travel Archives - Page 6 of 9

July 8, 2018

Sunny Oxford

I took the time to take some photographs on a visit to Oxford. I had a presentation to give at a recent meeting which was taking place in Oxford. The weather was beautiful and as it was relatively early the roads and pavements were not as crowded with tourists as they can be.

Walking in from St Clements Street by The Plain I walked down the High Street across Magdalen Bridge, taking a photograph of the Magdalen Bridge Boathouse.

There were already quite a few people waiting to hire out punts and boats.

The crenellations of Magdalen College looked impressive in the sun.

My meeting was taking place in the Oxford University Examination Schools, however Apple Maps on the iPhone took me down Merton Street to the back entrance, however I was lucky enough to be able to sneak in, and make my meeting.

I took the slightly longer route back to the car, as I wanted a quick nostalgic visit to the Covered Market. All Souls College looked rather magnificent in the sun.

Hiding behind the tree on the high street is All Saints Church which is now the Library of Lincoln College. In 1971, All Saints Church was declared redundant and the City Church moved to St Michael at the North Gate. All Saints was thus deconsecrated and offered to Lincoln College, located immediately to the north of the church. Since 1975, after conversion, the building has been Lincoln College’s library.

With any city the side street often offer interesting buildings and architecture. Oxford has a range of these side streets of which King Edward Street is just one.

Another view of Magdalen College, it is one of the wealthiest colleges in Oxford.

Looking the other way on Magdalen Bridge there were a range of punts, I expect in the summer holidays and weekends these will be heavily used.

The Plain includes a small but prominent building facing Magdalen Bridge, Victoria Fountain. The fountain is protected by a roof on stone columns. On top is a small clock tower. The fountain was a gift to the city by G. Herbert Morrell.

Though it was a quick visit to Oxford it was nice to be back.

April 21, 2018

The Routemaster

Though there are many new buses in London, it still gives me a warm nostalgic fuzzy feeling when I see an old Routemaster still in service, usually as I walk down The Strand in London. These classic old buses epitomise London and though the new modern flash ones are more environmentally friendly, accessible, and “better” I still have a place in my heart for these old red double deckers.

February 22, 2018

A bright sunny day in London

It was sunny, I had a little more time until the train, so I decided to walk from Whitehall to Paddington.

Usually I am rushing so catch the underground, so it was nice to have an extra 30 minutes, so I could walk from the conference venue in Whitehall to Paddington station.

It was cold, but the sun was out and walking in the sun was very pleasant.

Some of the buildings are incredible on Whitehall, but then again it was once a Palace.

I left 61 Whitehall and crossed the road to Horse Guards Parade. Outside Horse Guards were two horse mounted guards getting harassed by tourists who were taking selfies of themselves with the horses in the background.

To think it wasn’t that long ago the tourists would merely take photographs of the guards or would stand next to them as a relative took the photo. The selfie phenomena has changed all that as everyone holds their phone at arm’s length and attempts to get themselves and their family and the horse into the photo. It’s difficult, but much much easier than trying to do that with a 35mm film camera which had no screen to preview the image!

I have walked through Horse Guards a few times and though I am sure I noticed the Turkish Gun before, this was the first time I went up close to get a picture.

The gun was made by Murad, son of Abdullah in 1524. It was captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801. Now it sits outside Horse Guards the home of the British Army.

Next to Horse Guards is a huge incongruous building that can only be described as a bunker. Compared to the Georgian magnificence of Whitehall this bunker is a very crude and brutal.

Looking up online on the train I found out this was the Admiralty Citadel. It is London’s most visible military citadel, and is located just behind the Admiralty building on Horse Guards Parade. It was constructed in 1940–1941 as a bomb-proof operations centre for the Admiralty. Winston Churchill called it in his memoirs as a “vast monstrosity which weighs upon the Horse Guards Parade”.

What is interesting that it was built with the plan that in the event of a successful German invasion, it was intended that the building would become a fortress, with loopholed firing positions provided to fend off attackers.

I did think about walking through St James’ Park, but in the end walked down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace.

Passing by Clarence House there were two guardsmen, who appeared to be playing a marching up and down the road game, not sure what they were trying to do, but no one was watching except me and a couple of Americans. Maybe they were stretching their legs after standing for too long in their sentry boxes.

