Late summer and early autumn in England and Iceland!

We have always maintained that the best time to visit England is late summer/early autumn when the weather is at its best, the kids are back at school and the trees are beginning to change colour. Quieter (for England!) roads, warmish and mostly dry days and the gardens are still lovely. Mind you, traffic is never far away, even when driving down narrow country roads bordered by high hedges.

We have traveled all over the UK this trip and never cease to be delighted by the beautiful cottages and villages and green and leafy vistas we have seen on the way.  The place names are so descriptive like Upper and Lower Slaughter near Bourton on the Water, the Puddles - Allpuddle, Tolpuddle (of Martyr fame) and more.

Saffron Walden

While in Devon, we made the trip to Cornwall to see the Eden Project, where a disused quarry has been brilliantly coaxed back into life as an educational and participatory experiment with plants from throughout the tropics and the Mediterranean growing in huge biomes with the rest of the space planted out in vegetables, British trees and shrubs.  We did find a few Kangaroo Paws and Everlastings which were tucked into the South African display – they obviously haven’t heard about the thousands of amazing wildflowers we have in Western Australia!

 

We stayed with friends in Bristol and just outside Gloucester and enjoyed wandering the old docks in both cities where warehouses now house inner city workers and their families and gardens, old boats, bridges are now next to restaurants, bars and cafes.  

Some aging mods revving up for a cruise - lots of 2 stroke burnt up!

 We joined the Australian National Trust  before we left which gives you free entry into National Trust and English Heritage properties in the UK too. Great value as the cost is more than recouped by just a couple of free visits to NT UK properties on your travels and you can get involved in the NT when you get back too!

Over a couple of weeks of travelling through the south of England on our way to visit friends and relations, we visited a varied assortment of properties filled with all manner of furniture, collected knick knacks and paintings and some marvellous formal & informal gardens including Arlington Court in Devon ; Westbury Court Garden and Tyntesfield in North Somerset; Snowshill near Gloucester; Wimpole near Cambridge, with the final visit yesterday to Winston Churchill’s home at Chartwell.

Snowshill where Charles Wade kept his eccentric collections

Cambridge is a favourite family spot and we were lucky to have lunch at Trinity College in the Great Hall with some illustrious living Fellows and with Henry VIII looking down on us as we ate. Just a bit different to good old Murdoch Uni!

Yet another highlight – a family trip to Iceland!

Rugged up for an Iceland autumn!

Iceland is so named for a good reason although our first day proved a false start as the sun shone brightly unlike the other four days, albeit with a top temperature of 10degrees. Thermals, beanies and coats are de rigeur although we spotted a few locals in shorts and the odd tshirt. Aside from the weather, the scenery is superb - wide open spaces, mountains and fiords, waterfalls and geysers, lava fields, glaciers and lakes. Reykjavik, the capital houses over 60% of the 320,000 population so once you exit the “built-up area” it is very like parts of the South Island of NZ. Fences along the side of the roads keep horses, sheep and cattle in and every few kilometres you see a farmhouse and out-buildings or two and little else but sea, lava fields, mountains and sky – so much space!

In order to sample this wonderful scenery you need to travel long distances.  You can take bus tours but we chose to hire a jeep which would fit the six of us. The roads are pretty good and weren’t busy.   

Solheimajokull glacier, part of  http://www.icelandontheweb.com/articles-on-iceland/nature/glaciers/myrdalsjokull/

Pingvellir rift in the fissure zone

Tourism is a major source of income and seems a natural fit for Icelanders, they are friendly and happy to share their country and, luckily for us, are natural English speakers because their language is not easy to pronounce or even spell. Try Pingvellir when the p is sounded as th, or Myrdalsjokull.

With a geologist amongst us, we learned about the different sorts of lava which cover the landscape – the main landscape colours being green and black – black lava/rock and sand.   At Pingvellir we saw the rift in the fissure zone which runs through Iceland, being situated on the tectonic plate boundaries of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Then on the south coast, the bridge between the Eurasian and North American plates on Reykjanes Island.   All this and shots of steam from hot pools and geysers everywhere.  Iceland is self-sufficient in renewable energy with geothermal power stations dotted around the landscape. 

With one final visit to the New Forest, our stay in the UK is over for another few years and we are now on the boat steaming past wind turbines in the channel on a flat and misty sea towards the Hook of Holland! Just one thought to leave you with from Sculptures by the Lake 

 

Same old England?

After three weeks of familiar English life – motorways and country lanes, towns and villages, pubs and cafes, farms and forest we reflect on the question a few people have asked “would you come back and live here”? That familiarity does allow some comfort – you know you can get a good cup of tea wherever you go, or alternatively the coffee is very average everywhere. As soon as the sun comes out the beaches will be packed. Other reminders of home – scones and cream, a pint of bitter, the weather changing as soon as you get used to it. 

