat from Alices Adventures in Wonderland  by Lewis Carroll is right from here) is famous for its unique in the whole UK completely preserved (around the periphery) medieval city wall; for its cheese that looks like cats heads and for the most advanced for the 17th century decision in problems of selling space deficiency. Besides the shops which are situated in the streets fronts on the first floor, these smart people constructed Promenade from house to house, so the streets turned out to be on the second floor and even under the roof. Considering local weather in winter, Id prefer to walk on the second floor.

Chester was our second stop. The town is not a business centre, thats why there arent many hotels here. We stayed at a small but cozy hotel Best Western Westminster. We booked everything with the help of hoteleine.com again. This website is good because you can book there a hotel not only in a big city, but even in such back of beyond as Chester.

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Bath

We stopped for night at one of 2 best hotels of Bath - Hilton Bath City (the second one is Royal Crescent Hotel). I booked this hotel room (the same thing I did with all other hotels) on www.hoteleine.com. Bath is a small health-resort town famous for its thermal springs, discovered by the Romans. Besides you should visit the Abbey and the Circus (a round square). Pump Room restaurant is worth visiting. Then you can assume that your Bath program is completed.

Bath (our room)

We did stay here:) Hilton Bath City

City park

Round Square

Tintern Abbey

If you check weather forecast and it promises a sunny weather you should drop in here for sure. It`s on the border of the UK and Wales and  its history dates back to the 10th century, it used to be the centre continue

General recommendations

As Albion is situated in the north it is dark at 5 pm from November to March. So you manage to do less things during the daylight hours. That’s why I advise you to go there from April to October. September is even better as the days are still long and fall has already come (autumn in the most beautiful season here). I made the route on maps.google.com not to drive more than 300 km a day. We drove 1800 km during one week.

Sightseeing top:
(10 – max, 1- min)

• Windsor Castle
• Stonehenge
• Salisbury Cathedral

Day 1. Gatwick - Windsor Castle - Stonehenge - Salisbury - Bath

London Gatwick (London Gatwick)

Instead of booked Volkswagen Passat we were offered to rent Mercedes E class, we had to pay extra 3.5 pounds (7 dollars a day). Of course we agreed. We managed to launch GPS (we used “I Go” during out trip) without any problems and we started to drive.

Windsor Castle

Score: 6 Time for sightseeing 1.5 – 3 hrs

The Windsors is the dynasty that still reigns in Britain but as they say here – they do not rule for more than 300 years. So they own the the biggest (but as we found out , not the most beautiful one) castle in Britain. It has more than 1000 rooms. Elisabeth II (the present Queen) spent her childhood into the Castle and she was very worried when the fire took the interior of 100 rooms in 1992. Don’t worry! All the rooms were reconstructed in 1997. The most striking thing is the doll’s hose and the Cathedral (which is the official cathedral of the Garter and the Queen is its member).

Windsor Castle (car travel)

Stonehenge

Score: 4 Time for sightseeing 15-30 min

Though this stones pile is considered to be a world culture continue