Tuesday 28 October 2014

Highclere Castle

While in London this time Suzanne and I decided to visit Highclere Castle.  Sharp readers will recognize it as Downton Abbey, a very popular TV show on ITV and PBS' Masterpiece Theatre.



Our initial impression was how small it was.  On tv it seems so much larger.



One thing we realized that photos have been altered, they have added an extra window here and there.


I like the architecture, it essentially was a core house at one point and outer areas added later.


We had tickets to tour the house, and it is very nice inside.  Typical "old" English manor in that it really looks like a money pit.  The Lords of the manor are owned by the home, they don't own it.  

We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but it's fun to watch the show now and be able to say "been there" in each of the rooms.  


found this flower.  Never seen one of these!


We spied a pheasant in the high grass.  It flew off shortly after I snapped this picture.


The trees are beautiful.  Nothing I've ever seen in the US.


An herb from their garden.


This is the classic view you see on TV.  but the angle is such you don't see the cars.  


Until next time...

Sunday 26 October 2014

St Pancras Station



While waiting for Suzanne to join me at St Pancras International -- the train station in London where you embark for trips to Europe -- I walked about a bit and snapped some pictures. 



 I'm not sure what church that is.


 A mixture of the old and new.  St Pancras has been around a while and sometimes the architecture just shows through.


Suzanne finally arrived about 3 hours later than planned.  Her flight from BWI took off late for starters.  I changed our tickets on the Eurostar twice, luckily my accent made it obvious I was sincere.  We missed the second train due to a problem on the train line from Heathrow airport to St Pancras, and Suzanne showed up just as the next train was leaving.  So we waited another hour and then off we were to Paris.

That does have a nice ring to it...

Until next time.