I was then in front of Buckingham Palace. I was reminded by how effective the CGI was in the Netflix series The Crown. Their recreation of the 1950s Buckingham Palace is very accurate. It was only after watching this video that I realised how much the series was using computer graphics to recreate 1950s London and other locations.

After passing by the palace I entered Green Park and walked up to Hyde Park Corner. Now I have to admit I did think about catching the tube for the final stretch, but no decided to walk through Hyde Park.

I realised I had never seen the Serpentine before, now I have.

It was a really nice walk.

February 13, 2018

Walking up the Tor

Though I have visited Glastonbury quite a few times over the years I have been living down in Somerset, I had never climbed the Tor. So during the October half term last year we decided to do just that, go to Glastonbury and climb the Tor. There is plenty of cheap parking in the town itself and there are a range of esoteric shops that also deserve exploring (after you have climbed the Tor). As you might expect there are a fair number of teashops too.

Our first attempt was on the wrong path, there were roadworks in the town which had made it challenging to find the right way up, but after avoiding the field full of cows, we found the less muddy path and walked up. Taking the time to turn around now and again to appreciate the view of the town. As we climbed it got windier and colder, so though it can be warm in the town, we were glad we had our winter coats, hats and gloves.

Glastonbury Tor is a distinct prominent hill amongst the Somerset Levels and can be seen from a quite a distance.

It is topped by the roofless St Michael’s Tower. There was originally a wooden church, however that was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275. A stone replacement, the Church of St Michael built on the site in the 14th century and over the centuries has been restored and partially rebuilt several times. Now just the roofless tower remains

The hill and the tower are now managed by the National Trust. Mythically the Tor was thought to be the Isle of Avalon, a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend. When the surrounding land was swamp, the Tor was essentially an island.

It was back in 1190, that Avalon became associated with Glastonbury, when monks at Glastonbury Abbey claimed to have discovered the bones of Arthur and Guinevere.

It was very windy when we got to the top, but even so the tower provided little protection from the strong winds.

The views though were incredible and it was amazing to see so much of the Somerset levels. Across to the West you can see the Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station and in the distance to the South West you can see the Quantock Hills.

Much of this would have been swamps and wetland, but over the centuries it has been drained so it can be used for farming.

The Tor itself is sandstone and was formed when the surrounding softer materials were eroded away.

Walking down from the Tor, I was pleased we had made the effort to climb the hill and to see those magnificent views.

July 1, 2017

Muscle and Power Cars and Trucks

On Tuesday evening, a bundle of muscle cars and American trucks arrived on the Weston seafront for a “cruise”

Nice looking vehicles, but to be honest I have no idea what they… though I can see this is a US Ford F150 pickup truck.

…and this one is an older Ford pickup truck.

A Ford Popular.

No idea what this one is….

Big gas guzzler…

Ford

A Ford hotrod!

A Ford Mustang?

All looked very nice, bright and shiny.

June 12, 2017

Is it a treehouse if it’s not built in a tree?

Canopy & Stars at Crane 29 is a unique treehouse built around one of the cargo cranes outside M Shed. The treehouse will grace Bristol’s skyline from June until September 2017.

I don’t know if you can really call it a treehouse as it’s not built in a tree, but it certainly looks very nice (see more pictures here).

To register for the ballot to stay in the treehouse, visit www.canopyandstars.co.uk/crane29. A night’s stay costs either £185 for a weekday or £250 for a weekend, with the final ballot open until July 3. All profits from Canopy & Stars at Crane 29 will go to Friends of the Earth.

January 23, 2017October 24, 2019

Stuff: Top Ten Blog Posts 2016

Across this blog I wrote fifteen posts in 2016. As might not be expected most of the top ten posts that year were from 2016, and I was pleased to see how popular my 1990s photographs of the Bristol Harbourside were.

I visited Legoland in 2013 and felt that it was A bit tired and this was the tenth most popular post, dropping one place from last year.

Also about Legoland Miniland was the ninth post.

The eighth post was about Time travelling by train which was a post on the newly painted GWR High Speed Train in the classic 1970s blue and yellow.

The seventh popular post was inspired by a newspaper article and talked about the many Changes at the railway station in Weston-super-Mare.

