Putting The Fan In Fanatic

This whole UK trip morphed out of a single desire -- to visit The Making of Harry Potter at the Warner Bros Studios.  I'm a total Harry fan.  Love everything about the books, love everything about the movies.  So today was like being five years old and Christmas has finally come.  I'll admit this -- when I saw the first Harry Potter movie, I nearly wept I was so excited that it lived up to the books.  I'll also admit this -- I did weep, full on full out at the end of the last book when Harry told his son that he was named for two Hogwarts professors and one of them was the bravest man he had ever known, referring to Severus Snape.  And I guess if I can admit those things I can also admit this -- when you enter the studio they give you this introductory blurb along with some video type interviews and stuff, and damn if I didn't tear up then.  All this to say, "OMG!  It was a great day."

The studio is housed in two buildings:  the first contains costumes, sets, and props.  The second:  animatronics, plan drawings, scale models, and the model of the castle.  It is overwhelming and impossible to take it all in.  I mean you can see it all, but the detail of each set, each prop...well, I can't wait to watch the movies again to see if I can spot even a fragment of what they put into it.

There were the things you expected to see like the sorting hat and Dumbledore's podium in the Great Hall...

Sets so familiar they seemed like home...

And costumes galore.  Loved seeing the costumes, picturing the actors actually wearing them...

And so many props filled with such detail but that would be next to impossible to notice on screen.  This one in particular struck our fancy...one of those 'you had to be there' moments.

At the end I didn't want to leave.  I'd have happily gone back through to see it all again.  And again.  And maybe again.  I would work there.  For free.  They wouldn't have to pay me.  

Just let me stay in that magical world forever.

Here, There, and Everywhere

And if you know the significance of that title, you'll know where our first stop was on our first day in London.  Bucket List moment...along with a whole lot of really annoying "I'm the biggest Beatles fan on the planet" types.  The ones who need to cross the road fifteen times assuming different poses for each photo.  The saving grace today was that there is some road construction happening, limiting traffic to one alternating lane.  So there were actual breaks in the traffic flow to allow for a quick photo op without pissing off the general motoring public too badly.  Except for those annoying "I'm the biggest Beatles fan on the planet" types who were pissing off everyone, motoring or not.

And then it was tacky tourist time. And no, the zebra crossing on Abbey Road does not count as  tacky tourist.  But the red phone box with Big Ben in the background sure does.

On the topic of Big Ben -- holy crap!  I had no idea it would be so...BIG!  I mean, we walked out of the tube station and there it was in front of us, right smacking there, and I was blown away.  I don't think I will ever lay eyes on something man made that is so shockingly impressive on first sight. There is just no way for a photo to do it justice.  But here's a couple anyway.

Next stop -- the London Eye.  Definitely worth a whirl to realize the sheer size and spread of the city and to see the buildings in their entirety, especially the Houses of Parliament.

We walked a circuitous route back to our hotel taking in Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, and Hyde Park.  A little trivia -- the smallest police station in London is located in Trafalgar Square.  It was installed in a lamppost in 1926 so police could keep on eye on protestors.  I peeked inside...just some electrical boxes and garbage.  No more direct line to Scotland Yard.

Not bad for a first half day.  

And tomorrow promises to be magical.

The Closest I'll Get...

...to higher education.  Spent the day in the beautiful university city of Oxford. I loved the vibe of the place -- teeming with young people, commuting on bikes, sporting jauntily wrapped scarves; a group in the pub in black robes and white bow ties for whatever exam, function, or performance they had just completed. I could never have been a student there, and not just because of cost or marks.  But I'd have spent my whole time gawking up at the buildings and tripping off curbs.  Just when you think you've seen the best of the architecture, you round a corner to another stunning building.

Or an idyllic scene straight out of the movies...

We spent time at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology.  Of course I visited the mummies but thought these robes worn by Lawrence of Arabia -- the real guy, not Peter O'Toole -- were pretty damn cool.

I was almost giddy to see this pub where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis were known to imbibe a pint or two.

Of course we had to stop for a pie...

...and then a beer at The Turf Tavern, likely the oldest pub in Oxford.  Can't beat their slogan...

Hmmm...maybe I could get an education at Oxford.

That's A Wrap

We finished in Bath by 'taking the waters', a warm drink of water from the King's Springs containing 43 minerals, calcium and sulphate being the main ones.  Supposedly a cure for all that ails you.  Wonder if it has any effect on blisters?

Because now that I'm finished the walk I can admit it -- I had some wicked killer blisters, the small toe on my right foot being the worst.  Most days they were just uncomfortable but Day 5 was sheer pain from the first step of the day.  I lived in fear each night when I took my boots off that they would be infected and blood poisoning was about to set in.  But I left the Compeeds in place, gutted it out, and when I took the Compeeds off back in Leighton Buzzard, the blisters were damn near healed and the pain was gone.  Whew! Dodged that bullet.  

