London Fog

Both Shari and I are running low on toothpaste. We each started with a fresh 1.7 ounce tube and we know how to squeeze it out. Time to go home.

London is the opposite of Tucson in many ways — the most obvious being weather, sheer size, congestion, public transportation, a river that flows year-round, and art and buildings dating back centuries. This world city is a great place to complete our one-month blitz of Britain. (Maybe "blitz" isn't the best choice of words.)

The curiously named British Museum.

London. The capital of a former empire where the sun never set. (The joke goes, because God didn't trust them in the dark.) Today you can hear almost any language spoken on the streets and Tube trains. Not just tourists, either. Our hotel is almost entirely staffed by Latvians. There was an African wedding reception in its pub dining room last night. We are located in a Polish neighborhood.  (There's a Polish-Chinese restaurant across the street.) Our server at breakfast is a Gujerati from Kenya.

The British Museum reflects that erstwhile empire. Bits and pieces collected, some say stolen, from all over the world. The Parthenon marbles are the most controversial. Having visited Athens, the Parthenon, and the Acropolis Museum, it is sad to see the marbles out of context. Mind you, the display in London is spacious, but juxtaposed with spectacular relics from Assyria, Egypt, Rome, Africa, China, India, Anatolia, Levant, Japan, the European Continent, it's a bit too much. It's not really a "British" museum.

By comparison, the Tate Britain gallery does focus on British art. There is more than enough to overwhelm. Beautiful, marvellous paintings they are. No wonder Shari wanted to see the Tate again. Ninteen years after her previous visit, there was no disappointment. It was tough to keep from taking photos even though the Tate website has accurate images readily downloadable.

Walking the Thames riverside was a little disappointing. The weather didn't help, but that's the climate here in autumn. Drab industrial piers along the river didn't help, but it is a working river. Homeless sleeping on benches and in camps under bridges didn't help, but London is a big city. Crowds of tourists didn't help, but London deservedly is a prime tourist destination. Odd, even bizarre shaped skyscapers and a ferris wheel dotting the skyline didn't help my appreciation, but that's only my lack of good taste.

What was a little frustrating was the number of buildings shrouded in scaffolding. They included MI5 and almost all of Westminister. Only the clock of poor Big Ben was visible peeking above the scaffolding.

So much for my goal of panoramic shots of The Thames and London. I did get some shots of police protection at No. 10 Downing St., but I wish I had the video camera on record to capture one tourist's reaction to being told there was a crowd there because it was No. 10 Downing. "What's that?" was the reaction.

"That's where the Prime Minister lives," was the explanation.

Stonehenge, Avebury, and St. James

To Yogi Berra is attributed the quote, "Nobody goes there any more. It's too crowded." Actually, it's an old line, but Berra was fond of it.

Our telephoto view of Stonehenge.

If you advance book for Stonehenge (and its website insists it is necessary), the fee to walk around (but not in) Stonehenge is £19. If you take a chance and just show up, it's €21.10. Parking is £5, refundable on the way out if you bought a ticket.

So some fifty dollars for the two of us buys an experience of one of the world's most famous historic sites, a Neolithic stone circle we believe to have been sacred. The modern experience? Park, pay, pay, shuttle bus ride, walk around the outside the circle with a crowd (a bit like the Kaaba). You can get no closer than about 100 feet, and mostly the permitted approach is about 400 feet distant.

Neolithic circles at Avebury.

I understand the need to control hordes of tourists, and I understand the need for the English Heritage Trust to collect money to pay for the cost of preserving not only Stonehenge, but some 400 other buildings, monuments, and sites.

I also understand tourist burn-out. Some tourist sites in Britain are popular and very crowded. Fine. But add one too many expensive entrance fees, one too many pay-and-display parking fees, and tourist burn-out. It hit us at Stonehenge.

It's late September. No one bothered to collect money at the humongous parking lot which was mostly empty when we arrived at opening time, but half-full when we left a couple of hours later. We discovered it was possible to walk the one and a half mile shuttle bus road to the site for free. That's what we did, and the heavens approved our decision. The rain and clouds cleared, resuming only as we drove away. We had a delightful walk through the open countryside.

