Category: #50places2026

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Leeds #50places2026

Leeds Town Hall

Leeds is a place I have visited many times, I even lived there for a few months back in 1990. My last visit to Leeds was in September 2024 when I was there for a team meeting. It’s a place I usually visit for work, attending conferences, meetings and other events.

lake and build gins at the University of Leeds

I was in Leeds this time for a conference. I was staying at a central hotel, so as a result spent time walking from the hotel to the conference venue. I also had some time to walk around the city and having a meal.

I was pleased to have reached my fifty places in 2025 for my #50places2025 series of blog posts. This year I am planning to do something similar with a new hashtag, #50places2026 and it will be the same rules. Each time I visit a place I will post a blog post and some photographs. I can’t repeat places, and in an extra twist I can’t use the fifty places I visited in 2025 in the list as well (though I anticipate visiting some of those places again).

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Clevedon #50places2026

Clevedon

I went for a walk along the seafront at Clevedon, which is just up the road from me. I nearly went down the pier, but it was quite cold and windy. Then it started to rain, which cut my walk short.

I did think I had been there in 2025 and would have logged it in my #50places2025 visits. However, it looks like my last visit to Clevedon was back in December 2024. I think when deciding places for a walk, I have been to Portishead more frequently. I have visited Clevedon quite a bit over the years, so I was a little surprised I hadn’t visited in 2025. That said I did visit Clevedon Court, but as that is on the road to Tickenham I’ve not really thought of it in Clevedon itself.

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Pageant of Transport #50places2026

The Easter weekend saw a range of cars drop into Weston-super-Mare for the annual Pageant of Transport.

I did wonder if I should have shown off the Funky Cat. They did have some quite new cars there, and it did appear that you only needed to pay for a ticket and then you could display your car. I am guessing that if I was in an Ora Funky Car club of some kind, we could have planned to showcase a range of Funky Cats. One reason I was hesitant, well there was a few reasons, but one key reason was that the Funky Cat is an electric vehicle and virtually all the other cars at the Pageant had internal combustion engines. There is still some weird unfounded negativity towards electric cars, which I don’t quite understand. Another reason was that I would have had to park up all day at the Pageant and wasn’t sure I wanted to do that on my own.

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A la Ronde #50places2026

A la Ronde

After visiting Castle Drogo, it was only a short drive to A la Ronde, which is just past Exeter on the road to Exmouth.

A la Ronde

Characterful 16-sided house and grounds with views of the Exe estuary, built in 1796 by cousins Jane & Mary Parminter. Filled with curious mementoes of their Grand Tour travels, and handcrafted decorations from shell, feather and paper.

Current saving £118.30
One adult £12.00
Parking Free
Total saving £12.00
Cumulative saving £226.30
Membership cost £96
Net cumulative saving £130.30

I loved this house, this is not a grand mansion, but certainly is a large house across four floors. The odd shaped house has odd shaped rooms. The house was the brainchild of two cousins, who after touring Europe for ten years wanted a house that echoed their experiences. A later relative, as they do, converted the house, adding another floor to the property. The top floor is now closed to visitors, and was more of a gallery decorated with shells and feathers. It is now too delicate for people to go and see. What I initially didn’t realise that there is also a lower ground floor that comprises the kitchen and store rooms.

This was an beautiful house and an incredible experience. Certainly a place I would like to visit again.

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Castle Drogo #50places2026

I had planned to visit Castle Drogo last week, but in the end decided not to, as I knew I was heading off to Oxford on Monday and needed time to do stuff at home. So, with the sun shining, I drove down the M5 to Castle Drogo.

Castle Drogo

Where dramatic architecture meets innovative family home. A 20th century castle overlooking the Teign Gorge.

Current saving £96.30
One adult £18.00
Parking £4.00
Total saving £22.00
Cumulative saving £214.30
Membership cost £96
Net cumulative saving £118.30

This is for all intents and purposes a modern castle. Construction started in 1911 and though the family moved in, in 1926, it still wasn’t finished.

The castle was given to the National Trust in 1974, the first building constructed in the twentieth century that the Trust acquired.

It is one of those buildings that for me, is just doesn’t work. It feels like a fake castle, and that isn’t just because it is fake, but I think the way it was built using blocks of granite makes it look quite artificial. In some places it looks like concrete bunkers. I think the issue is that it is too neat and tidy, too new. Which isn’t surprising as it is less than a hundred years old. You can’t really compare this castle to, say Chirk Castle, which was built in 1295 and became a family home there hundred years later.

