Portland proclaimer 2

Little Morton Hall

 

Biddulph Hall-rack of those chimneys connects to a fireplace!

 

Farewell England and hello Denmark.  We are on a Road Scholar tour entitled Four Nordic Capitals which includes Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki.  They are quite insistent that Finland is not Scandinavian but Nordic. It all seems to have to do with language and geography . . . Enough said.

Copenhagen is a city of spires and towers, domes and cobbles, buildings from the 1500's and modern architecture, wide pedestrianized streets, narrow lanes and canals, castles and churches and a monarchy.

Editing and writing on a phone is awkward to say the least.  I believe you will be seeing captioned photos and little else.

Tivoli Gardens it is and always has been an amusement park

Believe this is a Danish castle where the crown jewels reside

We had a lunch of open faced Danish sandwiches

The little mermaid.  The original story is much darker than Disney

Garbage Incinerator with a climbing wall, ski slope, gardens, hiking paths, I believe a restaurant and elevator to the top.  Talk about multi functional

I have pretty much given up on the history.  The Danes have conquered the Swedes and visa versa.  They have married to preserve and or destroy kingdoms.  Traded princes and princesses when they ran out of family.  Norway is independent and non aligned, kinda.  And everyone has royal families with palaces and jewels.

Elsinore Castle of Hamlet fame

Portland Proclaimer

 It's been years, a new knee and COVID since I did a blog post.  I no longer have my little ASUS computer and the only camera I carry is my phone so we'll see just how crazy making this can be.  I already took the easy way out by posting pictures on Facebook.

Letocetum Roman Ruins

Shrewsbury note the Elizabeth building that is yellow rather than black and white.  This is more typical, black and white was a Victorian affection.

We began our travels with a visit to family and friends in the UK.  A National Trust pass has been our guiding light.  Castles, stately homes (aka "stately piles") and gardens are the order of the day.  No ventures to grocery stores to catalogue the enormous variety of crisps (potato chips).  However Marks and Spencer's has been the default for picnic lunches.

I know I've said it before but one would think the British housewife never prepared a complete meal.  The amount of prepackaged, pre-prepared items are phenomenal.  It's easy to pick up mini pork pies, salads, olives and fruit all packages in individual portions. No guys, muss or bother and everywhere send to have wooden cutlery.

Didn't book ahead and it was a bank holiday weekend, so it default premier in was unavailable anywhere near Macclesfield.  Splurged or Shrigley Hall.  A somewhat pretentious old building featuring a spa in a converted church.  The weather was fine, 65-70 and the Brits were out in force sunbathing and soaking in the outdoor pool.  Being a California girl it really needs to be at least 75 degrees before I'll stretch out in the sun.  Here, there wasn't a lounge chair to be had, and the amount of alcohol being consumed was remarkable.

Powys Castle

Shrewsbury

Chirk Castle

Water butt at Chirk Castle

Stopping here for now, the next edition should be better formated.