English Heritage Trust has done a thorough job of keeping freebie lookers at a distance. Fences and two lime green vested young men at the gate kept folks without tickets away. It takes a telephoto lens to see the parade of people walking around a respectful distance from the stone circle.

Upon our return to the large visitor center, we wandered around the recreated examples of Neolithic huts. Inside one hut, three volunteers chatted and showed off recreated Neolithic pottery, thatch, flint tools, and horns. They demonstrated how they ground corn. They were retired men who just did it for the fun. One candidly admitted they would never work there as employees. Apparently, it either wasn't fun or employees weren't well treated. We said we were off to Avebury next. He smiled and approved.

It rained on the 23 mile drive to Avesbury, then cleared up just as we pulled into its English Heritage Trust parking lot. Pay and display. £7. The English woman ahead of us complained. She said she would not tell her husband or he would insist on immediately leaving.

St. James church, Avebury.

Everything else about Avesbury is on the plus side. A World Heritage site that you can touch and feel. Scattered visitors. No entrance fee. Nice cafeteria. (Great sausage rolls and soup of the day.) Freedom to roam around the paddocks littered with sheep doo-doo.

And the village itself, built into one side of the giant Neolithic circle, is also precious. Some thatched roof houses. And St. James church.

It seems that almost every village has an old church. Some, like Avebury, have portions that date back to Norman times. A few, like Avebury, have Saxon portions. It's an amazing experience to wander inside such a church.

Consider this detail from a website:  "Avebury manage[d] to keep its rood screen after Elizabeth I ordered all such screens to be destroyed in 1561[.] Apparently the parishioners disassembled the screen and carefully hid the timbers behind a false wall of lath and plaster against the east wall of the nave. [T]he screen timbers remained hidden until they were found by accident in 1810."

The Avebury rood screen. (from web)

As we left Avesbury, it began raining again. The gods had shined upon us at Stonehenge and at Avesbury.

Juliots Well and St. Julitta

The church dedicated to St. Julitta, Lanteglos-by-Camelford.
Currently under reconstruction, so this is a photo
from its website. The oldest parts date to Norman times.

Our base for three nights in Cornwall is one of the Juliots Well Cottages outside of Camelford by the River Camel. There is no evidence that there were any camels here, so the name is actually an English corruption of the Cornish name.

The other example is Port Isaac, the picturesque Cornish fishing village used as the location for the TV show, Doc Martin, which has nothing to do with any Isaac. Port Isaak is a corruption of Cornish "Porthsek," which means Corn Port.

Wikipedia is an easy source of information. Juliot is not a misspelling of the woman's name Julia, but a corruption of Julitta. St. Julitta (not the martyr) was an early Celtic saint who settled in nearby Tintagel Castle by the end of the 5th Century. A church in Camelford is dedicated to her, as was the Norman chapel at Tintagel Castle.

So, perhaps not surprisingly, there is history where we are staying at Juliots Well Cottages. And it's not just Arthurian. Camelford and seemingly every other place in southwest Britain claims some association with Arthurian legend. Shops abound selling crystals and Harry Potter stuff. This history of Julitta is of the earliest Christians in Britain.

Rivers, springs and wells have spiritual associations. So St. Julitta, who lived around these parts some seventeen hundred years ago, and a well named after the saint, has to be triple sacred.

So checking my trusty map of Juliots Well Park in the guest notebook, I hiked downhill across wet grass towards nearby Juliots Well.

You can't get there.

The descent to the river and the reputed well have been bulldozed and terraced. Tiny concrete pads have been poured. Plumbing and other utility conduits are sticking up, ready for even more manufactured homes. Some are marked with "sold" signs. There already are three existing streets lined with rows of manufactured homes planted and regularly spaced on small concrete pads.

The British tend to name their homes. So these manufactured homes have names like Westwood, Pinehurst, Forest Grove, Portland, Beechwood and even the whimsical Dunromin. In their bricked driveways, BMW's, Volvos and a Maseratti are parked.

