Here’s what it looks like from the interior:

Quite large for what is now a small rural market town. That big bell tower can be walked up, which we naturally did. We accidentally timed it for the noon bells which were quite lovely to listen to from above them. Now, I used to have a lot of fear about heights. As I got older, I overcame most of my fears, which one exception: spiral staircases. Alas, they usually lead to some pretty nice places, so I always go up them, but by the end, I’m usually sweating and completely freaked out. This was no exception. Keeping in mind that I’m not a small person, look at Carolyn as she’s about to descend to earth again.

Small and you have no idea where the end is until you fall down them and die or make it on your own two feet.

From the top of the bell tower, you can catch a glimpse of the other monumental building in Ludlow, the castle:

The castle was originally a Norman garrison for the nobleman that William the Conqueror chose to lord of the land in order to keep control of the newly conquered island. It expanded over the years until Ludlow was controlling the Marches and Wales. As Ludlow declined in importance, the castle feel into decay. However, castles that end up as ruins can be the most fun to explore. This one was quite impressive. It wasn’t a complete shell of a building which meant there were tons of corners and rooms to explore. And the owners of the castle have left it all quite accessible. I enjoyed it so much, I took about 70 photos just of it. And here they all are!! I mean, here is a small sampling of them.

Here is the main exterior of the castle. It’s perched on a cliff above the river (and Mr. Underhils) so it was well placed to ward off any attacks.

This is a view from inside the castle itself. The cool round building was a Norman chapel. It was possible to check out all those rooms off the inner courtyard.

In the 17th Century, the Council of the Marches was abolished, but Ludlow survived by being a fashionable market town and, since it took 27 hours to get to London from Ludlow at the time, it retained an air of cosmopolitanism. However, with the arrival of the train in the 19th century, which connected the far-flung (relatively) reaches of Britain, Ludlow began a quick and steady decline. If it helps, you can now get from Ludlow to London in 3 hours.

Now, the decline of any place is not a good thing, but in this case, there’s a silver lining. While much of old England got torn down in the mid-20th century and was replaced by some horrible modernist concrete architecture (some of it by choice, some because the Germans bombed the shit out of many English cities), Ludlow laid forgotten. And this meant that a slice of English architectural history was perserved so, when the preservation movement sprung up, there was a town with 400 examples of English Architecture. Half-timbered buildings are all over the place and a gigantic cathedral towers over it all, a sign of the former power and money that used to flow into this small market town. Let’s take a look.

The Feather’s Hotel is a classic, and Ludlow’s most elegant example of the half-timbered building. A timbered frame is erected and the gaps in the timber are filled with things like mud or, later on, concrete. Typically, the white parts you see were likely painted with some color and not white. The wood is oak which, when cut is still quite soft, but then hardens quickly and perserves very nicely.

Ludlow from above. The green and white striped tents are the market, which still is around today, 3-5 days a week. And people still come into to town to do their weekly shopping. Note the edge of the castle in the background (much more on that later).

One of the best grouping of old buildings. Note the large large bell tower of the church behind it.

Another view of Ludlow from the bell tower and some more examples of half-timbered buildings.

Next, I’ll show more of the church, the river Teme and the castle.

We stayed at Mr. Underhill’s, an inn and lovely restaurant on the banks of the River Teme in Ludlow. Ludlow is about 12 miles from the Welsh border surrounded by beautiful rolling hills. Mr. Underhill’s is at a perfect bend in the river with a man-made waterfall (called a weir) and an ancient one-lane bridge nearby that’s leads up into the hills. It sits right under the castle in Ludlow, which is perched above it. As a result, it had a wonderful feel of isolation, even if the town was just around the corner. And the inn and restaurant were in a private courtyard which gave a nice peaceful feel to it:

Our room was a cute, well furnished room that allowed us to watch the Olympics in the mornings. And the place included breakfast. This might not mean much except for the fact that the big draw of staying at this particular place was the food. Mr Underhill’s, while it might be in a small market town 4 hours from London, has a Michelin star. So we had breakfast in a Michelin starred restaurant (it was damn fine). I don’t think either of us had eaten at a place like this, so we were curious to give it a try. And, when we booked the room, we booked dinner for our second night there. A nice romantic dinner along a beautiful river.