The sixth placed post was from my 2012 series of Cinematic Advent Calendar posts, this one was #07 – The Eagle has Landed. There were quite a few films in the advent calendar that have significant memories over and above the film itself. Queuing for Star Wars was significant for example. With The Eagle has Landed I went to see it at the Aldeburgh cinema with my grandparents.

When I used film, I didn’t take than many photographs, but I did take a fair few of the Bristol Harbourside, so the fifth post was of the Bryan Brothers’ Garage Demolition, Bristol, circa 1999.

Three of the next four posts were similar and all contain photographs from the Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s.

Fourth was this post Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s and third was this one: Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s (second part).

The second most popular post was a comparison of Trenchard Street, Bristol, circa 1970s and the view today.

The most popular post of the year on the Stuff blog was a series of photographs of Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s.

So quite a few posts from 2016 in the 2016 top ten.

June 8, 2016

Time travelling by train

At Bristol Temple Meads I did wonder if I had travelled back in time to 1976, as there was a British Rail blue and yellow engine on the platform. My train yesterday morning included a very different engine, this was a GWR High Speed Train painted in the original colours when the train entered service forty years ago in 2016.

This was painted up specially for an event in May to celebrate forty years of the HST. I thought it was nice that only was it painted up in the original colours, but is currently being used to pull trains. It’s a pity that they couldn’t paint a whole train in the original colours.

January 3, 2016

Stuff: Top Ten Blog Posts 2015

As with my other blogs I am looking at the ten most read postings over 2015.

The tenth most read post on this blog was posted in the last two weeks of 2015, and was about WHSmith. At WHSmith you can afford to give them anything but the ordinary this Christmas contained an old advert from the high street store.

I visited Legoland in 2013 and felt that it was A bit tired and this was the ninth post in this top ten. Certainly when we went this year in 2015 there were some new models in Mainland.

You have entered the Quiet Zone! was eighth most read post and I asked what’s the point of the Quiet Zone Carriage?

Back to Legoland for number seven, Legoland Miniland.

The sixth most read post was on Ten Incredible Sand Sculptures that have been on the beach at Weston-super-Mare over the last ten years.

The post at number 5 was from the Cinematic Advent Calendar which I posted back before Christmas in 2012. The post in question was #24 – Back to the Future and as 2015 was the year in which Marty McFly went to in the film series, it’s quite apt that it in this year’s top ten.

More Lego at number 4 with The Bat Cave in Lego.

The third most popular post was “the cafe on tv at weston super mare is it real” and the answer is, it isn’t!

Over 2015 there were seventy Shaun the Sheep sculptures places all across Bristol and the top two posts on the blog were about these Sheep. At number two was Ten out of Seventy and the most read post was about all seventy sheep, Shaun in the City.

Happy New Year for 2016.

December 21, 2015

Buongiorno Italia

Back in the mid to late 1990s I visited Italy quite a bit, usually going twice a year, once for the carnival and once in the summer. I initially would take my 35mm SLR film camera, but in later years replaced this with the first HP PhotoSmart Camera. These images are from my 35mm camera, which were developed and then scanned into the computer.

On many of those visits I went to Venice, but I have very few photographs of that place from my 35mm collection, though I have some digital ones from the PhotoSmart camera. I really liked Venice and though it was full of tourists, one of the advantages of having a friend who was a local, was finding those really nice places for coffee, cake and pasta, that were frequented by locals. So yes you could spend €4 for a coffee in St Marks Square, the places we went to, you paid €1 for an espresso. This photograph is one of the Grand Canal.

The local restaurant in Venice we went to, was more of a cafe then a restaurant, but served some delicious food, the seafood pasta I had was great with clams, prawns, squid and lobster.

Another place in the area I visited was Verona.

This is Piazza Bra in the heart of Verona.

This is the Arena di Verona, which is a Roman amphitheatre in Piazza Bra in Verona. Back in Roman times, nearly 30,000 people could sit inside, despite its age, today 15,000 people can sit inside.

The one place where I spent most of my time when visiting Italy was Padua.

An early morning walk with the mist slow rising before the hot summer day.

Interestingly from a technical perspective, the prints from those trips are still with me (in a box) however the original digital images seemed to have gone missing, they were probably backed up to a series of floppy disks that I discarded many years ago when moving house (this was in the days before cloud storage became ubiquitous and a quick and easy way to backup and store digital photographs). What I do remember from those images was how awful the quality was, 0.3MP or similar if I recall correctly.