The Eden Project is a collection of biomes which are used as
greenhouses to grow every kind of plant in the world. It was quite an
experience seeing these huge balloon like structures within which three climatic zones have been created. The Humid Tropics and the Warm Temperate are contained in the two big biomes. The local Temperate climate is maintained outside. One Arid zone was in the making.
While at the Eden Project we saw an advertisement for “The
Lost Gardens of Heligan”, which caught our fancy and we thought we should see
it on the way back the next day.
The next day after a huge, high-fat English breakfast, we asked
our hostess if there was something close by which we could see. She told us
about the fishing village of Mevagissy – which turned out to be a most
enchanting place. I found the local people of Cornwall extremely pleasant and
friendly. I remember the bus driver, a very pleasant gentleman, ask, if we were
from India. He cracked a joke that they (the Cornish) were having similar
problems with the British as pre independent India, whom they had invited to
their country but who did not want to leave now.
We discovered a model railway which displayed small, very detailed models of trains passing through varied landscapes, one even showing Alpine winter. Children (including us ofcourse!) were operating the trains with interactive buttons. Rajeev had to be dragged away from this place.
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| A lakeside house in Mevagissy |
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| Houses in Mevagissy |
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| The inevitable lighthouse |
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A Mevagissy street
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| Model railway |
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| model railway. |
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| This one finds a mention in the Guiness book of records. |
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| Detailed models |
The Lost Gardens of Heligan (meaning “Willows” in Cornish) spread
over a 1000 acres, and belonging to the Tremayne family for over 400 years have
been restored in part, after being lost under overgrowth and brambles for about
70 years. The sprawling gardens would be a horticulturist’s delight. We spent
practically half the day rambling through the huge place, undeterred by the
cold breeze.
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| Giant sculpture |
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| Dove cotes to house pigeons |
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| And you thought pumkins were only orange! |
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| Boy! was it cold. |
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| Bee boles in Heligan to house bees, for honey as also to help pollination of flowers. |
As a result of the early nineteenth century plant hunting
expeditions sponsored by the Cornish garden owners, one finds plants from
across the globe in these gardens. Cornwall blessed by the proximity to the
warm Gulf Stream has a wealth of beautiful gardens, two of which we managed to
see.
By
4 pm we were back at the B & B for a cup of tea and to collect our bags
after a wonderful day.
GREENWICH
The next couple of days we spent exploring the London
markets and did local sightseeing.
A trip to Greenwich to spend time with Rajeev’s cousin made
us visit the National Maritime Museum and the former Royal Observatory. The
Prime Meridian passes through the Observatory building which earlier determined
the Greenwich Mean Time. Now ofcourse because of the adoption of Coordinated
Universal Time the observatory is no longer working as such but a ball still
drops daily to mark the exact moment of 1p.m.
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| We never got to see the Cutty Sark, the dry docked ship, as we got late trying to find a parking for the car |
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| The old Royal Observatory |
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| A laser beam showing the Prime Meridian |
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| We are standing one on each side of the Date Line. A momentous moment!! :-) |
CAMDEN
Camden popular for its alternate culture associations and lively markets reminded me of the Mumbai street markets. With Bollywood music blaring it felt quite like home. The eating joints were also interesting. People like Charles Dickens,
(read about a commemorative coin in his honour), Dylan Thomas and Amy Winehouse have lived here.
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| Hailing from Hyderabad India, selling caps on London's street. |
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| 'Mind the gap' (an announcement on the Underground trains), printed tees looked popular. |
THE LONDON SKYLINE FROM THE BRIDGE
The Tower of London or Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and
Fortress is a World Heritage Site. The
castle is surrounded by walls and a moat and dates back to 1066. It has
variously served as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie as also the Royal Mint,
a public records office and was home to the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.
In its early days it also served as the
Royal residence and then at various times as a prison. We saw it at dusk and it
had a sinister, haunted look which signs like these (below) did nothing to alleviate
nor some stories of ghosts specially that of Ann Bolyn, who was beheaded in
1536 for treason against Henry VIII and buried in the chapel of St Peter ad
Vincula and whose ghost is said to have been seen wandering with her head tucked under her arm!
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| Tower Bridge |
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| The Thames |
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| London Eye |
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| Just 5.30 p.m. and already pitch dark. |
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| The Big Ben |
Outside the Tower of London there is a 'wheel of time' recording the history of London, but because of the falling light could not be appreciated fully. Now when I am seeing the pictures I feel it would be rather interesting.
On Christmas day we went to St Paul’s Cathedral with the
intention of attending the choir mass but we had not accounted for the drastic
cut in the number of trains running that day and got a little late. Mid-night
mass was at this lovely old Church near Ajit’s house.
WINDSOR CASTLE, STONEHENGE AND BATH
On Boxing Day we booked
tickets for a trip to Stonehenge – Windsor Palace – Bath but on the way back
from St Paul’s we saw a notice on the railway station door that no trains would
be running the next day. We were a little taken aback as we had to reach
Victoria station early next morning to catch our tour bus. Anyway we managed to
postpone our trip by a day.
Taking pictures inside Windsor palace was not permitted and
the guy at the gate said “we have the right to take the head off anybody caught
taking pictures inside” – Brit humour! Many of the stuff inside Windsor palace,
like Tipu’s sword etc are stuff taken from India - without permission! (howzzat
for Indian humour!).
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| Windsor Palace |
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| Raka tells me if the horse is standing on 3 legs the rider must have died of wounds received in battle. Had the rider died on the battlefield the horse would be shown standing on its 2 hind legs. |
Stonehenge:
It’s a prehistoric monument and its origins remain a mystery
till date. The stones were brought from hundreds of miles from various parts of
the Isles like the Marlborough Downs and some from Preseli Mountains in Wales–
no mean feat in those times. Why and for what purpose is anybody’s guess.
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| Stone henge |
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| Presumed to have looked like this |
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| A burial mound - where they buried their leaders. |
Bath has been a spa town built by the Romans over 2000 years ago because it has the only hot mineral springs in Britain.
The site of the Roman Baths started in 60-70 AD as a shrine
to the Celtic goddess Sulis identified by the Romans as Minerva. The place is
therefore also called Aquae Sulis meaning ‘the waters of Sulis’.
The Romans used Hypocausts for heating the baths ie. the
floors were raised on small pillar of stacked tiles called pilae stacks and
space was left in the walls for the hot air to move around – precursor to
modern day central heating!
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| Head of Minnerva |
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| Hard to believe that's a statue. |
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| Ornate roof |
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| Pilae stacks |
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| hollow bricks for the walls |
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| The smoking hot springs, the only one of its kind in Britain. |
Rajeev wanted to see his aunt, at the time staying with her
daughter, at a place called Macclesfield. As it was the holiday season we could
only manage a booking on the Virgin Lines Train, which cost us a bomb but was a
terrific experience. The train just zipped through the beautiful and green English
countryside.
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| Love at first sight! |
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| Two things that truly brightened my stay - that face and my Korean fur lined parka! |
That rounded up a wonderful trip but we promised ourselves a
spring trip next time.
