Britain's tourist traps
May. 12th, 2011 03:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacThat's the title of the gallery, apparently based on the Lonely Planet guide, that starts here. I've been to four of the ten places listed, with no interest in most of the others, and I didn't find those four so bad.
Stonehenge. A haunting echo from Britain's forgotten past... despite the constant flow of traffic from the main road beside the monument, and huge numbers of visitors.
I don't understand why people are so eager to deprecate Stonehenge. Maybe it's envy. Despite the highway running by, and the museum and gift shop (quite good, by the way, at least when I was last there) and parking lot on the other side, it's still possible to grasp how it looked sitting all alone in the middle of Salisbury Plain with nothing around it. Best imagined when seen in the context of other ancient circles in the area that are less touristed up: Woodhenge (very nearby, and we were the only tourists there), Avebury, and the Rollright Stones.
Cardiff. A prodigious boozing town - beered-up lads and ladettes tottering from bar to club to kebab shop.
Maybe that's its nightlife, but I've only ever been there in the daytime: rather frequently, in fact, when I was staying nearby. Decent restaurants, good shops, peacocks in the castle grounds, and a statue of Nye Bevan, the politician who created the National Health Service and accordingly deserves a statue.
Durham. Once you've visited the cathedral and walked the old town looking for the best views there isn't much else to do.
Maybe not, and I didn't spend a lot of time there. There isn't "much else to do" at Stonehenge either. But the said cathedral and views were so worthwhile I've never regretted it and recommend it enthusiastically.
Warwick Castle. Unfortunately the summer queues at the castle can resemble a medieval siege.
And if you get there when the queues aren't long, as I did? It's a pretty damn neat late-period castle. And that it's the model for Tolkien's Kortirion just makes it slightly more interesting.
Stonehenge. A haunting echo from Britain's forgotten past... despite the constant flow of traffic from the main road beside the monument, and huge numbers of visitors.
I don't understand why people are so eager to deprecate Stonehenge. Maybe it's envy. Despite the highway running by, and the museum and gift shop (quite good, by the way, at least when I was last there) and parking lot on the other side, it's still possible to grasp how it looked sitting all alone in the middle of Salisbury Plain with nothing around it. Best imagined when seen in the context of other ancient circles in the area that are less touristed up: Woodhenge (very nearby, and we were the only tourists there), Avebury, and the Rollright Stones.
Cardiff. A prodigious boozing town - beered-up lads and ladettes tottering from bar to club to kebab shop.
Maybe that's its nightlife, but I've only ever been there in the daytime: rather frequently, in fact, when I was staying nearby. Decent restaurants, good shops, peacocks in the castle grounds, and a statue of Nye Bevan, the politician who created the National Health Service and accordingly deserves a statue.
Durham. Once you've visited the cathedral and walked the old town looking for the best views there isn't much else to do.
Maybe not, and I didn't spend a lot of time there. There isn't "much else to do" at Stonehenge either. But the said cathedral and views were so worthwhile I've never regretted it and recommend it enthusiastically.
Warwick Castle. Unfortunately the summer queues at the castle can resemble a medieval siege.
And if you get there when the queues aren't long, as I did? It's a pretty damn neat late-period castle. And that it's the model for Tolkien's Kortirion just makes it slightly more interesting.
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Date: 2011-05-14 08:05 am (UTC)Dover: well, never went to the city, but the castle's great. Hundreds of years of tunneling into chalk, and we had the very English experience of going in when it was bright sunshine and coming out into a horizontal rainstorm.
Stonehenge: I do love the surrounding circles. Even better, we were there in the early morning; as the mist rose we could see the myriad barrows on the hills about, all oriented to the henge.
Durham: yeah, once you visit the lovely cathedral and admire the views in the old town, what is there to do other than have one of the best meals in my life in a pub just downhill from the cathedral, and snooze quietly at the nice b&b we stayed at. What actually would these guys think is fun?