Robot Claw

The (first class) train to Bath was great. Comfortable and speedy with free drinks and snacks, we could barely believe the quality of service for the relatively low price!

Once in bath we checked into our spacious apartment right in the downtown area (near all the attractions) and walked around the street for lunch.

We’re not that close to the sea (especially compared to Brighton) but there’s a lot of seagulls here and they are professional beggars! We hadn’t noticed the ‘please don’t feed the gulls‘ signs until after we’ve fed them a few scraps, but even so we stopped anyway when we watched one dive bomb some guy and steal a piece of pizza right out of his hands!

About a minutes walk from our apartment is this 500 year old Anglican Abbey. For only £6 each, we took a guided tour up the tower (221 steps!) and onto the very top. Here’s one view from up there:

As you can see Bath is a very pretty town. We’ll be visiting some of the more famous attractions tomorrow. The church tower tour was particularly good though, and the icing on the cake was the very pretty your guide who even said ‘too right’ like an Aussie 🙂

The river Avon flows through bath and the Pulteney Bridge, which crosses the river, is not only famous for its construction and the fact it has shops on it but is also older than Australia! (I keep running into things older than Australia here…)

I took that photo from the south side. Look closely and you’ll see two circular windows in the supports. Here’s a shot taken from inside the basement of the mosaic shop, which looks out through the rightmost of the two windows:

It would be a charming place to live!

Lots more Bath tomorrow…

Super tired after another day in Brighton. Amongst other things, we went to the Royal Pavilion.

Photography wasn’t permitted inside so I snuck the above. It’s a 200 year old Palace of incredible opulence. I wrote more about it on your postcard. Maybe 🙂

That’s the pier again. We rode the ghost train today, which was dumb but fun. We also spent more time in the penny arcade and won two key chains in the Star Trek machine 😛

That’s the i360, a brand new tourist attraction that opened today of all days! Lines were astonishing and we only saw the donut-like platform rise and fall once. Perhaps wind stymied it, but then I doubt they would have built it here were it not windproof.

As you can see it was a lovely day. We spent hours in the sun and I’m totally knackered. Tomorrow we’re off to our next destination. I wonder what we’ll see?

That’s the view from the balcony of our Brighton hotel. As you can see it’s a lovely day, albeit very windy. Still, the rain is gone!

The train trip here was short and sweet, and we spent the afternoon exploring the seaside and shopping district. There’s a lot of people here, but there will be many many more in a few days when Gay Pride starts.

The lighting here is worth mentioning. None of the photos in today’s post have any colour correction on them, and everything looked bright and very colorful in the sunlight filtered through the clouds.

That’s a Pac-Man fruit machine (i.e. old-fashioned gambling machine)! This was in one of the many gambling arcades, and actually pays out in 10p coins if you win!

KLS eating a champagne flavored Magnum!

By later in the day the wind had gotten nearly cyclonic and when we returned to the pier to see the rides at night most of them were closed because of the wind.

Maybe we’ll get a chance to ride a few tomorrow 🙂

That’s a direct quote from the weather girl this morning. While it did rain, I think she was being a bit dramatic. We were up early in Hyde Park and the birds were there to greet us.

We visited the famous Harrods department store which is a surreal place with its mad (but stylish) decor – such as the Egyptian escalators – and items that only the insanely rich could afford. For instance take this Faberge egg:

It’s yours for a mere £500,000! And that doesn’t even include the ring, which cost an additional £152,000! If I had that money I reckon I’d spend it on something more houselike!

It rained most of the day, and we pottered around the Soho area doing a bit of shopping. Eventually the rain grew heavy enough we snuck into a pub for lunch…

And then visited the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square.

Afterwards, a bit more shopping…

And then back to the hotel to die a little after four very long and busy days! We need a vacation!

Good thing we’re heading to the seaside tomorrow 🙂

Yesterday we went on a bus tour.

Our first stop was Leeds Castle, a beautiful old castle that has had many owners and iterations over several hundred years. The interior is an unusual mix of the old and new.

My favourite room was the library 🙂

We could have easily spent more time in the grounds of the castle exploring the hedge maze and falcon show but we’re on a tight schedule and only managed to squeeze in a sausage roll!

Our next – very brief – stop was the pebble beach at Dover.

We then continued to lovely Canterbury with its famous Cathedral, the seat of the Anglican Church.

This is a seriously old building, almost 1000 years in fact, and awe inspiring in its size and majesty.

I was particularly impressed by the abundance and beauty of the stained glass. That’s a more recent example above, and was many meters tall.

After Canterbury we then ended up in Greenwich for a Thames cruise back to London. It was a long day, but we got to see a lot 🙂