Dinner was everything we expected. It was about 9 courses, most dishes being smaller taster dishes with a main course that was a little bigger. The restaurant itself was very unpretentious. It was a husband and a wife who ran the place and the wife was always out in front chatting with people and happy to answer questions. The dress was casual-ish and their cat would wander in and find a comfortable place to chill out with all the folks eating their dinner. The menu changed daily and you didn’t know what you were going to get until you sat down. Whatever they could find in the markets that day went into the meal. Here are our main courses:

Fancy and delicious food, but none of the “we have a Michelin star” pretension. Dinner took about three hours, at which point we were full and content. I have the menu scanned, but I need to dig it up. I’ll post it when I find it.

The dining room was cosy (10 tables) and comfortable. The whole place has a nice intimate and friendly atmosphere. From the rooms to the food, it was very pleasant:

Now, we did more than just hang out at this inn, but that’ll be for the next post about Ludlow.

Welcome to Cambridge. Home of — what?? Yep, that’s the sign on the train platform of Cambridge, home to one of the more famous university’s in the world, and not the one advertised on that sign. From King’s Cross (a 15 minute bus ride from our flat), it’s a fast-ass direct train to Cambridge. So Carolyn and I took our bikes and, an hour later, found ourselves there. Cambridge is an extremely bike friendly town. All the students have them and there are tons of bike lanes and good signage for getting around town.

That’s just one of the many bike parking areas around town. Bikes can be found locked up (many of them left forever). Though I must say, my crappy bike looks good compared to many of these.

The towns stretches along the River Cam and, particularly as hoards of tourists have begun to fill the town, one of the more popular activities is punting. This is a long boat with a person in the back guiding it along the river with a long pole. Think of gondolas in Venice.

Carolyn and I did not go on one. We found it more amusing to sit on the banks of the river and watch people banging into each other as they tried to maneuver between each other.

Now Cambridge is really a collection of colleges. You apply to study at a specific one of them and each of them have a certain character and many have specific fields they are best known for. They all have the feeling of an exclusive club. For example, even though they dominate the banks (both sides) of the river, the property they own is walled off, to each other and to the public. There is no way to simply wander along the river without going in and out the main entrance of each college. However, inside the colleges themselves, it’s quite impressive.

This is the courtyard to Trinity College. It’s been around since Henry VIII and has produced some obscene number of Nobel Laureates as well as where Issac Newton got his start. Needless to say, it’s got a lot of history and some beautiful buildings. The courtyard itself was where a legendary race immortalized in Chariots of Fire took place (they needed to run around it four times before the clock finished the 12 bells at noon time).

(Love that sky!)

King’s College is another one of the major historic colleges of Cambridge. It was started by Henry VI but not finished until Henry VIII (him again!). It’s obviously dominated by its chapel (all the colleges have a chapel), although a chapel would suggest to me a small church. It is also home to the King’s College Choir, one of the more famous choirs in the world. As it were, we were there on a Sunday and they were giving their last performance before the summer break. I say performance, but it was technically a church service, open to all. In the end, it was really a performance of the choir wrapped with some religion. They were quite impressive and it was a treat to be sitting in this beautiful ancient church, listening to a talented and enjoyable choir.

Now, Cambridge, in the English speaking world, is only preceded by Oxford. So there have to be some older colleges at the university (King’s and Trinity only being around since the 16th Century or so), right? Well, that would be Peterhouse, the oldest of the colleges of Cambridge, although it was not the first.

Notice a pattern? Amazing courtyards with absurdly manicured lawns. Now, since school was out when we visited, I couldn’t tell you what student life is like, but I know I would just live on those lawns (I doubt they’d let me if I had the good fortune to go to any of these!). We really liked Peterhouse as it felt more intimate and less imposing and exclusive. We managed to actually get sort of lost in it and found some of the more modern parts of the school as well.

