Henley, Hoff, Hampton Court and Henry VIII

Dear Members,

Besides walking, as an active past-time, another exercise the English participate in is rowing. One of the famous rowing competitions is the Henley Regatta.

We visited Henley On Thames on the way back into London. The regatta is this week along with Wimbledon and Ascot.



Whilst in Henley, this guy followed us around everywhere we went, with his entourage - seriously.



He even followed us back to our tour bus. Heather thought he might be working part time at Starbucks there in Henley, because he came in about 5 times while we were there. I think he was trying to use the restroom.

By the way, the English have a nickname for Starbucks, they call it St. Ar-bucks.



The tour group returned to London and flew back to the USA. My daughter and I are staying on until June 30th.

We went on to Hampton Court Palace the following day. It was a gorgeous day.




Heather went through the maze and back. She took a picture of this at its center.



This is an archway of Elm trees.



Hampton Court Palace is half Tudor structure and half Baroque

Here's a great shot of the baroque side with our friend Nigel and myself.



Here's a picture of one of the amazing ceilings in the palace.



There were celebrations and re-inactments while we are here commemorating the 500th year of Henry VIII ascension to the throne. So, there were actors portraying his six wives and himself on the grounds. They did an excellent job.



Katherine Parr

Today, we visited The Tower Of London. I've been many times and still enjoy going. This time they had a special exhibit on Henry VIII's armor. You may not know this, but we couldn't take pictures of most things as it is not allowed. So that's why you see mostly outside shots.



Here's the famous "traitors gate"



A guard at attention near the entrance to the vaults that hold the crown jewels. We saw those as well. They are too unbelievable to be real, but they are.



As we left the tower(s) we saw Tower Bridge from the Thames.



We attempted to see the reproduction of the original Globe Theatre, but they were closed. They will be open again on Sunday and we'll give it a try.




Here's a funny sign for one of the West End shows...I had to take the photo!!

We've ate well, but we've been walking our pants off as well. Plus it's really humid here too. We are having a great time all in all.

We even treated ourselves to a Cornish Ice Cream. I'll tell you about that when we get back.

Only a few days to go. It's really sped by.

Wales, Castles and Fireside Fun

We've had some adventures the last few days.

Obviously, I am not sharing every single picture with you because that would just take too much time right now with my tiny little HP Notebook. We'll see what we can upload when we get home :)

So, here's some tidbits.

We stopped in a sweet town called Hereferd (hair-a-ferd) and I happened on my favorite store. They have one here too...


It's TK instead of TJ here, but it's still wonderful.

Then off to Wales. We visited a town called Hay On Wye (Hay on Why). It's half in England and half in Wales. The man who established the town emancipated himself from both countries and became his own kingdom for a time. This town is the largest used book location in the world, most all of the 40 stores are full of used/antique books including a cinema that has at least 100,000 books.

Here's some fun signs we found on our walk around town...





(doesn't she look pitiful..at any time)

Today we went to Ludlow to visit Ludlow Castle and the surrounding area. This was the view on the way in



Entrance into Ludlow Castle... It's the 50th anniversary of their Shakespeare Festival. It's staged outside within the castle walls.



It's a medieval castle, so no windows just stone structure...



On our way back to the manor, we ran into some car trouble. While we were riding along a buzzer started to sound on Nigel's (our driver's) dashboard. We smelled something like burning tires, we turned around in our seats to see a big cloud of smoke coming in the cab of the bus.

Nigel got us to the side of the road and we calmly got out of the coach (bus)...



And then we heard popping of tires and windows breaking and flames coming out like crazy.

Some how our coach was on fire.

All of us got out just fine, but not all our belongings. The most important things like our passports, money and cameras made it just fine.

A few members had teddy bears etc on and they didn't make it :(





The police and fire were quick and helpful. We felt really sorry for the fire crew as they do not have as many fire hydrants as we do, so they kept having to drive a distance and load up on water and then drive back. I'd hate to have a house on fire over here.

The coach (bus) system over here is extremely efficient and as soon as our friend Nigel came off the bus he made a call and we had another bus within the hour.

That's pretty great :)

All in all it's just fine, everyone is safe and healthy and everyone is in good spirits.