What is marked as the "Dog Exercise Area" on my guest map is no more. It is an even larger construction site. A "Brand New Leisure Facility" is being built with indoor pool, sauna, lounge, cafe, fitness suite, etc.

All construction sites are fenced off.

Port Isaac (Porthsek), historic Cornish fishing village
and location for Doc Martin TV show shots.
Henry VIII had the breakwaters constructed.

I asked one couple how to get to Juliots Well. All they knew was that it was down the hill. They had no idea access was blocked. They had no idea of any St. Julitta. They were from London. They came often. (They probably owned one of the manufactured homes.) They liked the quiet in the countryside.

I stopped by the mobile office that manages and sells pads at the development. The young lady confirmed no access. It seems the contractor located a petrol tank there.

There may be access to Juliots Well some time in the future. I don't know. There is no mention on the construction site signs. Apparently, it was not sufficiently significant to preserve access during construction.

The cottages where we are staying were probably the first development. There is another duplex cottage next to us, then next to it an old stone building labeled "The Coach House Pub and Restaurant" and in smaller lettering, "17th Century Cornish Inn." It is closed.

I also asked the young lady at the office about plans for the inn. She didn't know, other than she thinks it's up for sale.

Times change but names remain. Cornwall understandably is a retreat and resort destination. Corn Port is no longer used to ship farm products or coal, wood or stone, as it has in the past. St. Julitta and the well associated with this 5th Century saint live on mostly in a parish church, a place name, and a vacation resort development.

That is what is intriguing to a history-buff and trivia-afficionado traveling around the Old World where so much written and physical history has been preserved. No matter where I look, there are endless layers of history.

Inclement Weather

If a forecast like this were to appear for the Sonoran Desert, it would portend floods of Biblical proportions. 90% and 100% chance of rain? All day? For days on end? At monsoon rates, that could be inches per hour.

But in the British Isles, it's only autumn. It's the drizzle and just plain overcast with occasional squalls and sunbreaks that keep everything green. It's the weather where hourly forecasts have little meaning.

View from King Arthur's Cafe.

Yesterday was forecasted to be a 90% rain all day. We got sunbreaks enough to enjoy a light lunch at King Arthur's Cafe, near King Arthur's Car Park and King Arthur's Arms Inn, all in the crowded village that lives off of the almost one-quarter of a million annual visitors to Tintagel Castle.

We got a window seat where we could enjoy Brits with their pet dogs, young families, tatooed and pierced Gothic folks, Arthurian enthusiasts, and German, French and US tourists.

Sunbreaks continued as we visited the English Heritage site, craggy Tintagel Castle ruins on the rugged north Cornwall coast.

Then as the rain set in, it was time to leave.

The ascent, footbridge visible in back.

Visitors to the site, and there were plenty on a rainy Sunday, wore an assortment of different dress. Some in shorts and T-shirts, others in hooded rain parkas.

As the squall set in, people continued filing down the steep path, then up to the footbridge leading to the shale-rocky promintory with its ruined medieval fortifications associated with Arthurian lore.

One woman climbing the narrow steep path that clung to the cliffside (only occasional guard rails) wore Wellington boots. Another flip-flops. Both were headed in, not out.

The footbridge (English Heritage website)

Anatomy of Travel: Planning, Endurance & Serendipity

Beryl Country House, Wells. Our room is the open
window on the top right, where I am writing.

We were having lunch in Stow-on-the-Wold. In a pub, of course. The Bell with its photos of Prince Charles and the queen mum pulling beers at that very same pub. A party of two couples took the table next to ours. We exchanged conversations of where we were from. Even English are tourists in the Cotswolds. The woman talking with us was from Lincoln. She ran a hotel there. She asked where Shari and I had been and we listed places, including York.

"Not Lincoln?" she asked. "Lincoln Cathedral is much larger and more wonderful than York. You should have seen Lincoln," she added with some competitive pride and just a hint of disdain.

Wells Cathedral

Lincoln I had heard of. But how can one see everything? We only have one month. One month! Most vacations are one week. Even if you are a starving student with a backpack bumming around for a summer, or comfortably retired and reasonably healthy making traveling your second career, or living and/or working locally and traveling around each weekend, you still can't see everything in a place like Britain — or Ireland or any other country in Europe, or in the world for that matter.