A couple of random thoughts. The pubs seemed to be almost entirely owned by Greene King, a large British brewer, which I thought was interesting. It makes sense since Cambridge is the closest city to the town where the brewery is based (Bury St. Edmunds). We did have a lovely lunch in one of their pubs along the river, giggling at the punters.

Let me throw in two negatives: first, too many freaking tourists. I realize that we were one, but tour and school groups of over 100 people is absurd and it made the town feel like a museum and not a place where people work, study and play. And second, the schools, while beautiful, felt so inaccessible with their impressive, but imposing architecture and the well-maintained lawns. Oh yeah, I wonder what it would be like to be a student at a school teeming with tourists.

It was a Thai-inspired dish. We particularly enjoyed the sampler starter which allowed us to have a taste of all the wonderful food they had to offer. We had a seat by the windows and, an amusing sight kept walking by. In the UK, a bachelorette party is known as a Hen Party. This typically involves decorating the bride-to-be in embarassing clothes and going off to get very very drunk. We saw at least four of these groups wandering (or shall I say stumbling) past. A very amusing side note.
After dinner, we retired to Dina and Adrian’s flat for a little rest before the next phase of the outing. We also met up with their friend Heather met us. Here would be the whole happy crew at this point:

Alas, at this point, I developed a horrible, horrible headache. Since our next part of the birthday night was to be dancing at a club, I took a little time to rest. Our plan was to go to a special club night called Stick it On, in which people can submit their own playlists for a 15 minute set and be a DJ for a few moments. The idea was intriguing, so we made our way there. I shall spare you any photos of the revelers (alas, there are some thanks for Gerry ), but it was a fun time out.  Obviously, when the DJ changes every three or four songs, you’ll get a few songs you don’t like, but there were some excellent choices of music. My headache subsided, which allowed me to enjoy ourselves and I think, when we took our leave at whatever hour it was, we were tired and content.

The following day, besides going to the Brighton Pavilion, we also enjoyed a Brighton favourite of ours, cream tea at the Mock Turtle. While we devoured scones and tea, Dina bought a Meringue. It was ginormous. See for yourself:

With a little help, it did get eaten . We also wandered Brighton some more so Gerry and Ben could see some of the other sights of this fun little city. For those aware, on the side of a coffee shop near the train station, the graffiti artist Banksey put up one of his more famous pieces of art, two male police officers kissing:

Now, you might notice that this one actually has protective plastic over it. While most Banksey’s have a bit of a temporary aspect to them and could be removed if and when the owner of the property of the government decides to remove it (although I think now that they are quite valuable, this is increasingly less likely), this one has become quite famous and infamous. Apparently, the original was defaced by someone finding it “immoral”. It’s been fixed up and made “permenant”.

Anyhoo, we had some tasty beers, good food, and saw tons of fun things. But it was time to go backto London. Good times were had by all.

The weather could not have been more perfect. The sun was shining and it was actually kind of hot. I even managed to get a sunburn (although that now only seems to take about 5 minutes of sunshine). And, this being the coast, we decided to take a little tour along the water. Weather permitting, there was to be a paddle around Brighton Pier on Sunday, and Saturday they had a little festival in advance. We wandered around the festival, seeing some beach cars and playing with some toys. This brought us to the West Pier. Brighton, for many years had two piers. The West pier eventually closed and fell into disuse. The council was debating for a while what to do with it, rather than letting it remain in ruins, until 2003. At that point, someone apparently set fire to it and the thing was burned beyond any reasonable repair. Here’s what it looks like today:

I hope they do something with it. Even in it’s current form, it’s still pretty cool looking but could use some tender loving care. Let’s compare it to the other pier, which is still in use. It’s full of arcade games and even has amusement park rides. It’s a great big festival:

Quite a bit different, no? Well, the weather on the land was lovely, but the English Channel was anything but calm:

Check out them waves and the lovely city behind it. We eventually got a little tired after about a 2.5 walk along the water and exploring the crazy beach scenes and the crowds of people enjoying a summer day along the coast. We needed a little bit of a pick-us-up. So we hit a local coffee shop with some pretty cool art painted on coffee sacks:

