My brother and his family visited for a few weeks, but we didn't have much time to go too far. It was my brother's first visit to London since being a baby, so he just wanted to enjoy whatever experience came his way. After they left, my husband and I decided to continue on with our journeys in Europe by doing some more day and overnight trips. Below are the different places we went to.
Arundel
We'd heard that Arundel was a cute town that was good for an easy day trip from London. Part of the attraction was that there was a huge castle in the middle in the town. When we arrived, we noticed that the town in general seemed a little more run down that we were expecting, but the high street area was cute and had a lot of antique shops, boutique grocery type places as well as coffee and tea shops. It was a hot day, so we stopped for ice cream at the Copper Pan Fudge Company and got one that was mixed with the store's award-winning crunchy toffee--essentially their own Skor bar without the chocolate. It was really delicious. I love crunchy toffee so much. After that, we walked up to see the castle a little closer, but there was an entry fee, and while it probably sounds like a first world problem, we have grown a little tired of seeing the insides of castles because they tend to all look similar: rich tapestries and linens, huge paintings on the wall, noble family crests all over the place, things like that. So we continued walking until we came across the cathedral. Now, unlike most towns in the UK, where the cathedral belongs to the Church of England, this was actually a Catholic cathedral. Most places I've seen won't have one cathedral for each denomination, so if they're going to have only one, it tends to be a Church of England one. So it was interesting to see that this one was Catholic. We weren't able to walk around inside too much because there was a mass going on at the time, so we just sat in for a little bit and then left. I did sneak one photo from one of the back pews, though! Once we were done at the cathedral, we went to Cockburn's Tea Rooms to have cream tea at one of the tea rooms on the high street. The scone was the best I've had in England (second only to the one I had in Kelso, Scotland), and the Assam tea I ordered had the most delicious malty notes and was deep and rich. That was a very satisfying flavour. But that's about all I can say for Arundel. The interesting parts are fairly limited, but I'm glad I went because I did find a little gem of a tea house, of nothing else.
Conwy
We journeyed northwest to visit a city called Chester, just on the English side of the border with Wales, to visit some friends. There is so much you can do in the region, but we were only spending one night, so our friends recommended that we see Conwy (pronounced CON-way) in Wales, which was about an hour west of Chester. There's a 13th Century castle there and is a pretty little place to hang out, so shortly after we arrived and had a bite to eat for lunch, we headed back to the train station to travel to Conwy. Similar to Arundel, the town is built around the castle, so you don't have to take a bus or taxi to get there as if it were on the outskirts of the town--given their size, you would imagine that they wanted some isolation, but I've noticed that many castles seem to be in the middle of town, at least ones in ruins, anyway. It's as if the towns built themselves around the remains for some reason. In any case, we saw that you could walk the wall that had once protected the castle grounds, but it was quite far and not a continuous walk up top, so we opted to pay the fee to go inside and view the ruins of the castle. Despite having been built so long ago, the castle is in decent shape for walking around. They've kept up staircases going up the turrets so that you can actually go up them and get views of the castle remains and the town itself from the top of the castle. It really makes you feel like you're the king of the castle! There is a great view of the town from up there, and as you're walking around, you see a lot of birds, some of which are the most unique and beautifully coloured feral pigeons I've ever seen. The bird expert Facebook group that I consult said that these particular birds were likely domestic at one time and escaped, or at least have escaped and mixed with proper feral pigeons.
One thing I enjoyed about the castle is that they had diagrams of what the different rooms would have looked like, and they showed the fireplace in the great hall, and you could not only make out the fireplace in the ruins but even the blackness from all the fires burned there was still on the stone; it hadn't worn away, and you could see remnants of the hearth. It was probably one of the most distinct pieces of architecture that was identifiable, other than windows, that I've come across in such an old ruin since they are normally so worn away, everything just looks like smoothed over pieces of stone.
The other thing I liked about Conwy itself is that there were a number of really nice little shops and restaurants, not just on one high street, but on a few of them. The place is obviously touristic as there were at least 5 ice cream shops I saw in about a 2 block radius, and many coffee and tea places as well as pubs and restaurants. There were lots of boutiques and some independent book stores.
We spent a few hours there enjoying the castle and the town centre and then headed back to Chester for the night.
Chester
Our friends that live in Chester always rave about it and the area it's in, and we can confirm that they are right in doing so. The region is really lovely, and while they kept saying it was a small town, we felt it was definitely much larger than some places we have been. Their town centre was also more than just a high street with many additional streets having nice little shops and restaurants. Chester is a old city and was at one time the hub of Roman occupation of the Northwest region of the country. In fact, the name Chester itself is indicative of its Roman history. In fact, if you research -chester as a root word, you'll find that along with -cester and -caster (Winchester, Gloucester, and Lancaster, for example), these words all derive from the Latin word castrum, meaning castle, fort, or military camp, and later came to simply mean "city" as the language evolved on the island through mixing with Celtic languages. It certainly makes sense in the context of the city's history as a Roman regional capital.
The old Roman wall that used to surround the city is still visible in some parts, and you can actually walk on it for some length. As we had limited time, we didn't go the distance, but it was nice to walk up for a bit and get some good views from the top. There are some trees in the way now, but at one point, you can look out toward some distant hills in Wales.
The cathedral in Chester is also quite beautiful. We didn't get a chance to go inside because by the time we reached there, the Sunday morning service began, and we didn't have time to stay for it because we needed to be off to Liverpool by a certain time, but we enjoyed surrounding gardens and the church bells ringing in a belfry that was separate from the church for some reason. Hopefully we'll get a chance to visit Chester again. If we had to live in the UK, it would definitely be a nice place to settle. It even has a Tim Hortons for when we need a taste of home!
Liverpool
The main reason we went to Liverpool was to attend the British citizenship ceremony of our friends in Chester. Since we only had a brief time there, we thought we'd see the city by paying the small fee to go up the radio tower called St John's Beacon. Since you can get a 360º view of the city, we figured that was a good way to see all the city in such a short space of time. And with my good camera, I was able to get some great closeup shots of various parts of the city that looked interesting. I'm not a huge Beatles fan, so it wasn't too disappointing to me to not get to go around the city at all to see the Beatles attractions, but it seems pretty nice, so we're thinking to go back some day just to enjoy other offerings there. The water that you'll see in the photos is the estuary of the Mersey river. That's how I learned that Liverpool is in the county of Merseyside. The more you know! However, if you're wondering why there are Cheshire cats in the photos, it's because Merseyside borders with Cheshire, the county where Chester is located, so they are neighbours.
It was a whirlwind trip, but we made the most of it without feeling rushed. I hate rushing when I travel and feeling like I have to pack a lot in. We saw some great places and ate some great food, and it was an enjoyable weekend away from home.
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