Inside the layout feels strange with varying staircases, rooms on different levels and feeling quite, I should say cosy, but actually what I want to say is claustrophobic.

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my visit to the castle, it was a great experience to explore the rooms, and it felt like most of the castle was open to visitors. I really enjoyed going through the kitchen and store rooms. I was equally impressed with the hydro electric that was installed, complete with batteries, a sustainable house well before its time.

The National Trust has many houses you can visit, this is one I did want to go and see, and all in all, it was an enjoyable trip.

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Brasenose College #50places2026

I have visited Oxford many times over the years. I also worked there for a couple of years (doing extreme commuting). Looking back, the last time I was in Oxford was in 2023. I had though in those visits never visited Brasenose College. It was founded in 1509. It is one of the many college that constitute the University of Oxford.

I was attending a conference there over two days and it certainly is a splendid building, and though I wasn’t able to explore I did enjoy walking around the various quads.

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Copenhagen #50places2026

Having enjoyed my (extreme) day trips to Venice and Madrid, it is probably no surprise that I booked anther one. This time I was off to Copenhagen.

I had first visited Denmark in the early 1970s, I remember visiting Legoland in Biilund, but don’t remember much else. Since then I went once more to Denmark, in July 2004, staying with family in the heart of Copenhagen for a few days.

The weather was fantastic, it was sun and blue skies, but was quite chilly.

I spent my time exploring the city. I enjoyed exploring the Kastellet as well as the royal palaces and gardens. There are lots of museums and palaces you could visit. Also Tivoli Gardens is also nice (well it was when I went there in 2004). 

There were lots of shops. Including at least three Lego stores including one at the airport. However more expensive than the UK. 

Lots of places for food and drink.  I had lunch in the huge department store which had great views from the 5th floor restaurant. I enjoyed my open sandwich and glass of wine. 

Fantastic day, lovely city. I certainly would go again.

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Science & Innovation Park #50places2026

When I heard about the Science & Innovation Park I knew that I wanted to visit. However, when I checked for tickets I saw that it was all sold out. So, I joined the mailing list to hear about when tickets would be released. In January I got the email, and even then the tickets looked like they were selling fast, so I booked myself in for a Friday early evening slot. They generally have two slots in the evening every weekday and four morning slots at weekends.

The Science & Innovation Park is part of the Science Museum group, which includes the famous Science Museum in Kensington in London, and the National Railway Museum in York.

The Science & Innovation Park is in the middle of the Wiltshire countryside on the former RAF base at Wroughton. There are numerous buildings on the site, I was going to visit the Hawking Building.

At the Hawking Building we care for hundreds of thousands of objects in the Science Museum Group Collection. In 2018, we embarked on an ambitious project to create this new purpose-built facility, transform how we care for museum objects and enable people to explore much more of the Collection than ever before. More than 300,000 historic objects have now been carefully moved to this sector-leading facility, bringing together these historic objects under one roof for the first time for conservation, study and public access.

I joined a group of fifteen for a guided tour of the collection. Obviously we weren’t going to see everything in the building, but we did see a lot.

Tickets were £25 which for a 90 minute tour seemed a little on the expensive side, however I do think it was worth it. So, much so, I would probably go again another time.

I was pleased to have reached my fifty places in 2025 for my #50places2025 series of blog posts. This year I am planning to do something similar with a new hashtag, #50places2026 and it will be the same rules. Each time I visit a place I will post a blog post and some photographs. I can’t repeat places, and in an extra twist I can’t use the fifty places I visited in 2025 in the list as well (though I anticipate visiting some of those places again).

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Palacio Real de Madrid #50places2026

I was spending the day in Madrid and I headed over to the Palacio Real de Madrid. I didn’t have a ticket, so wasn’t expecting to be able to visit the palace. Earlier in the week I had looked over the Palacio Real de Madrid website and it looked like they had sold out of tickets. 

When I was actually at the Palacio Real de Madrid they did have tickets available and there was no queue. It was late in the day, so I didn’t have a huge amount of time to explore the palace, but I was okay with that.

Walking into the palace I was impressed with the splendour of the place. The entrance hall was imposing and dramatic.

I really enjoyed walking through the state rooms. The ceiling paintings were incredible. It was a great place to see and visit.