Yesterday afternoon after visiting Glastonbury and Wells, we were sitting in one of the Victorian appointed lounges of the Beryl Country House (1838, but mercifully renovated and upgraded since). A young couple comes in to serve themselves a drink from the honour bar. We exchanged conversations of where we were from. They were from London. When we described how we had been to Wales, the woman commented, "We've never been to Wales."

Glastonbury Abbey. Arthur's grave is a plaque in the middle of the lawn.

What you end up seeing is limited by what little you know about what to see, endurance, and serendipity.

We had planned to stay on Anglesey Island last night. That is northwest Wales. That is knowing a little of w hat you want to see. Then three days ago we realized that a five and a half hour drive from Anglesey to Cornwall made no sense. That's endurance or, more accurately, reality. Hence we decided to stay at the Beryl Country House. (Actually, we booked another place, then the next morning got an email that they really had no room and had booked us at the Beryl instead. That's serendipity,  but another story.)

We booked three nights in Carmarthen planning to use it as a base for Wales. Cardiff is a must see place in Wales, said Shari's distant Welsh cousin. That's planning. It was one too many cities, churches, castles, narrow streets, and pay-and-display parking lots. That's endurance, or the lack of it. We simply drove past and headed to Somerset in England. That, as it turned out, was serendipity.

Our plan was to see Glastonbury, its Celtic Tor hill, and its ruined abbey, the mythical site of all things King Arthur, and the darling of the New Age set — of which we are sympathetic. The abbey was among the first in Britain and, before Henry VIII pilfered it, was Britain's wealthiest.

Inside Wells Cathedral.

What happened was we drove through Wells first to get our room at the Beryl. We noticed an impressive Gothic church towering over the small town. We marveled at the Beryl House, squashed our feelings of not being worthy, then headed for the first place we could get some lunch. A pub, of course. Our car being parked, we walked the two blocks to that gothic church and realized it and Wells itself were stunning treasures.

But our plan was Glastonbury. We decided to drive the eight miles, see the sights, and maybe have a closer look at Wells afterwards if we had the time and energy.

To be honest, Glastonbury didn't impress us that much. What's left of Glastonbury Abbey is nothing compared to what we had seen and experienced at Tintern Abbey in Wales near the English border. King Arthur's tomb isn't really a sight, just a plaque and a concept. We skipped the Neolithic and now neo-pagan Chalice Well. We drove past the Tor twice looking for its play-and-display parking lot, but noticed the stream of tourists climbing up the trail to get to the top of the rather steep and tall hill.

Back to Wells.

Inside Wells Cathedral.

Again to be honest, I had no idea there was a place in England named Wells. The Wells with which I am familiar with is on the Great Basin Highway where it intersects I-80 in northern Nevada. Shari and I often fueled our cars in Wells during our three-day, 24-hour driving time, 1600 mile migrations between Seattle and Tucson. It's impossible to imagine anything more radically different than Wells in Nevada and Wells in Somerset.

Probably because it was not connected to any abbey, the Wells Cathedral, dedicated to St. Andrew the Apostle, survived Henry VIII's destructive Dissolution of the Monasteries relatively intact. It still has statues in niches on the outside walls. Inside, it is a marvel of light and simple, open shapes.

Our delight with Wells was enhanced by the wedding that had to conclude before we were allowed inside. Imagine cathedral bells ringing as the wedding party emerges from the main entrance, sunshine on them, the cathedral front, and the large expanse of green lawn dotted with picknicking couples, children, and visitors. Imagine medieval bishop's quarters, schools, row houses, and narrow shopping streets and squares crowded with Saturday market stalls.

Rhys ap Thomas, the Tudors, and Connections

Pembroke Castle where Henry Tudor was born.

Whoever ill-affected to the state, shall dare to land in those parts of Wales where I have any employment under your majesty, must resolve with himself to make his entrance and irruption over my belly.

