Day Trips in England! (Part 1)

So it's been raining for the past three days in Newcastle, and of course, I've lost my umbrella. At least I have my raincoat and my wellies, which by the way, no one wears here. My flatmate said to me this morning, "You look like you're going to go for a walk through a lake." haha I don't understand why no one wears rain boots because it rains all the time here. Oh well, I guess I'm not at Loyola.

Anyway, I want to dedicate this blog post to all of the weekend day trips I've gone on since I've been here. I've explored pretty English towns and have seen a lot of old stuff, such as monasteries, abbeys, cathedrals, and castles. I did some internet research about each place I've visited to add a little info. in my descriptions, and I put a links to each place if you want to see/read more about it. Hopefully, this will be somewhat interesting!

Tynemouth: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/tynemouth-priory-and-castle/

Tynemouth is a cute coastal town, that's situated on the mouth of the River Tyne, which opens to the North Sea. After walking through town a bit, we went to the Tynemouth Castle and Priory. It has a 2000 year old history. It began as an Anglo-Saxon settlement, an Anglican monastery, a royal castle, artillery fort, and a coastal defense. There is also a large graveyard there. According to Wikipedia, there are three kings buried there. But the graveyard was huge, so I'm not sure who else is buried there or if they have some importance. After wandering through the ruins of the priory and the castle, we went to the cliffs on the coast of the North Sea. The view was so fascinating; it looked as if I was staring at a postcard or a beautiful painting. The pictures I have don't do the amazing scene justice. There are two piers that extend from the coast out to the sea, and they have two beautiful lighthouses on the end of them, which protect the northern and southern flanks of the Tyne River mouth. After exploring the Castle and Priory, we went to get some classic fish and chips at a place called "Marshall's" in town. Although I'm not a fan of fried food, I felt that since I'm in England I had to get fish and chips at least once. I can't say I will be getting it again, but it wasn't too bad. After walking around Tynemouth a bit more, we headed back to Newcastle on the train.

(cobble stone streets in town)

(an old church, but currently a market)

(part of the Priory and the Castle in the background)

(view on our way up to the Priory and Castle)

(ruins of the old Priory)

(ruins of the old Castle)

(view of the North Sea)

(me in front of the lighthouses)

(graveyard with the Priory and Castle in the background)

(Marshall's, where we ate fish and chips)

Chatsworth House: http://www.chatsworth.org/

We visited Chatsworth House (located in North Derbyshire) on our way to London. Originally, this stately home was the Duke of Devonshire's residence. Since 1549, the Duke's family, the Cavendish family, has lived at the house. I discovered this when I entered the house and saw a sign that said, "Welcome to our home," with a picture of an older man and woman. At first, I had no idea that people still lived in the house! Apparently, they have parts of the house strictly for tourism, but the rest of the house is connected in a way that the residents don't have to pass through the public in their own house. I went into all of the open rooms in the house, including a sculpture room, a library, a dining room, a bed room and many other rooms with huge, beautiful paintings, chandeliers, and other decorations. The entire house is very lavish, both inside and outside. The architecture of the house itself is really cool. Before going inside the house, we explored its never-ending surrounding property, gardens, and fountains for about two hours. The first thing we saw was a "water works" show that was pretty old-fashioned, but still cool. There is a huge fountain that begins at some sort of old building set on top of a hill. The water flows from the base of the building and then flows down a series of about 100 stairs until it collects in a pool at the bottom. Well, we saw a bunch of people on the stairs moving out of the way all of the sudden because the fountain was starting! So we stood on the stairs until the water reached us! It probably wasn't that cool, but I thought it was. So after that, we also walked around the paths outside, saw some sculptures, and climbed some rocks. I'm glad that we stopped at the Chatsworth House.

(part of the Chatsworth House)

(landscape around the Chatsworth House)

(another part of the Chatsworth House)

(the "water works" fountain show)

(the beginning of the fountain)

("modern art" in front of the fountain)

(Chatsworth gardens)

(on top of some piled rocks we found)

(sculpture room)

(inside the house!)

(Most of the rooms looked like this.)

(on the grounds of the House)

Stratford on Avon: http://www.stratford-upon-avon.co.uk/

On our way back to Newcastle from our trip to London, we stopped at Stratford upon Avon, William Shakespeare's birthplace. Stratford is a cute, small town, situated on the banks of the Avon River. First, we went on a tour of Shakespeare's house. Before we went into his actual home, we went through a series of themed rooms, each showing a video about Shakespeare's life. If I remember correctly, about 13 people, including Shakespeare's parents, his wife, his daughter, and some maids, would have resided in the house at the time. It is a pretty large house, but I can't picture that many people living in it. There were a few artifacts on display, such as personal belongings, kitchen tools, and random things from the house. I saw the bed/bed area where Shakespeare was supposedly born. The weird thing about the tour was how the videos/guide always said "probably." Like.. This is probably his house, and this is probably the bed he was born in, and this is probably his first book. I'm hoping I saw his actual house? haha Well, what stuck out the most to me was the black sparkly staircase between the two floors. Anywayyyy, after taking a tour of the inside of his house, we went around the back and the side of the house to see the pretty flower gardens. Then, we wandered around the city and got some "lunch" (I had a banana chocolate crape. haha) at a place called "The Food of Love," and I also got some raisin and rum ice cream at an ice cream shop down the street. We also took a walk down to the Avon River. It was really small, but it had a lot of cool boats on it that were like little stores and sold paintings or ice cream. Stratford was a really nice, cute English town to visit on a lovely afternoon.

(yup!)

(Shakespeare's house)

(back of Shakespeare's house)

(my banana chocolate crape)

(Avon River)

(My friends and I standing over the river)

(a popular street in Stratford)

I'm going to split up my weekend day trips into two parts since these three trips have already taken up a lot of space with the pictures I added. The next post should be up very soon, I promise! 

Well, I hope I'm not boring any of you to death. Thanks for reading, everyone! :)