BOXES 223-224: Canterbury 3, with London, Bath and more; plus WI.

You're standing in the heart of Bath, England, facing the magnificent west façade of the Abbey Church, with stone angels climbing Jacob's Ladders on either side of huge gothic window. Immediately to the right of it is the façade of the Roman Baths, built upon the ruins of the hot springs used by the Celts, the Romans and for many centuries the English. And next to it, on your immediate right, is the Pump Room where fashionable residents of Bath, including Jane Austen and some of her characters, congregated. Anne and I took a day trip to Bath during our our third campus trip to Canterbury, in January 2001.

As usual, the trip included 'free' days as well as guided tours and theatre evenings, and since Anne and I were not tour leaders we had extra time to explore not only the town of Canterbury once again but other places across Southern England. This post will include slide photos I took in London, Twickenham, Greenwich and Rye as well as Bath and Canterbury--and to conclude, yet more pictures of our grandson, Sam, after we got back from England.

On this trip we were joined by Anne's mother, Judy, whom you've met if you've followed these posts, and also by Anne's Aunt Roberta, her father's sister. Here they are standing on Canterbury High Street some time after our arrival:

It was a joy to be back in Canterbury, and I see that I took some photos of the great Cathedral from some of the same spots where I'd stood on our first trip, in 1998 (see BOX 207 if you care to make comparisons).

This trip began a few days closer to New Year's than previous ones, so Christmas decorations were more on display:

Here are more views of the Cathedral's high tower, up close and farther away:

I'm not sure where in Canterbury I took this sunset photo:

During previous campus stays we'd taken day trips to London by train (about 1-1/2 hours each way), but this time we were able to stay a couple of nights because, since Anne's father had been an Air Force officer, her mother was able to book us affordably at the Naval Club (a reciprocal military deal) in tony Mayfair. In the pic on the right you can see Anne and Roberta in front of the place, which had wonderfully stuffy rules posted in our very small room; e.g., gentlemen had to wear jacket and tie to breakfast (no trainers allowed). Here are Anne, Judy and Roberta standing on the staircase going up to our rooms:

I took a photo of an elegant Mayfair garden from the window of our room, but my focus was off. A better pic is one I took of Anne in a lovely small park nearby:

We loved strolling around London--I don't know just where this next photo was taken:

But we must have gone to the Saturday Portobello Road street market in Notting Hill, because my next slide is of nearby Stanley Crescent:

We also took a trip to Twickenham, the London suburb on the other side of the Thames from Richmond. Our reason for going there was that Becky was about to embark on a junior-year study-abroad semester at St Mary's University College, located in that town, and we wanted to 'scout out' the place and bring her back a few photos of the school she'd start attending at the end of January. We passed a soccer game being played as we walked to and from the main campus buildings:

The center of the campus was a historically very important stately home: Strawberry Hill, completed in 1776 in a neo-gothic style that would be tremendously influential on later architecture. I see that I took quite a few pictures of it, including one with Anne and Judy walking in the dimming afternoon light:

Here's a close-up of the Round Tower:

A photo of the grounds is too weakly focused to show here, but I did take one of a nearby neighborhood:

Back in London, probably the next day, we walked through Hyde Park. Here's a part of the Rose Garden with equestrian riders in the background:

And here's the Hyde Park Hotel on the south border of the park, its south façade seen from Brompton Road:

Probably that same afternoon we went out to see Greenwich, to the far east of the city. I have only a few photos of that visit, mostly of the Old Royal Naval College, including the Queen Anne Court with a nearly full moon behind it:

. . . and the facing Courts of Queen Mary and King William:

Farther downstream was the recently finished Millennium Dome, which we saw from a distance in the light of the setting sun:

Sunsets came soon after 4:30 this time of year, but we had a fine time in London after dark. We may have gone to the theatre, but what I specifically remember is seeing a couple of movies: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at the Curzon Mayfair, the grand 1930s movie palace near the Naval Club, and The Golden Bowl in a cramped multiplex off Leicester Square.

Another excursion we took was to Rye, a town Anne and I had liked very much when we were there in 1999; no doubt we went back to show it to Judy and Roberta. The photos I took this time, I must say, have less character and interest than the ones from 1999 (see BOX 213 if, once again, you care to compare), though I do like one of a sheep meadow just outside the old town:

We must have climbed the bell tower of St Mary's Church, since I have three rooftop shots; other views that follow are of the town hall, an old inn, and a typical quaint street:

On another occasion just Anne and I spent that day in Bath. It seems like a long way to go from Canterbury (I don't think we were still staying in Mayfair), but the train from Paddington Station to Bath takes less than an hour and a half, so I guess we thought it was feasible. I do remember we were ready for lunch by the time we got to Bath, and greatly enjoyed the food and atmosphere at the historic Sally Lunn's, where brioche-like buns have been made since 1690:

It was only a short walk from Sally Lunn's (where it was steamy-warm on a chilly day) to the Abbey, Roman Baths and Pump Room. Along the way we noticed a worker making repairs amid the statuary on one structure:

We entered the Abbey, famous for its Tudor-era fan vaulting:

When you exit the Abbey onto the square called Abbey Churchyard, you see a colonnade at the other end, with the Roman Baths and Pump Room to your left:

Here's a view looking back from the colonnade:

We took a tour of the remnants of the Roman Baths (no longer used for bathing, though Bath has more modern spas with water from hot springs):

Inside the Pump Room you could taste the (very unpleasant) mineral water from the very elegant drinking fountain:

If you walk through the colonnade and look left, you see a corner of the Pump Room and can look on toward high ground. Bath is built on hills above the River Avon and is surrounded by higher hills.

We walked to and spent time at the Jane Austen Centre, passing streets like the following. (I've found it on Google Maps--it's Queen Square).

Another street we walked along was Royal Avenue, with its lion gates:

We were on our way to the Royal Crescent, a semicircle of town houses built in the 1770s, another landmark of Bath:

Equally striking is a full circle of houses nearby, called The Circus:

By the time we got to yet another landmark, the shop-lined Pulteney Bridge over the Avon, it was dark. I'll share these less-than-adequate photos:

I have only one other photo from our fourth campus trip (third to Canterbury). We had been invited to meet faculty at the University of Canterbury, located on a hill outside the town. Here is a view looking down on the city and the Cathedral:

Back in Sheboygan, what better way to finish the slide roll than to take even more pics of our first grandson, Sam!

I'm not sure why I'm wearing my tux in the next photo, since the Sheboygan Symphony didn't have mid-January concerts. In any case, the pic after that was taken at our friend Jinny's place in Plymouth: Sam is out of focus, but the shot does show one of Jinny's many Christmas trees and one of her yarn pictures.

Here are the three kids with Jinny and Sam:

And joining them in the next photo are Judy (who must have stayed with us a while after getting back from England) and Tiffany:

Becky's then-boyfriend Lucas was at Jinny's too--here they are next to yet another of Jinny's Christmas trees. Then, back home in Sheboygan, I have a couple of shots of Michelle with her date for some formal occasion:

Around the same time, someone took these photos of Anne and me in a circle with Sam. I'll throw in a pic of Aron blowing out his birthday candles to complete this post:

Our next trip when I took photos was to Italy the summer following. I have several boxes of slides from that experience, so I'll need the next few posts to cover them.