My favourite town along the Way?  Wotton-under-Edge.  Picturesque but it also appeared highly liveable.  There were quainter places but most didn't even have a shop.  Would have liked to walk around it some more but that was Day 5 -- killer blisters day.

My favourite beer?  There were a few vying for the title but I have to give this one to Moles.  I'll never find it again outside the pub in Tormarton so it will have to live as a fond memory.

Favourite pub meal?  The beef and ale pie.  I plan to indulge in a lot more pies before May 11.

Fav accommodation?  The Cleeve Hill House Hotel.  (But the best full English breakfast was at Noades House, a B&B in Tormarton.) We weren't exactly slumming it, that's for sure.

Weirdest thing I saw?  Yarn bombing in Bath.  There must be a lot of crazed knitters living in these parts.  Go figure.

And that's a wrap, for the walk part anyway.  There will be much more to come but now it's reunion weekend with our group from the Camino.  There may not be any survivors.

One final thought...

This statue was outside the Abbey...

In case you can't read the inscription on the plinth, it says 'Water Is Best'.

Those of us who have walked the Cotwold Way beg to differ.

Mission Accomplished

If someone had told me I'd be walking in a T-shirt in the sunshine in England in mid-April I'd have said they we're nuts.  If they had said it would be sunny for days on end, I'd have asked for the name of the institution they had recently escaped. But that's just what we got...after our snow day, that is.  Sunshine. Glorious sunburn sunshine.  Even so, we all awoke to our last day of walking from Tormarton to Bath with a sense of trepidation.  It was rumoured to be the hardest, longest day with several steep ascents at the end and our slightly aching aging bodies were saying, "Really? Again?"

Our historical stop for the day was the field where the Battle of Lansdown was fought in 1643 and where the earliest surviving war memorial in Britain stands to mark the place where a dude named Sir Beville Grenville was killed.  

By day's end we all agreed it was the easiest day by far.  Except for maybe the slow slog through the outskirts of Bath to the centre of town and the Abbey, the official end of the Cotswold Way.  After days of near solitude on wooded trails and grassy hillsides, traffic and congestion suck.

One hundred miles conquered...well, 102 officially.  And even though the Camino was five times that distance, this was a far tougher grind.  The terrain covered was more difficult, the miles slower to tick off.  So the end came with a total feeling of accomplishment.

We celebrated with a pint...okay, a couple of pints...and the best curry I've ever had at a restaurant called Rajpoot.

Just in case you ever find yourself in Bath and have a hankering for Indian food.

Beer du Jour - Cobra...brewed to eat with Indian food. But Raven's Gold...yet another new fav.

Odds And Sods Along The Way

I'm a couple of days behind in my writing so I'll mostly let the pictures do the talking for Day 6 of our walk from Wotton-under-Edge to Tormarton.  These signs struck my fancy...

...mostly because there were neither -- no mud, no frogs and toads.  That mud warning seemed a little late for us.

Of historical note...

...Horton Court -- the oldest house along the Way, with some parts dating back to the 12th century.

And the best of the Iron Age hill forts that we've seen with its double ramparts. Of course you can't really see that in this photo, probably just looks like bumps in the grass. But trust me, those bumps are about 3000 years old.

And then there were the friends we met along the path (look carefully in the first pic)...

The end!

Of the day...not the walk...

Beer du Jour - Moles...new fav. So so smooth.

An Uppy Downy Day

The Cotswold Way has been described as "a bit uppy downy."  The walk from Kings Stanley to Wotton-under-Edge (don't ya just love the English names for places?) was a little more uppy than downy.  But it's damn near impossible to capture elevation in a photo so you'll just have to take my word for it -- we were sucking wind.  Three heart attacks on six legs.  Every now and then you got some steps to help...if you could lift your leg that high.

At the top of one rather lung busting climb, we had our historical lesson for the day -- the Tyndale Monument, built to commemorate William Tyndale, the dude who translated the bible into English in the early 1500's.  It was built at this site as it is reportedly near his birthplace of North Nibley (and yet another awesome name!)  And what did Bill get for his time and trouble in doing the translation?  Charged with heresy and sentenced to be burned at the stake. Except they didn't just burn him, they strangled him first and then burned his body.  Not quite sure which would be the worst way to go.

After the monument the final two miles into Wotton were quite flat and easy walking.  And guess what?  We barely saw any muck all day!  And the clouds cleared every now and then for a few peaks of sun and there was no rain.  And none forecast for the final two days of our walk.  It's a Cotswold miracle!

We are staying in Wotton at the Swan Hotel, a 17th century coaching inn.  One thing I'm loving about these quintessential English towns are the hotel and bar signs.  This one is right outside my bedroom window...  

There isn't a straight line in the place. Doors aren't square and the floors are slanted and spongey...sure hope they don't pick tonight to give it up and I wake up in the morning with my bed downstairs in the pub.

Then again, that might not be a bad thing after all.

Beer du Jour - Tasted three today but can't remember which one I settled on. Butcombe Pale Ale was one of them and it was very good.