Apart from the distance to West Australia and our family, probably the biggest reason we would struggle to settle back here would be the sheer volume of people and traffic. 64 million inhabitants and 36 million motor vehicles on this small island means you’re never far from anyone and if you’re going anywhere there will often be a queue. It is true the British love queuing in person or on the road, they are very patient. We encountered so many miles of road works on the motorways up and down the country.

Tony mistakenly believed a sunny summers day on the south coast meant a nice quiet drive and a leisurely wander along a National Trust coastline, when in fact it meant being swamped by thousands of beach-goers packed tightly on the sand and the roads backed up for miles. 

As in Australia, the British want to live in the suburbs in a bungalow with a garden, albeit on a smaller scale. Compare that to what we experienced in Europe cities and towns where apartment buildings contain over half the population. Urban sprawl is not an American or Australasian phenomenon, it began here in the 19^th century as the industrial cities spread out into the countryside although to be fair there is so much greenery that the distinction between town and country is blurred.

We spent a welcome week or so in Burley in the New Forest, enjoying the trees and the moorland and the company of friends.  Then we headed north to Edinburgh via the Yorkshire Dales (check out the latest TV hit a slow ride through the Yorkshire Dales), viewing National Trust properties long the way.  We decided that if we had a whole day of driving to do we would visit stately homes and gardens on the way to break the journey and to use our National Trust Membership at Wallington in Northumberland, Quarry Bank near Manchester, and Croome in Worcestershire which was the site of a WW11 secret airbase.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/croome/features/grayson-perry-art-exhibition-comes-to-croome

Edinburgh was full of people for the Fringe Festival, the Arts Festival and the Book Festival, all on at the same time!  We stayed in an excellent Airbnb in Warriston near the Golden Acre, a 15 minutes bus ride up the hill to the city centre.  The Fringe had over 400 shows happening each day and we just went to the half-price ticket booth to see what was on offer.  We took the flyers from the artists spruiking their shows each morning, booked tickets and we weren’t disappointed at all seeing 6 completely different shows in two days, a mixture of theatre, musical, one about UK tax (!) and a compelling piece about volunteering in the refugee camps in Greece and near the Hungarian border.

Fringe Fest venue

Spruiking for ticket sales

maintaining my interest in waste!

We spent some time in Scotland exploring graveyards for long dead relatives in Ladykirk, Berwick on Tweed and West Linton – all good finds for the ancestry project.

We spent a night in the Peak District at Ladybower, hills all purple from the heather, and near the lake where the Lancaster Bombers practised their Dambuster routines in WW11.

Ladybower Lake

 

Then to Somerset and the village where Sally grew up, EastBrent, for the annual Harvest Home – a celebration of the harvest being gathered in and an opportunity to partake of a huge luncheon for 500 people of ham, salt beef, roast beef and salad, Christmas pudding and Cheddar cheese (being only a few miles away from Cheddar) – all washed down with proper scrumpy cider and local beer to keep you nicely relaxed during the speeches!  Some things had changed but the traditions remain and we had a wonderful lunch catching up with family and spotting friends from primary school all those years ago.

The view from Brent Knoll - note the Hinckley Point Nuclear Power Station in he distance!

St Mary's Church, East Brent

Parading the bread and cheese at East Brent Harvest Home Luncheon

An original mini 'utility'!  Spotted in Bideford, North Devon

Now we are in Devon for a few days, visiting local gardens and scenic small towns and planning our trip to Iceland in a couple of weeks.  We visited a beautiful garden at Rosemoor yesterday owned by the Royal Horticultural Society. It made me envious and, as always when I visit the UK, I came away with the idea of creating fabulous hanging baskets etc that never quite work in sunny Perth!

East is still a bit East

As soon as we entered Germany there was a noticeable improvement in the quality of the road surface and the courtesy shown by fellow drivers but on the other hand people seemed a bit more wary and circumspect than the Czechs. It is interesting to remember that the Berlin Wall only came down in 1989 and many people’s lives were completely changed thereafter.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/november/9/newsid_3241000/3241641.stm.  There are still the soviet style concrete apartment blocks in many towns and cities, built using preformed concrete sheets much as are used for building industrial units etc in Australia today.  They could build a block of flats in 118 days! 

