Smugglersweg

A few months ago, ambitiously, I bought a book called "Walking in The Bavarian Alps". Most of the walks in our book are quite up and down so we decided to start easily by doing a valley walk along "Smuggler's Trail" down past Chiemsee. It was a very pretty trail to follow through meadows and woods. We crossed the border into Austria and near the end of the trail we crossed a bridge and had lunch at a lovely Gasthaus. At the Gasthaus there was live music (see the photo below with the beers in the pond behind them). Unfortunately after lunch and a beer we had to walk back!

Foxton, Birmingham, Ironbridge and Leicester

For our first outing from Nuneaton, Mike took us to a family favourite, the Foxton Locks – an impressive piece of engineering from the early 1800’s on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal. These consist of a still operating, double series of 5 staircase locks, plus the rusting remains of a later ambitious inclined plane boat lift.

The last time we visited Birmingham, it was to the bustling Bull Ring shopping area. We have since found that there is a whole lot more to the city. For one, it apparently has more miles of canals then Venice. Many of the original industrial areas beside the canals have now been redeveloped. The Brindley Place office/commercial/restaurant zone is reasonably sympathetically done and obviously popular with the local populace, particularly for hen’s parties.

Whilst I was exploring, Ingrid, Mike and Pat found refuge in a variety of bars and cafes. You may guess what was served in their favourite, the Epernay bar. Sadly, this was apparently badly damaged in the “civil” riots of the weekend after.

Continuing on the canals and engineering theme of our holiday, we visited Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, touted as the birthplace of the industrial revolution.

Leicester does not feature grandly in the guide books, but it turned out to be a gem. Due to considerable immigration from Pakistan and Southern India since the 60’s, it is renowned for the flavours of the subcontinent. This was delightfully apparent as we wandered through the covered market in the city centre. We visited the cathedral, which has a regimental chapel and a memorial stone to Richard III, who rode from here to the (for him, fatal) Battle of Bosworth. The cathedral also features some impressively ornate ceilings.

Although it was closed, a very pleasant lady let me in to see the interior of the 15^th century Guildhall. The timber framed structure has moved over the years and now has a marvellous crooked house feel. It is reputedly haunted.

Whilst Ingrid went shopping, I went on a pilgrimage through mostly derelict industrial areas along the River Soar and branches of the Grand Union Canal. It was quite eerie, desolate and beautiful at the same time. It was inspiring to see the obvious pride that went into the building of the factories, canals and various elements of infrastructure.

Amongst all this, it was a shock to come across the National Space Centre with its suitably science fiction inspired tower housing the Blue Streak and Thor rockets.

 

My goal in this trek in the rain was the Abbey Pumping Station with its magnificently decorated, steam powered, Woolf compound rotative beam engines previously used for the inglorious task of pumping the city’s sewerage at the rate of 200,000 gallons per hour.

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Cotswolds, Bath, Stonehenge and Oxford

We decided to give Mike and Pat a break from us and went travelling for a few days. We headed south along small narrow roads through the extremely picturesque Cotswolds:

We did a great free walking tour of Bath and got to see some wonderful sights including the Royal Crescent, top, which has been used in countless movies. Needless to say Malcolm did not want to do the Jane Austin tour of Bath but we still got to see some of the sights.

The major highlight in Bath is, of course, the 2000 year old Roman Baths. The Romans set up an amazing complex of bathhouses here taking advantage of the constant 46 degree temperature of the water.

In the evening we went to one of Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurants which had great food and wine. After touring around in the morning we headed to Stonehenge, a place I have wanted to visit since I was a child. It was great to be able to see it as it had been set up in such a way that even with lots of people there it didn't feel crowded.

We then spent the night at a pub in a small town before heading off towards Oxford. On the way we stopped to see the Uffington White Horse from the Bronze Age.

After walking up to see this we then headed to Oxford. This was very crowded but we did get to see some great sights. We first went to the Museum of the History of Science which even included a blackboard used by Einstein. We did a tour of the Duke Humfrey's library, where the library scene from Harry Potter was filmed as well as the Divinity School where the hospital scenes were shot. They also had on display Shakespeare's first Folio. We then headed to Christ Church College to see its Dining Hall that was also used in the films.

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Blenheim Palace and Chatsworth House.

After the last few visits to England being in winter we decided to go in the Summer so we could get to see some of the great stately homes. 

Pat and Mike were also interested in visiting a couple with us and were especially interested in going to Blenheim and Chatsworth. This worked out well as we then got to have Pat's fantastic picnics!

The first weekend we went to Blenheim Palace and, although the weather was not that summery, the Palace was beautiful. It was built in the early 1700s for the Duke of Marlborough (John Churchill) and is now a UNESCO site. Winston Churchill was born here. 

The following weekend we went to Chatsworth House which has been used in countless adaptations of Jane Austin novels. The grounds were superb and we spent a few hours wandering around them - quite a bit of this time in the great maze!  Inside the house was equally superb with us spending a number of hours inside as well. Disappointingly though we missed out on the classic "Chatsworth House" shot due to scaffolding.

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Visitors

At the end of July we were lucky enough to have more visitors come to stay. My niece Bianca, her husband Graham and their two kids Casey and Sienna were doing a 3 month European Vacation. They were definitely making the most of it and for us, besides being great to see them, we got to really see how family oriented Munich is. We also got to enjoy very late nights staying up and talking when the kids went to bed. It was great to get this opportunity to get to know Bianca better and find out what a great guy Graham is.