Warwick Castle

We are now headed to London, an amazing city we're excited to tour, but before we arrive in London we stop at the fabulous town of Warwickshire to visit Warwick castle.

We park are car and immediately walk past a small little church with a cemetery.... of course we take a few pictures because we can't help our morbid fascination.  No, really it's not morbid fascination, I think it's just so different from the cemeteries we see in the U.S.  These are so old and seem to have so much history and character.

We eventually arrive at Warwick Castle.

We walk along this very cool pathway that is lush and green and gorgeous to gain access to the castle grounds.

Before entering the castle, we have to do the tourist thing and get a picture of us in the stocks.  Let me tell you, I now have an appreciation for how uncomfortable this form of punishment might be for anyone put in the stocks for more than two minutes.  Very uncomfortable!

So this is the front, outside of the castle, the entrance.

This is the front once inside the castle walls.

Here's some sights of the castle once inside the castle walls.  It's just lovely.......  Don't you just love that word used to describe the sights?  It's a word I heard used many times over by the locals while in England.

A view of the lovely town of Warwickshire from atop the castle.

My goodness..... all these pictures and I haven't even shown you the view inside the castle.  Do you remember my previous post sharing with you our visit to Chatsworth House?  Well, I must say that the rooms inside Chatsworth were absolutely incredible compared to our tour of the rooms inside Warwick Castle.  The castle rooms were worth the tour to give a sense of the history but not as amazing as our tour of Chatsworth.... just saying.

This is one of the beds.... kind of an oddly angled picture so you can't quite tell what you're looking at and doesn't do justice to the majesty of it all.

A chapel within the castle.

Todd had an appreciation for the new, old fire safety equipment within the castle.

And that concludes our tour of Warwick Castle.  Really a treat to visit this beautiful castle in England.  We could have spent a few more hours touring the castle and grounds but we were anxious to get to the bustling city of London.  So many pictures to share!

English Countryside

My absolute favorite part of traveling through England was the countryside outside of Manchester and London.  The cities are packed with people, dirty, and really  not very pretty but outside the city it's just gorgeous.  Here's a few pictures of our travel.

What is our fascination with old cemeteries?   We just can't help but be fascinated by the history and the quiet beauty.

We drove through the Peak District which includes the area of Derbyshire.  It was just absolutely gorgeous.  All across this countryside there were rock walls criss-crossing the countryside.  Miles and miles and miles of these rock walls.  We couldn't help thinking.... who built all these walls and exactly how long it took.  Had to have taken years and years.

The main purpose of our drive through the Peak District was to visit Chatsworth House.  This is the house (feels strange calling it a house.... should be called a castle) that was used as Pemberly in the BBC film of Pride and Prejudice.  I'm a huge fan of this film and was absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to visit this amazing, gorgeous house.

I'm standing in front of THE house!  Can you tell how thrilled I am.  I kept expecting to see Mr. Darcy come round the corner.  I'm visiting the house with my co-worker and friend.

The grounds of this home go for miles and miles.  I had no idea how beautiful the grounds would be and how much time is needed to truly enjoy this magnificent house.  If you travel England, travel to Derbyshire and spend the week with at least two days dedicated to Chatsworth House.

Inside the house was absolutely amazing.  It was incredibly opulent.  I'll try not to bore you with too many pictures... here's just a few to give you an idea.

Just a few more pictures of this gorgeous house and countryside and then it's off to London!

We drove from Manchester to England and along the way we made a stop at Warwick Castle.  Totally cool!  I'll share our adventures at Warwick Castle and THEN it's London!

European Travelers

Todd and I recently had the incredible opportunity to travel to England this June, something we've both wanted to do for many years.  Such an amazing experience.  Do you mind if I share with you?

We first traveled to Manchester, England to attend a conference for my work.  It was an incredible experience to visit Manchester and be able to present on what we do at our University.  While in Manchester, Todd and I walked around the city and were thrilled with the gorgeous, old buildings and architecture.

This is the Manchester cathedral.  Absolutely gorgeous...scary gargoyles and all.

We then visited an another tourist favorite in the city. the John Rylands Library.  A beautiful old library built in 1889 and houses many old books and also has a fragment of the Book of John.  Pretty cool.

While I was busy attending my conference, Todd kept himself busy touring the city and visiting the fire stations.  An interesting experience for him to learn about the fire service in England.

One evening we drove around to view the country outside of the bustling city of Manchester and happen to see a large "castle" in the distance.

We stopped and asked for information on the "castle" from a local business and we were told that it was a lovely country manor.  Ummm, ok, a country manor?  We discovered that, unfortunately, it was only open to visitors the middle of July through September so we were unable to tour this lovely country manor.  It sure was gorgeous from a distance.

Our final day in Manchester, the day we traveled to London to start our real vacation, we were able to catch a ride with a co-worker of mine to visit the Derbyshire countryside.  Oh my goodness.... it was just beautiful.  I'll share more about this drive and lovely view of the country in my next post.

If I get the chance to travel back to England, I want to spend a week in Derbyshire!