Dresden was visited as an after-thought because we were passing through on our way to Berlin. It was worth the 36 hours spent there as it is a relaxing and roomy city; it was levelled in 1945 and subsequently rebuilt with wide open streets and large expanses of grass, pedestrian and cycle ways. The amazing detail in the re-constructed historical buildings in the centre has to be seen to be believed, especially the Frauen Kirche and the Catholic Cathedral which you would swear were hundreds of years old.   They have a motto that Dresden is ‘a city for everyone’ to counter some of the more right wing rhetoric about refugees in recent years.  They have also set up a remarkable trans-disciplinary partnership – the Dresden Concept - between universities, researchers and industry to develop sustainable solutions including new insulated building materials, green walls and many other projects. 

Dresden: Designed to filter the smog and catch rainwater

Dresden: across the Elbe

Dresden : The Free Church, reconstructed after it was destroyed in WW2 and re-opened only a few years ago.

German efficiency is really a pleasure, nothing is left to chance and nearly everything works like clockwork. Public transport is spotless and runs so well that at every tram-stop or train station a list of the next 6 arrival times are posted up on electronic boards. We have been really impressed with how many wind and solar farms there are in Germany and all across Europe, the entire country ran for 24 hours recently only on alternative energy.

Meissen just along the Elbe River from Dresden produces some of the best porcelain in the world; amazingly detailed exquisite pieces which are still all hand-painted using the same techniques practiced here since 1710 and are hence very expensive! It is still a state owned company and had a thriving export market even when it was behind the Wall.

Meissen Porcelain

The staircase at Albrectsburg Castle

The museum has a large collection dating from the inception of the pottery and many pieces made for overseas markets like China, Japan, Russia and Italy. In the oldest castle in Germany just up the road at Albrechtsburg, a group of mining experts and scientists perfected the porcelain mixture known as 'white gold' and produced their porcelain for 150 years before realising they needed more space and the castle needed to be preserved.   Albrechtsburg is worth a visit with an elevator up to the castle from the parking area – much appreciated!  The displays cover the porcelain manufactuary and also the innovative architectural designs incorporated into the building – diamond brick vaulting etc. 

German autobahns are not the faint-hearted, however full concentration with plenty of indicating both left and right means you can travel pretty quickly and free of any tolls. The outside lane is often “open speed” so it is a good idea to stay out of the way of the mostly black Mercs, Audis and Beemers who race along and suddenly appear behind you if you are a bit tardy at changing lanes. 

Berlin was full of tourists and many of the ‘sights’ involved the war time period and the Wall.  It is obviously heavily influenced by recent history; that is the last 75 years since the end of World War 2. Virtually destroyed by bombing because it was the Nazi centre of power, Berlin was then divided up in quarters by the Americans, French, British and Russians and surrounded by the Soviet client state East Germany until 1990.  Vast building projects are now being undertaken and there are more cranes here than we saw in London with the federal German government especially prominent. Having visited countless museums and galleries highlighting the reformation and renaissance and impressionist art on our European odyssey,  we concentrated on finding out what had happened in Berlin in the 20^th century. We have been impressed by the openness to confront the catastrophe that was Berlin after the war with families split up and neighbourhoods bricked up; with commentary often taking a dig at the Stasi secret police and the methods the communists resorted to try and keep the “evil west” out. The DDR Museum was excellent and gave a very full picture of what it was like to live in East Germany complete with a Trabant - the car that ran on two stroke – we recommend you visit the DDR Museum first thing at 10am or after 5pm, otherwise it is too crowded to see everything. 

Berlin Wall: across the wall - many families and relationships were broken or separated when the wall was built.

Taking a boat ride is a great way to get your head around Berlin's layout

Contact details for those who want to hire a Trabi!

We stayed out of town in Altlandsburg in a lovely AirBnB run by a family of beekeepers with a wonderful garden.  We took the twenty minute S Bahn train into Berlin each day which also connects to the U Bahn, trams and buses.  You could also rent a Trabi from the bicycle shop nearby!

Our stay near Berlin included a day spent at the Sachsenhausen Camp Memorial & Museum we saw the sobering and terrible evidence displayed of Nazi atrocities, visited on every country they invaded or fought against –it was pure evil. The camp was taken over by the East Germans after the war to house political prisoners and then by the Soviets.  Many prisoners did not survive the experience.  The site of the camp is very close to Oranienburg town, so close many of the guards lived in the town. 

Potsdam was a completely different note to end our visit to Berlin with the summer palaces and extensive gardens of Sans Souci Park to walk around.  

We then drove from Berlin to the Hook of Holland in a couple of days, staying at a tradition German guesthouse in Rheine Messum overnight where we had a marvelous dinner and friendly hosts whose family had owned the guesthouse and restaurant since the 1500s…ah history!

Now we are in the old Blighty for another 6 weeks to catch up with family & friends again.