The Magical Mystery Tour

We went to Liverpool and took the Magical Mystery Tour of the Beatles sites! It was tons of fun! I'll walk you through the sites so you can feel like you've taken the Magical Mystery Tour too.

First I'll show you the homes we saw, in the order we saw them.

George Harrison's birthplace at 12 Arnold Grove.

Here's Mendips, the childhood home of John Lennon where he lived with his Aunt Mimi and Uncle George. And this is 20 Forthlin Road, one of the many childhood homes of Paul McCartney in Liverpool. It's the last Liverpool house he lived in, and over 100 Beatles songs were written here.



This is the street Ringo was born on. A few years after he was born his family moved to another house in this same row. Here are the gates to Strawberry Field. I actually thought the song was about a field where strawberries were grown. Those of you who are hard-core Beatles fans will know it was actually a Salvation Army orphanage, and John Lennon used to play in this wooded area behind the orphanage. As you can see, there's lots of defacing graffiti--very unfortunate.

Apparently these Penny Lane signs get stolen ALL THE TIME. I can't say I blame people for stealing them--I love that song!

We especially loved all the stories our guide Neal told us. He told us about the first meeting of Paul McCartney and John Lennon (as we rode past the church where the meeting took place); he told us about many of the Beatles performances in Liverpool; he told us about letting George into the band and why they brought Ringo on board (because he was good with the ladies--unbelievable, I know); but my favorite Neal quote is: "Paul McCartney's always told me not to name drop." :) (Apparently he really has met McCartney several times, and he even played John Lennon's best friend in a US made-for-TV movie about the Beatles.)

As a souvenir from the Tour, we got this rare photo of the Beatles playing at the Cavern Club, where they played 275 times between 1961 and 1963. We went into the Cavern Club to get our souvenir photo and saw this stage.

Isles and Miles

Monday we visited the beautiful Wrest Park (click here to read about mine and Jacob's first trip to Wrest). We were fascinated to find out the reason most of the house isn't open for visitors: it is leased to business tenants! Businesses actually rent space inside the mansion, and most of the features of the house have been stripped out. It's still beautiful from the outside.

Tuesday we drove up north to visit Bolsover Castle and Brodsworth Hall & Gardens. The first photo is the amazing view from Bolsover Castle--breathtaking. The second photo is Brodsworth Hall, which was actually a private residence until 1988. You can also see a few people (dressed in white) playing croquet on the lawn between the house and the formal gardens. We loved both these sites!

Thursday we went to the Isle of Wight, and my friend Emily accompanied us. Our first stop on the Isle was the Osborne House, built in the 1840s by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria. It was absolutely incredible! The photo is of a room called the Durbar Room, which is the Hindi word for "court." The room was built for banquets and reflects the British rule of India during Queen Victoria's reign. The photo doesn't adequately convey the full beauty of the room; it was extraordinary.

And here's a shot of me and my friend Emily outside the house.
While on the Isle of Wight, we also visited Carisbrooke Castle. The fascinating fact about Carisbrooke Castle is that they still employ donkeys on the 16th century tread wheel to draw water from the well. These are 2 of the donkeys at Carisbrooke--cute, aren't they?

Friday we visited a couple of castles nearby: Framlingham and Orford.

Saturday we went to the site of the 1066 Battle of Hastings, the most significant date in English history. For those of you a little rusty on your history, the Battle was won by the Normans and their leader William the Conqueror, and the battle changed the course of English history, language and culture. Battle Abbey was built on the site shortly after the Battle of Hastings, and ruins of the Abbey are still on the site. The highlight of the day for us was the falconry demonstration. The birds are incredible!

With all the traveling we've been doing, I've put over 3,000 miles on the car in just 2 weeks! I know it's not a record or anything, but it's a record for me! And I'd be interested to hear if any of you can beat it: 3,000+ miles on your car in less than 2 weeks and sleeping in your own home and your own bed every single night--no hotels.

Speaking of miles, here's a photo of Jacob he emailed. (Gorgeous, as usual!) He's covering a lot of miles this summer hopping from one location to another working on his audit. He's doing well and surviving the heat. We hope he'll be home the first week of August.

East to West

It's been another busy week, so I'll just go chronologically, beginning with this photo of Nick operating a cannon in the Medieval Tunnels at Dover Castle on Monday. The weather was CRAZY that morning--lots of wind and rain.

Later that day we went to Walmer Castle, and the weather wasn't crazy anymore, but we did have to evacuate the castle and wait for the Deal Fire Department to let us back in!

Tuesday we went to an old mansion house, Kirby Hall. It's partially roofless, but it was beautiful. We especially loved all the peacocks wandering around.
Wednesday we went to Stonehenge, then to Stockton (where our ancestor was a vicar in the church there in the 1500s), then to Bath. It rained heavily all day Wednesday; we got soaking wet early and didn't get dry until we got home at 10:30 PM! This is the heel stone at Stonehenge. I think it looks like a thumb. (Notice my umbrella going crazy.)

Here Nick is standing in the Bath Abbey--amazing ceiling! We've alreay mentioned Audley End house a few times on the blog, but Nick and I went there Friday. It was beautiful! Saturday we went back to London and visited many cool sites, including the grave of Karl Marx. We also visited the British Museum and saw the Rosetta Stone and other great art and artifacts.

Art, history and more

This should probably be 3 different posts, but what can I say--we had a really busy week, and we did lots of fun (but unrelated) things. Here goes...

In Ipswich this week we came upon a few exhibits of the Ipswich Arts Festival, or Ip-art as they call it. For example, this chainsaw artist (below) makes his sculptures from trunks of actual trees. This sculpture was incredible; the links in the chain all move just like a real chain. And it was made from one piece of wood (a tree trunk) with a chainsaw! The same artist also did the sculpture Nick is admiring above.

In York we enjoyed the York Castle Museum. We're probably not related to this Joseph Terry (if we are, it's not a direct link), but he did something extremely important in York in the 1700s: he operated the candy shop! You might recognize the Terry name from Terry's chocolate oranges, which we still eat (and enjoy) today.

We also enjoyed the Sixties room in the Museum. Here's a photo of me in the 'mod pod' chair.

We went to London and visited the Tower of London. We enjoyed the over-the-top, amazing Crown Jewels. (Unfortunately, photography wasn't permitted, but you can click on the link.) We got to take a tour led by one of the famous Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters). And did you know that Beefeaters and their families, as well as a few others, live within the Tower of London walls? (I'd like to know where they park.) They even have a guard in front of their houses (I also captured one of the famous Tower of London ravens in this photo).

Also at the Tower of London was this set of armor. Apparently the wearer felt he needed extra protection...

We went to the Tate Modern museum in London where we saw works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Claude Monet, Max Ernst and many more. Here's a colorful Matisse to whet your modern art appetite.

Sandringham Estate

Sandringham House was built in 1870 by the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and it's been passed down through several generations of monarchs. Today Sandringham is the country retreat of Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. They spend 6-8 weeks at Sandringham each year, including Christmas. We were informed by staff in the house that each room has a Christmas tree when HM arrives every year in mid-December. Visitors are only allowed to visit a limited number of rooms in the house, but the grounds and gardens are gorgeous (as you can see).
We also enjoyed the museum, filled mostly with vintage royal cars. The first photo is a miniature car, but apparently it runs like a real one. Maybe it's too small in the photo, but the car bears the name of its owner. ("HRH Prince Charles") The second photo is the first car owned by a member of the royal family: a 1900 Daimler phaeton. Apparently it's still in working condition.