Once we were properly caffeinated, it was time to stop being tourists and celebrate Dina’s years of life. However, I’ll skip ahead to the following day for now and focus on the celebrating later. On Sunday, since it wasn’t nearly as nice out, we decided to soak in some cultute. The Brighton Pavilion is the iconic center of the city. When George IV was still a decadent prince, he set himself up down in Brighton to flee his creditors. In a truly modest style, he had the following built on top of the original “farmhouse” he was initially living in:

The main part of the palace has been restored to its original decadence. On both ends of it, are the magnificent music room and banquet room. They really do blow your mind. They achieve it by having a very low, almost claustrophobic entry hallway which opens into each of these enormous rooms. The banquet room has a 2-ton chandelier hanging from the center. Photos aren’t allowed in there so we (or rather Ben, who took all these lovely photos) couldn’t capture it on film. It was very impressive.

Next up: fancy vegetarian dinner and dancing!

We started the grand weekend with a nice lunch at Amy’s parents place followed by a tux fitting. Matt, being a very good planner, had everything well organized, which was a nice thing to have a week after your own wedding. Things flowed nicely and I just had to be there and be a good friend. The weekend activities were all focused in the area around where Amy grew up, so nothing was more than 15 minutes away. Very nice. I hadn’t seen Matt’s parents in years, so it was a pleasure to catch up with them as well as a number of Matt’s friends and just take in the happiness that Matt and Amy exude. The rehearsal dinner was in a lovely Italian restaurant with even more people to see and enjoy. But, of course, it was just a warm-up to the next day.

Now, the groom always has what seems to be an easy task on the day of the wedding: show up showered and shaved. So, while the bride seems to spend the day of getting her hair done and all the other pieces of the puzzle together, the groom needs to do something to kill the time. In other words, the bride has the day set up for them (doing what is probably not the most fun shit in the world), while the groom needs figure out something to ease the nervousness. Matt came up with go-karting, preceded by some lunch in a local brew pub. The brew pub was good, they claimed to have an English Ale,  but they were lying (so I had an Irish red ale). The go-karting was a blast. It might seem like an odd choice of what to do before your wedding, but it’s a great way to let off some stream and release the tension that builds up if you just sit around waiting or doing nothing.

Which leads us to the wedding. It was in a beautiful country club. The ceremony was to be on an outdoor terrace but there was the perpetual threat of rain. Luckily, the rain held out, so everything could go as planned. Allow me to show you what you could look out on during the ceremony:

Tres beautiful.

The reception was in a split Southern-themed kind of rooms. It had a lovely airy feel to it. Here would be the happy couple showing off their moves in their first dance:

How cute! Meanwhile, here would be myself all Tux-ed out with my lovely wife:

All in all, it was a beautiful day. Matt and Amy have always been such a loving couple and it was so nice to be a part of their wedding and see them off so happy. Alas, the time ended quickly and my travels to London began two days later. Coming up, why don’t I do a little London blogging next.

The location was amazing. Right next door to where Jackie grew up, there was the ruins of what was apparently an old coach house. They spent 6 months clearing the brush and remains to create a wonderful spot for the event (this was NOT a wedding):

An organically beautiful center for the ceremony. I’ll put some larger photos elsewhere that do the whole scene justice. It really was a wonderful spot.

Jackie and JC both came towards the center from opposite ends of the aisle to meet and unite at the arch. They were played down the aisles by our friend Seth who did an accordion version of All the Things You Are. Before you laugh and start thinking “polka music?!?”, Seth is very talented and did an excellent job and made it wonderful and beautiful. Of course, we knew he would as he played us down the aisle for our wedding on a piano a week later. Here is Seth with his trusted instrument:

The celebration was headed up by a local minister who knew Jackie and her family for a while. However, this being a non-religious celebration of love, he had the task of giving a secular ceremony. He was up to the task and did a very nice job. Sprinkled in were readings by some of Jackie and JC’s friends from all over, one of them even came all the way from Alaska. At various points, there were musical interludes including one in which we did a little singing:

After the ceremony, we all retired for a tasty vegetarian (ok, there was a fish dish) party and good beer. It was a fun time and a beautiful celebration.

