Music City

We pulled into Liverpool with our guide explaining that we would be staying in the Titanic Hotel;  little concerning but we are here for the experiences. The explanation continues that the waterfront in Liverpool was once the largest ship building area in the world. And, the Titanic was built close to the warehouse that now is our hotel. 

I’ve had the feeling that waterfront towns and cities are all a little rough around the edge, blue collar areas, where we’ve been extra careful with our pocket security while visiting. However, I didn’t necessarily get that feeling in Liverpool. 

We did feel quickly that music played and is playing a large role in the city. Our guide gave figures on the millions of pounds music was responsible for in visitor spending and continued music related events. We saw the evidence when visiting the Coffee Casbah,  the first place the Beatles played and continued to play for hours  daily as they honed their skills and became the band we all know and many of us love today. 

John Lennon scratched his name in the low ceiling of the Casbah  

Paul painted this ceiling in the Casbah Coffee Club  

 What I didn’t know was that John Lennon was the son of a single mother and grew up with his mother struggling to provide a home and even food.  They had an apartment near a garden that happened to be Strawberry Field. Strawberry Fields, became a haven for John growing up and as we know also became the inspirations for one of his better musical compositions. I may not have all my facts straight here, but Strawberry Fields was a part of the Salvation Army’s headquarters campus. In later years, Lennon quietly supported the SA and its programs and made it possible for many children to benefit from his success. 

From an exhibit in the Salvation Army Headquarters in Liverpool memorializing Lennon. 

Our excursion took us to the birthplace of Paul McCartney, which was close enough to John for them to be friends but in a much more affluent neighborhood. All of the Beatles grew up in close proximity. We walked Penny Lane 

You can make out John’s name signing below 

and did most of the things Beatles fans do while in the city. 

Lunch was in the Titanic Hotel restaurant with traditional Fish and Chips  (fried catfish would’ve been better). Dinner was in an uptown Pub again with traditional fare. Eating in UK is interesting. 

We’re have a bit of traveling tomorrow to make our way to Scotland.  Cheers, Jim

The Cotswolds

Ok, yesterday was a slow day to help everyone recharge after several long tour days. Rain was also a little heavier than normal for us anyway, but not for the locals. We were introduced to the Cotswolds.

Here’s how the official Cotswold Website describes the region. 

Welcome to the Cotswolds, a very special, very wonderful place. A short break or even an extended holiday in the Cotswolds will leave you wanting more and you’ll be booking your next Cotswolds holiday as soon as you return home!

The Cotswolds covers a huge area – almost 800 square miles – and runs through five counties (Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire). One of the delights of visiting the Cotswolds is exploring the different areas, each with its own identity, yet all with those defining Cotswold features: golden stone and rolling hills.

I’ll just say it is very English countryside/like and we enjoyed our visit  The day ended at a “nano-brewery”, The Cotswolds Lakes Brewery, where we were schooled on the art of making beers and ales.  A microbrewery is a small brewery, a nano-brewery is a very small brewery making small batch brews, we tasted brews that only exist in Cotswolds Lakes.  We lunched in Burton-on-the-Water and our visit ended with a Cotswolds barbecue,  pretty good, Tomorrow, pop Liverpool and the Beetles museum

Pam with a full English breakfast. The black thing in the foreground is Blavk Pudding, never ever order. 

Chellimgham, Town church. Even the small towns had big churches because early townspeople believed a big church would help you get to heaven. 

Did I say it was raining?

Chellimgham

Lunch in Burton-on-the-Water. 

They have pay-phones and they work. 

Burton-on-the-Water

Can you hear me now?

Boutique beers

Young financial advisor turned brewmaster. Soon to be very wealthy. 

English barbecue pork and mac n cheese. 

Jim

 

War Won, Battle Lost

“Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous.  In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.”  Winston Churchill 

We left London this morning about nine and motored north and west to Woodstock. It’s our first venture into the backcountry of smaller and warmer towns. In preparation for our trip, we tried to find descriptions and photos of the places we would be seeing but they didn’t do the real thing any justice. Woodstock is everything you’d expect of an English countryside village. Small shops, all very close together, with open doors and owners cleaning windows and sweeping the cobbles. As we now know at days end, every little town we passed through was equally inviting, each having distinctive characters, and delivering a stop and look around message to passerby's. But our mission today in the region of Cotswolds was to explore the birthplace of Winston Churchill, Blenheim Palace. 

This is the back view of the palace and shows some of the gardens and their reflection pools.

Churchill’s family has a deep English history of wealth and power and, as we know now his election as prime minister saved the Kimgdom from becoming a possession of the Third Reich. We also know now that he took the fight to the Germans and maintained a strong will to gain victory even in the dark days of Dunkirk and other battlefield setbacks. He has to be viewed as one of the prime reasons the allies won the war. 

Front view 

Winning the war, as great as it was, could not ensure winning the political battle to keep his title as prime minister when his opponent promised free medical care for all. He didn’t believe socialized medicine was a positive answer to long-term public healthcare, stuck to his position and was defeated. 

Our continuing wanderings through Cotswolds took us to next to a small boathouse in Oxford on River Cherwell. 

where we had lunch in an open/screened dining room. We then boarded our “punts” (look it up) and shoved off, with Jesse poling us along. 

A good American coffee to top off out punting. 

