Manchester, York, Warwick, London

We arrived in Manchester on Monday morning and amazingly getting through customs and immigration was a breeze. We picked up the car and headed off to York. Fortunately the SatNav was great and we arrived without too much bother. Homelea B&B was lovely although a little small. York is absolutely stunning, really really beautiful. We visited the Shambles which is very old (1400s), you'll notice the buildings are drooping

There is the old castle and a Minster, they light it up beautifully at night, you can see it during the day from almost everywhere.

We had dinner in a pub that was over 1000 years old, we walked over/on the wall that surrounds the township and also visited the Jorvik museum, about the Vikings, it was awesome.

We also were in York for the York markets. Steve tried on this fetching hat !

Fot those who have been to England before you know what value beef is ! For those of you who are confused have a look at this :

mmmm.... Fillet Steak at about $50 aussie per kilo !

We came across a caravan park for canal boats, it was very nice there (York).

The next day we drove to Warwick - it was a huge drive, the SatNav let us down a bit, thankfully we purchased a map. Agincourt B&B was stunning with a 4 poster bed and lots of room. Warwick Castle was amazing, it is so well preserved and they have wax figures dressed in traditional outfits and you get to walk everywhere and really experience what life was like.

From Warwick we drove to London. Driving in London was not as hard as I thought it would be - it helps that all of the vehicle controls are on the correct side and the same for oncoming cars !

We had a Vauxhall of some description - sporty little number. The controls were quite weird in that the indicators and windscreen wipers were momentary switches and did not flick into place, to turn them off you needed to operate it in the opposite direction.

The last 3 miles in London took us as long as the first 60 miles but it was still fun.

The Hotel is quite nice, it is on Piccadilly. We do not have a view of the park but that is OK. It is cold here and it was raining on and off for the first day. We did a double decker bus tour around and got a good feel for the place (in a tourist kind of way). As part of the tour we stopped off at the Tower of London (which, in my opinion, is a castle - not a tower). It was great, we did half a walking tour with a Beefeater and then went and saw the silverware, this included :

All of those crowns!

Spoons

Punch bowls

Swords, clubs and other sticks to beat peasants with

It was a good display, no pictures though as they really did not have a sense of humour about that. The safe room the jewels were in had the largest ****ing door on it I have ever seen. The jewels and other bits are priceless I suppose. We also looked around the Fusiliers Museum on site as well as the other part that were open to us.

We went to go and see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace but it was not on the day we went (lazy buggers !), instead we went to the London Eye (the big ferris wheel thingy), it is a great view.

We then went onto the British Imperial War Museum, they had great displays of weapons, vehicles and planes, "help from the Commonwealth" was mention a bit but not as much as was due. They also had a great blitz display and spy section.

Friday night we went along to Guys and Dolls and I was bitterly disappointed to find that Ewan McGregor was ill and did not perform. The show was great but I am still gutted.

Saturday we were supposed to go to Leeds Castle, Dover, Cantebury and a cruise on the Thames, when we arrived at Victoria station we were informed that there was not enough people to take the tour so they cancelled it. I am very very angry and plan on making a huge complaint to the travel agent. I was really looking forward to it and it was the only thing I specially planned to do in the UK. Steve and I caught the train to Brighton instead and had a lovely day. This is a photo of Brighton Beach towards the fun pier:

Steve was very brave and ordered a selection of strange British seafood including a rollmop (pickled herring), dressed crab (white and brown crab meat - we did think that brown crab meat is not exactly like chicken brown meat, however:O ), smoked salmon, whelts and winkles. Steve was not brave enough to try the jellied eel. I know my mum would have been in heaven :)

This is Brighton Beach, no chance of this gravel getting inside your togs :)

We had high tea in the hotel this afternoon which was lovely (Steve had high beer). I felt like a lady and my mum would be proud of my good manners. A women was playing the harp.

It's Guy Fawkes night tonight, however it's raining so we are going to pike on the fireworks, lame I know. We have been to quite a few pubs and tried different beers and had traditional British food, bangers and mash, fish and chips, stews etc. We are off to the Portobello markets tomorrow. Monday (very early) we fly to Barcelona and start our cruise.

Goodbye from Steve and Emily, we'll talk to you again on the Med'