Sometime in Guildford

1 May 2010

This Saturday, I felt like I want to spend sometime in Guildford, and not travel far to somewhere else... That led me to having a short trip in Guildford towncentre.

I went to the towncentre by bike and parked my bike at somewhere close to the end of High Street.

This is the most crowded spot of the towncentre. People flocked into the area on this sunny day, with children, families, and youngsters all around. Up on the High Street, there was a short parade of local people, trying to raise some money for a charity. It felt like they were still celebrating their St. George's Day, which is an English national day.

After a couple of tours of the street along with the adjacent ones, I finally arrived at the riverside, near Wey River. The end of High Street is a pub called White House, and a couple of more, which are traditional ones, and also a historical church. I started walking along the river towards, I guess, Farnham :) It first looked like just an ordinary short pathway, but later I realized that this was essentially a popular location for most Guildfordians :) I kept on walking and passed beside a couple of long and old boats, completely closed with windows at the sides. I guess these were for rental, and they looked like small homes floating on the river.

Then, I went all the way down the riverside path, as far as I could go with my remaining energy :) It was a beautiful spot with lots of green and a peaceful nature.

It was a good day-out and I will do this again ...

Visit to Dursley's

27 March 2010

Now I hit the road for a short but exciting trip to Harry Potter's home, the Dursley's.

After a short train trip to a nearby train station, in Bracknell, I arrive at a Tesco's store and get a quick steak & cheese traditional cornish pasty :) My favourite is lamb & mint, although I don't normally eat lamb meat for some reason I could not discover during the past 30 years of my life :P

Anyways, the goal is simple: find the house, take a picture, look around, come back.

Luckily, and in fact, as I checked the map beforehand for a couple of times, I could find it easily. It's not Privet Drive though, Picket Post Close. The next neighbor was not happy to see a stranger, so I quickly got a couple of pictures and left the promises :))

Then, I went back to Guildford... But the story does not end here, this time :) I headed to London, after realizing that the trip to Dursley's was quite short for a Saturday. The new target: London Zoo... Wooooo

As I have been to many zoos in the US, this one was not so interesting for me. I must admit, the Americans are much better in Theme Park, Zoo, and the like businesses. Full of children, crying, smiling, shouting, cheerful, but everywhere.. I immediately made my plans to bring my nephew to here, next time I get here.

As a mid-sized settlement, the zoo is quite exciting. Especially the sections dedicated to birds in a big cage outdoors was interesting to see. This place was a separate section of the zoo area, set aside by a local road and connected to the main grounds by underground tunnels. Well, I got used to "subways" everywhere here in Britain. Very convenient for pedestrians to cross crowded city spots indeed. By the way, it is called a subway for pedestrian passages, and what they call an Underground is where you can find the trains :) So English: Underground, American: Subway, French: Metro... All the referring to the same thing.

As the day was attributed to Harry Potter, I chose an owl for myself and headed back to Guildford ...

Trip to Windsor Castle

13 March 2010

A typical Saturday morning with a loaded breakfast of cheese and olives.

Then I hit the road for a historic location, Windsor Castle.

As it has been a while since I haven't seen a similar structure, the last one being Rumeli Hisari, I was quite excited, especially a chain of train trips were awaiting me. That said, I have to emphasize that I take great pleasure from train travel. The trip was simple: Guildford -> Weybridge -> Staines -> Windsor.

The castle is built on a fairly tall hill, but not noticeably tall as the surrounding area is already a "hills region". Anyways, a lovely town surrounds the castle with lots of pubs, restaurants, cafes and the like... I got a nice portion of fish'n chips and headed to the castle standing right at the other side of the main street. The place is also the home of the British Queen, that's why there was a security check. After getting my ticket, I also got an audio assistance kit, to guide me through the old walls.

First, you see the high keep with a flag on top, designating the Queen's presence. You can observe the narrow holes inside the castle outer walls, high enough to make long range shots and a large base where the marksmen can comfortably shoot their enemies :))

A narrow road climbs all the way up to the castle grounds where you see a small village. This place is where the staff lives. Right beside it is a medium sized cathedral. Inside the cathedral, there are statues of old kings. The keep is in the middle of the castle grounds and has a roundish shape. To the left, there is an archway leading to the inner area surrounded by the castle palace. That area is restricted and I could only get some photos from the outside. There were huge trees, probably very old ones, apart from the rectangular grass area, and the guards standing motionless in their gray coats. There is also a museum inside, and possibly the most interesting place in Windsor for me: The Royal riches and some belongings are presented. This place was called castle apartments, an odd name for a building full of precious things. There was even a miniature palace with so little and highly detailed models, specially made for a royal family member. There were also some paintings, mostly from the early English history , Henry VIII and so on. Just outside, guards in uniforms were marching either or demonstration, or for formality, or because they were cold and they had to move to warm up, I don't know why, but it was interesting to see their mechanical movement. A couple of old naval weapons were in the courtyard right beside the castle's inner walls. Of those, I saw even Chinese ones.

Nice place to see, couple of hours of travel. That was the summary of this Saturday. Again, I got loads of photos... And back to Guildford.