Favorite Fotos: Happy Trails

I did a lot of walking during my time in the Old World, but most of it was on city streets, not hiking trails. However, there was some of the latter activity, mostly in Wales and Scotland, and I thought I'd share some of my "unpublished" photos from these pleasing walks.

The picture at the left was taken from near the top of Arthur's Seat, just outside of Edinburgh, the lovely city laid out before you here. The body of water in the distance is, if I'm not mistaken, the Firth of Forth, which I'd love to have seen closer up, but we just didn't have time on this trip.

Geologically remarkably similar-looking, but 'way across on the other side of the island, the photo at the right was taken on our hike up Pen y Fan, the highest point in southern Britain, specifically in Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog) National Park in Wales. The trail up here was well maintained, as were all the trails we hiked. Although not having to worry too much about vegetation encroaching on the path would make trail maintenance easier in some respects. Guarding against erosion from rainwater, however, is a problem not too many Texas trail managers have to contend with. Note the stream-like characteristics of the trail in the background of this photo:


In fact, pretty much all the trails I encountered bore evidence of the wet summer, even by their standards, that the UK had just experienced. And there were wonderful rushing streams everywhere. On the left is a glimpse of the steep, but lovely, trail down to Foyers Falls in Scotland, near Loch Ness. It was one of our serendipitous finds as we drove around the Loch (partly in a futile attempt at a Nessie sighting, but also to take in as much fabulous highland scenery as we could).

And below is a view from the trail we hiked in another area of Bannau Brycheiniog, a completely different hiking experience from the bare summits of Pen y Fan and its fellow Beacons.


This hike in the Park was the most strenuous walking I undertook during my whole trip, as we clambered over shelves and steps of Welsh slate, like you can see at the right here. But we loved seeing the four gorgeous waterfalls along the trail (called, appropriately enough, Wood of the Waterfalls, or Coed y Rhaeadr). Not to mention that the good exercise was both needed and welcome!

One real advantage UK hiking has over its Rockies counterparts, though, is that you don't have to deal with the thin air of extremely high altitude. It's great to have views of fabulous-looking mountains that don't require being at near-stratospheric heights to enjoy.

Another charming sidelight of UK hiking is the occasional random ruin, adding to the picturesque quality of the scenery immensely. Here's an example from the Arthur's Seat hike in Edinburgh:


The fabulous trees nourished by all that moisture are another distinction that I enjoyed. Don't get me wrong, I love walking in the Rockies and would have to pick them as a preferred location over the mountains of the UK—if I had to choose a favorite. But the trees I saw all over the UK were a real treat. At the left is a particularly scenic specimen along the Coed y Rhaeadr hike.

And below is one of the extraordinary trees we saw during an enjoyable, but completely different type of hike. This was in the artificial countryside of the Blenheim Palace grounds. A profoundly weird place, with its artificial lake and manicured, designed landscaping. But, you have to give them this: they planted some really amazing trees there....


I believe I was taken enough with British trees that I have enough pictures to make a separate post on the subject, so that will be my next Favorite Foto collection.

Sorry for the long blog gap!

I promise I will catch up this week—as I will also catch up with work. I'm in southern Wales right now, with a little time to kill as we wait for weather to clear enough for a hike up the highest mountain in southern Britain. I'll get to this adventure in the next few days. But for now I'll start filling in the last week.

We opted to take day trips for most of the break time that we weren’t in London, in order to maximize the economic advantage of having lodging at the flat.

Our first day trip was to Blenheim Palace, near Oxford. It’s very easy to get to on the Oxford Tube, which I'd discovered when the kids and I took a trip up there. From the bus station in Oxford you catch a bus to Blenheim that lets you out right at the front gate. We got that information from Rick Steves, who wasn’t quite as clear about how you get from Blenheim back to Oxford, and that caused us a little trouble at the end of the day, but I’ll get to that.

The palace is pretty spectacular, if hard to believe as a single family residence, and we learned a bit of English history along the way. The picture at the top of the blog is of one of the topiary birds in the Italian Garden (as opposed to the English Garden; you can see part of one wing of the house in the background). The topiary was the most perfect I’ve ever seen, although I don’t consider myself an expert in this area.

The palace was named Blenheim for a famous military victory won by its first owner, who was also made Duke of Marlborough for his trouble. (They’re on the 11th Duke now, who gives a charming welcome at the end of the historical video in an unbelievably garish sports jacket.) Also, of more interest to me, it was where Winston Churchill was actually born, since he’s a cousin of the Dukes. (Princess Di was also a cousin—quite a pedigree.) They have a nice exhibit on Churchill in the house that’s included in the price of admission; the items I found of most interest were some of his letters home as a young man.

What we liked much more than the house, however, were the extensive grounds (the brochure says over 2,000 acres). There were gorgeous trees, engineered (but impressive) lakes and a waterfall built during the time when people with lots of money did such things, and more gorgeous trees. A favorite variety of theirs and ours was the Cedar of Lebanon, under which Joan is posing above on the left. One of the lakes, with a picturesque island, is on the right.

There’s also an imposing obelisk commemorating the eponymous battle, but we headed out there toward the end of our visit and were starting to get tired and ended up not being terribly impressed. Perhaps it was also because of having to dodge the piles of sheep dung all over the walk there. The sheep are very picturesque when viewed from afar on the hillside, but seen up close offer little to recommend themselves but prodigious quantities of fertilizer.

We decided to take a quick (we thought) stop by the estate’s maze on the way out. But it turned out to be quite an intricate maze. (Plus it wasn’t really on the way out.) We ended up cheating by coming out the way we went in, but it still took a while. The picture below was taken from the observation platform and shows part of the center of the maze, where hedges cleverly spell out “Blenheim,” but which we never found on the ground. The kids at the place were having a great time guiding their parents around, though.


Our lack of a clear idea of where to find the exit from the ridiculously large grounds caused us to miss the next to last bus for Oxford and have to wait for an hour for the last one. We spent the time pleasantly enough in a village pub, but it was a little irritating, kept us from being able to do any sight-seeing in Oxford (we were too tired by the time we got there) and generally reinforced our rather sour opinion of the British aristocracy. Blenheim was kind of a neat place to visit, and we had fun, but I’m not sure I’d rank it as highly as Rick Steves does. Gorgeous trees, though!