In a nutshell, Rhys ap Thomas promised Richard III that if anyone landed in Wales to attack him, it would have to be over his body. The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) were still going on. The Welsh nobleman Rhys had confirmed his support for King Richard and, in exchange, he was rewarded with money and the job of defending SW Wales.

Henry Tudor was Richard's rival and enemy. He had fled to France, secured help from the French king, and returned as an invader with a small force of French and Scottish soldiers. They landed in Southwest Wales at Mill Bay, Pembrokeshire.

Mullock Bridge in the countryside of
southwest Wales near Pembroke and the bay where
Henry Tudor's invasion force landed from France.

It was Rhys' job to attack the invaders, but he changed sides and joined Henry instead.

Promises were rather serious matters back in those days, as was the fear of eternal damnation for breaking them. As one story goes, a clever priest offered a solution which Rhys adopted. He stood or sat under a bridge near Mill Bay, Mullock Bridge, as Henry Tudor (likely, his advance guard) rode over the bridge. His promise was fullfilled to the letter, if not the principle.

Rhys, then others, joined Henry and defeated Richard's army at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485). Richard was killed - the last English monarch to die in battle. Some thirty years of dynastic warfare were decisively ended. Henry become Henry VII, the first Tudor king and the father of the better known Henry VIII and the grandfather of Elizabeth I.

The tomb of Siir Rhys ap Thomas in St. Peter's Church,
Carmanthen. Henry VII knighted and
rewarded Rhys with Carew Castle, and Rhys is
a bit of a hero in these parts.

Had Rhys not switched sides, Shakespeare would not have written Richard the Third, glorifying the Tudors for the sake of Elizabeth I and demeaning Richard. "A horse. A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" The English Reformation may never have happened, and a Catholic regime may have surpressed the remarkable creativity that we know today as the Elizabethan period.

Here's the interesting rub. Rhys is credited, according to the eyewitness who wrote a poem about the feat, of being the man who killed Richard III on the battlefield of Bosworth.

The name Rhys and its variants Rees, Reese, Ris, Rice, and Reece are common enough in Wales that there is no assurance Rhys ap ("son of") Thomas is Shari's blood ancestor. Shari's mother's maiden name is Rees and her ancestors came from Felindre in Wales, north of Carmarthen. But certainly, there is no harm in pondering and basking in the possibility.

Tintern Abbey

William Wordsworth wrote a poem entitled Tintern Abbey.

Actually, its full title is "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798." And it actually is about the River Wye and never mentions the Abbey.

The valley and the little stream that runs by Tintern are not only lush, intimate and beautiful, but on a sunny day like yesterday, the area is peaceful and filled with the sounds of doves and finches.

But in my opinion, Wordsworth missed the real gem, the spectacular ruins of the Abbey.

Maybe there were too many ruins in Britain for any one ruin to attract the inspiration of the poet. Maybe the River Wye was more special to Wordsworth than a ruin. But then, especially in the late 18th Century, before the days of motorways, automobile dins, and chattering tourists, there would have been plenty of idyllic nature scenes to inspire poets great and mediocre.

We were lucky to get there early on a sunny day. We had the place to ourselves for the first half an hour, and only a handful of visitors had arrived by the time we left. But the two parking lots were ominously large.

Tintern Abbey is no ordinary ruin. It is one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen. It's not even a sight as much as an experience.

The soaring open stone shapes are amazing, all framed with the lush green of the lawn that serves as its floor, and the green of the trees, paddocks and bushes of the small valley that is the setting for this jewel.

It is more a fantastic sculpture than a ruin.

The destruction of royal greed and survival is imprinted upon seemingly every church and castle in Britain. Tintern was a thriving Cistercian abbey in the early Middle Ages. But even before Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and pocketed their wealth (even the Abbey's lead roof was stripped and sold off) the population decline of the Black Plague and the damage from Welsh revolts against the English rulers took their toll.

The odd thing for me is my suspicion that ruin has improved the Abbey. Its exposed bones in their simplicity, shapes and grandeur strike me as an amazingly powerful blend of art, spirituality, and nature — and not a little sense of timeless haunting.