We arrived at Port Authority and, being from the NYC area, there’s always some things I have in my head that I need to see and do. Typically, this involves food. We got there too early to check in, so we dropped off our huuuge bag and set out to get some New York pizza. One of the impressive things with NYC pizza is you can pretty much go anywhere in the city and there will be a pretty good pizza place. Here would be me and my pizza (in my hand — only cheese!) and Carolyns (the fancy looking pizza on the plate):

We wandered over to the Hudson River and just soaked in the nice weather with the view of NJ (not a bad view, I assure you!) until it was time to check in. Now, the Marriott in Times Square is known for having funky automated elevators where you go to the bank of elevators, select your floor and it tells you which of the 15 elevators you should go into and then get swept up in a glass elevator with views of all the floors below and the beautiful lobby. We checked in and were sad to see we were only on the 22nd floor (our of about 45). However, as we got to our room, we were more than pleasantly surprised:

Check out that view! With this opportunity, we decided to just spend a couple of hours sitting in our nice room and take in the view. Who needs a bar with a view when you can sit on a couch in a private room instead? Here would be my blushing bride enjoying it:

As is something of a tradition when we see a show, we sought out some Russian food. We needed something near the theatre, and we found one called Russian Samovar. They had nice food and vodka infused with various things like peppers and lemons and so on. Good stuff. Then we made our way to see a fun Broadway musical. Spamalot is a stage version of the hilarious Holy Grail by Monty Python. A number of the original members contributed in various ways with voice overs and writing. Our seats were excellent, in the front row of the first balcony. The show was good fun. The performers were obviously wonderful and the music was good. I tried my best not to compare the musical too much to the movie as, while they are based on the same story, they are obviously not the same thing.

We woke up the next morning and decided to spend a beautiful day in NYC. We went to a small exhibit of wonderful Greek artifacts found in Georgia (the country). There were some stunning gold pieces and whatnot pulled out of the ground there. Then we got me a chicken cutlet sandwich from a good deli (yum!) and then spent the afternoon wandering around Central Park. Eventually we made out way to the Upper West side to meet up with Carolyn’s friends Haley (and meet her new boyfriend — we approved) and Renu at a bar literally called Dive Bar. But. before drinks, we ate at an Argentinian steak house. Man, I missed good steak. The UK definitely lacks in it. Dive Bar had excellent beers and we had a blast with all the fine people there. Alas, eventually, it was time to go. Many thanks to Jim and Linda for such a nice time in the city.

A number of years ago, a man named Bruce Williams Zaccagnino started building a model railroad in his house. Well, he is apparently pretty enthusiastic because, over time he needed to build additions to his house to keep it all in. Every year, he would invite friends to come and check out the amazing world he’d created. It reached a point where he decided to give it its own home and Northlandz was born. It’s a mile long walk of various landscapes with model railroads over it. He’s built it in 3-D so you walk up ramps and find yourself looking down two stories into a ravine with a railroad bridge across it and a train running along a river on the bottom. There are one way mirrors that are set up to make the scenes look bigger and yet, you cannot see yourself. There’s a huge concert hall with a gigantic organ in it. He’d collected model trains of all different sizes and they criss-crossed all of the amazing worlds he’d created. All very impressive.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Yes, that’s two gigantic bridges spanning large crevices’.

Here’s another bridge with Carolyn to provide some perspective. Notice that she’s on a ramp climbing higher and below her is even more model landscapes created by this guy.

It’s not all imaginary Grand Canyons. This man (and he’s made this all by himself and has people helping to do maintenance) has created a large variety of worlds. Everything from the great outdoors to large cities. This picture shows a bit of a juxtaposition of that.

Anyway, it took about 2 hours to get through it all and soak it in. I was completely blown away that such a thing could exist and that it’s basically a labour of love of one man. It’s been around for a few years now and I hope it stays for many more years. Really a nice way to bring out the child in anyone (or just reaffirm the childishness of some of us )