Before my trip to England and Wales gets too far into the rear view mirror, I’ll give a quick rundown of the highlights and some of the hundreds of photos I took. In a nutshell, it was a great, great trip. The Olympics were everything I had hoped for and more, the atmosphere in London was giddy and unforgettable, and a week spent driving around Wales and England, checking out interesting museums, railways, castles, pubs, and engineering wonders with a good friend was a fantastic way to spend a vacation.
Neil and I in front of a bus, doing pushups.
The new Emirates Airline over the Thames.
Scenes from the Olympics.
On the road. First, Stonehenge, somehow unvisited in all previous trips.
Our car, in Lacock.
Tintern Abbey.
Caernarfon Castle.
Menai Bridge, between Wales and Angelesey.
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
An uncooperative dog in front of Mendips, John Lennon’s childhood home.
A mechanic working on a Spitfire at Duxford.
The trip was a series of highlights, one after the other. The days were long and packed, thanks to my overly ambitious itinerary, but we saw a lot of amazing, beautiful places, many of which I’d been hoping to visit for many years. Thanks to Neil for coming along and putting up with my destination choices, and for sharing the driving. Attending Olympic events, riding the Talyllyn Railway, visiting Lennon’s and McCartney’s childhood homes in Liverpool, and spending time at both Bletchley Park, where the German Enigma code was during World War II, and Duxford, the home of the aircraft collection of the Imperial War Museum. Of course, the things we spotted but didn’t have time for could make up another list of their own, which I’ll save for next time…