Our next stop Oxford. I was afraid someone would have checked my transcript and I would be denied visitor status, somehow I made it in. 

I don’t guess I ever thought about it but studying at Oxford means you are studying at any one of thirty colleges, all located in Oxford and make up Oxford university. Amazing campuses with students going about their college things and tourists doing their picture taking and googling the best paths to here and there. 

Various Oxford U pictures. Sorry I didn’t list building names but I’nm writing from memory and just don’t remember what the guide said. 

Now, we’re on the way to Upper Slaughter and the Slaughter Manor House on the Eye River for the next two nights. 

Dinner at Slaughter was outstanding. To Liverpool tomorrow. Jim

Bobby’s on Bicycles

 Nope, haven’t seen any. But yesterday five mounted Bobby’s were unceremoniously dumped from their steeds when road work spooked them into a furious race around the city. Don’t mean to make light of a serious event because a couple of the officers needed medical attention, and worse, the horses had multiple serious injuries  

I’m realizing how much I don’t know about London, and I’ve had some misconceptions clarified  I’ve pictured London as a quaint old city with a stiff upper lip attitude; true but not true, its population is not that much different than New York City. It moves about as fast, and seems just as international. It does feel more organized and polite., and the one thing I got right was the taxis, they express my perception of English culture perfectly. 

Our adventures today included a cultured side and an uncultured side.  But first we had an interesting lunch at a large market in an old church.   Beautiful setting, with many nationalities represented in food choices. I had Indian, don’t know what it was called but it was a stuffed potato. If, like me, you thought that was an oxymoron; think again. Don’t know how they got black beans, and lots of other Indian stuff in that spud but they did. It was hotter than it was tasty. It did give me what I was looking for, the experience. 

Early in the afternoon we visited the Victoria and Albert Museum.   

Wikipedia says, “ The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The uncultured event can’t be found on Wikipedia  I think you call it a “hold my beer and watch this” event. It was called the Rocket on the Thames  It amounted to a first half narrated leisurely boat ride to see the city sights from the river, and a strap yourself in and hold on boat ride for the finale, Did I mention it was rainy and cold. I guess we can classify it as another experience. Nuff said about that  

Traditional steak dinner to end the day and sleep was a welcomed. Tomorrow we’re off to Oxford and Cotswalds, where we will visit Churchill’s home.

The Churchill Factor

 I mentioned earlier that Robert doesn’t give us a schedule of events on his trips so I didn’t know that we would be visiting.one of my all-time favorite hero’s war bunkers.. We had an after hours tour of the war bunker in London that Churchill and his political and military leaders managed and developed strategy during the Second World War. 

The Map Room was especially interesting; manned 24 hours a day, collecting information from army, navy and air commands, it served as central war intelligence center for all British military operations. You can see that the telephone was the main source of information. All telephones call were encoded to maintain strict security. Primitive by our standards but cutting edge in WWII. 

This map showed all 8th AAF air bases in England. The use of the “red” phone in the first picture was unknown, but speculation places it as a direct link to Churchill. 

Churchill personally managed the map and war room operations and had an adjacent private room with office and sleeping arrangements. 

The war room was large enough for all the elected officials who weee involved in managing the war and the three chairs in the center were for army, navy and air commanders. Churchill had them directly in front of him and regularly verbally attacked them to keep up the pressure when, in the early days of the war before we joined, seemed pretty hopeless. 

We are fortunate that Churchill was elected because Chamberlain opted for a capitulation to the Germans which could have changed the course of our history. This was a very good tour experience. 

Another first time experience was being served a six course dinner on a bus driving around London. It was very well done and for our group a great party atmosphere with music and visits by the chef. Eating is one of the important aspects of travel, and this was certainly a special “eating”. Cheers, Jim

1: Brioche and Brie 

2: Tuna TarTar and Avocado 

3: Salmon seared with steamed Leaks

4: Lamb Chops over a Sweet Potato purée 

5: Cheese course, light and semi-sweet 

6: Panacotta with Mango sauce

And, of course just the right taste of the appropriate aperitifs, wines and digestives. 

The Kingdom of the Crown

 We landed in London about noon, made it through Customs without issue and began our search for the Underground.

It’s a fairly long trip from Heathrow to the Westminster area where we will be staying for the first three nights of our trip. Taxi and Uber are both over $100 bucks. Actually, when we travel we try to take public transportation, mostly just to see if we can do it, but it does give a better visitor experience. 

The Underground took us within a half a mile or so from our hotel, the Saint Ermin’s in the Westminster district, but the climb out of the “tube” was a bit of a struggle with two sections of stairs. The St  Ermin fits the role of hotels 

Robert choses well and the Ermin’s fits the bill  Rooms while cozy, are well appointed and comfortable  

We took a walk about to keep awake after a sleepless night in the air and our hotel is located in a London tourist target rich environment.  

Our walk about took three hours or so and we made it back to the hotel and freshened for an early dinner. Pam had been looking for restaurants near our hotel and we decided on the Chez Antoinette. Good decision. 

We chose a small plate fare with steak tartar with soft egg, cheese selections, a pate of something I’m not sure of (but good), prosciutto, pepperonis, a warm baguette, and a nice cab made for a great first UK dinner. 

To bed early to let our bodies catch up with our minds. First day colder than expected but just a little rain, pretty good for London. Tomorrow, Jim