Travel – Page 18 – Roving Sun

May 20, 2023June 1, 2023

Oxfordshire [England, UK]

We started the day by heading to Minster Lovell Hall and Dovecote in the small village of Minster Lovell to view the ruins of a 15th century manor house. A very pretty rural place that was a bit hard to find, we had to ask a local jogger for directions!

After spending some time there, we drove over to Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. The family tree of well known English figures is probably not well known to most Americans, including ourselves. It turns out that the this branch of the Churchill family is actually Spencer Churchill. The Spencer branch being the same family as Diana, Princess of Wales, formerly Diana Spencer. They would have been fairly distant relations. As for the palace, it is quite impressive!

We ended our day by taking a walk around Oxford. There were graduation ceremonies taking place at some of the colleges that make up the University of Oxford. It was quite busy. After the last few days of being in relatively remote places, it felt like we were in a big city!

May 19, 2023June 4, 2023

Wiltshire & Oxfordshire [England, UK]

We toured more places in Wiltshire today! We started at Woodhenge, a henge right next to Stonehenge. It was on the way to our next destination, Old Wardour Castle. Old Wardour was home to the Anne Arundell, wife of Lord Baltimore who founded the Maryland colony. Anne Arundel County in Maryland is named after her. Afterwards, we headed up north to Avebury, a World Heritage Site containing a large henge. We then went further north to visit the White Horse Hill, an interesting outline of a horse cut into the chalk soil at least 2000 years ago. We ended the day at Great Coxwell Barn, a 13th century barn that has a cathedral-like elements. This barn is in an episode of Downton Abbey, though we haven’t gotten to the particular episode yet.

May 18, 2023June 1, 2023

Wiltshire [England, UK]

We started the day by heading to Stonehenge. After a wrong turn on a roundabout and looping through one an extra time, we made it right after the 9:30am opening time. We spent a bit of time there and then headed to Old Sarum, the site of the ruins of an ancient castle and cathedral. After walking through what is left of the castle, we went to nearby Salisbury to visit the cathedral’s replacement and to view one of four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta! On our way back, we hit two additional castle ruins, one of which was not actually in Wiltshire, before calling it a day.

April 23, 2023April 26, 2023

Guam

After snorkeling in the morning and having brunch at Pika’s Cafe, we decided to do a drive around Guam. The weather ended up being rather rainy but we did stop at a few places along the way.

April 20, 2023April 26, 2023

Akasaka Palace in Tokyo

We were pretty tired after doing the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route and heading right to Tokyo afterwards so we got a late start today. We headed to Akasaka Palace at what we thought was the opening time at 11am. It turns out it probably opened earlier at 10am. This palace serves as the state guest house and has been open to tourists only since 2016. Various US presidents have been here. Joe Biden features quite a bit in many of the photographs on display.