In this is Tuesday, it must be Stonehenge

[Larry Kart]

... in what may have been a 50 m.p.h. gale.

A few days earlier, in the Villa Ducase in Santa Margarita, Italy, at about 90 degrees.

After buying four great scarves from her favorite vendor at the Rapallo bazaar, who remembered her from prior years.

[JSngry]

So that's where you've been!

Welcome back, what was your impression of things such Stonehinge?

[GA Russell]

Beautiful photos!  Hope you had a great time!

[sidewinder]

Looks good !  Once upon a time you could clamber on those stones and play cricket using them as false stumps.

Edited August 5, 2015 by sidewinder

[mjazzg]

Looks good !  Once upon a time you could clamber on those stones and play cricket using them as false stumps.

and attend the annual summer solstice music festival. memory a bit hazy about those days though......

Good to see the great British Summer weather didn't dampen your enjoyment

[Larry Kart]

So that's where you've been!

Welcome back, what was your impression of things such Stonehinge?

I'll need to get my head together first

[ghost of miles]

Was the experience in any way akin to this?

Stonehenge

 

[paul secor]

Welcome back! From the photos, I can see that you had a great time.

[Larry Kart]

So that's where you've been!

Welcome back, what was your impression of things such Stonehinge?

Lots of things, but let me begin with something that was perhaps negative but eventually perhaps not. When we got to London at the end of our bus tour of GB, which began in London with two days of cold and rain, I found that our second London hotel the London Hilton Metropole, at the junction of Edgeware Rd. and Marylebone Rd., was, as we walked down Edgware toward Oxford St. (a bit more than mile), located at one end of what was  now virtually one long Middle Eastern soukh, the sidewalk close to filled with tables from restaurants where men (mostly) sat smoking water pipes. Further, as the two of us tried to make our way,  we (but especially my wife Julie) were frequently bumped into and/or even elbowed aside in what seemed to be not so much a show of overt hostility as a kind of "what the heck are you doing here amongst us?"/"we'll treat you as though your physical beings don't exist" thing. (Julie BTW said that she was treated in much the same casually contemptuous manner by many Muslim men on the streets of Morocco in the '70s. ) You can say that this was more or less a xenophobic reaction or even a projection on our part -- a thought that both of us certainly entertained -- and I for sure had been startled right off  to see that this soukh-like vibe extended to Marble Arch, an area where I spent some time in the early '70s. In any case -- and all credit to Julie the Gregarious here -- the next night we walked into a bustling Edgeware Rd. Lebanese restaurant, the only Anglos present, got to talking and sharing food with a Middle-Eastern extended family at the next table, and had a great time. Residents of Great Britain and others, feel free to wade in on our naivete or what you will.

Post-Stonehenge touristy highlights included a ride in a canal boat near Bath that crosses a viaduct that's some 200 feet above the valley below, and a small town in Wales that just felt utterly cozy and relaxed, no tourist feel at all and great local ice cream. Edinburgh I didn't really get into that much, though there was some great art in the Scottish National Gallery. The Scots do bathe in and sell being Scottish to a fierce and perhaps near-delusional degree. Some perspective on this came when we visited Sir Walter Scott's home at Abbotsford -- Scott being a great writer and a very good man who of course did more than his share to shape and promulgate the Scottish mythos. Somehow seeing how all that linked up to  Scott's personal life and the place he had built for himself clarified things a bit, but then this is a country that, unless I'm dead wrong here, is still governed in the so-called modern world by ideologies that go back to, at least, Robert the Bruce.

 

Most beautiful single place probably was York; caught an even-song service at York Minster -- magical. London, in the midst of late-July's infusion of tourists, seemed at times in the grip of near-madness -- en masse selfie-stalk takers of photos being a particular proliferating bane . Concert at Albert Hall was a semi-dud, but the hall itself is a trip; production of "The Importance of Being Ernest," with David Suchet as Lady Bracknell also was a semi-dud -- they played it as broad farce for the most part, lots of mugging and silly physical business -- but it's hard to destroy this play completely, and the final act was effective. 

A long walk through Hyde Park on a perfect warm day was a joy.

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2015 by Larry Kart

[JSngry]

Local ice cream vs. Stonehenge...hmmm....the ice cream makes a good case, imo.

[sidewinder]

That's interesting about Marble Arch. Very different to how I remember the area too.

York can be a fascinating place - I always enjoy visiting the Jorvik Viking Centre and the underground Roman bit of the Minster is a must-see.

Edited August 5, 2015 by sidewinder

[page]

That looks like it was great fun. I'd love to go there some time myself. You have a lovely wife, Larry! That first picture is so nice, it makes me smile all the way.

[johnblitweiler]

That looks like it was great fun. I'd love to go there some time myself. You have a lovely wife, Larry! That first picture is so nice, it makes me smile all the way.

And they are as great as they look.

[Larry Kart]

That looks like it was great fun. I'd love to go there some time myself. You have a lovely wife, Larry! That first picture is so nice, it makes me smile all the way.

I like the way she looks, too! Also, I take credit for convincing her to stop coloring her hair a ways back. The grey bits create a kind of front-to-back three-dimensional effect.

[Cyril]

Nice couple...  

Stonehenge looks great.  This is the oldest known depiction of Stonehenge:

          

[Brad]

It's been a few years (about 10) since I've been to London but, yes, it's been changing, and not for the better, in my humble opinion.

Thanks for the pics.  Look like you were having a great time.

[A Lark Ascending]

I too was puzzled by the large number of Middle Eastern cafes on the east side of Hyde Park with those smoking contraptions. Not part of London I frequent often, noticed it for the first time last year.

I spent a lot of time in London in the early to mid 70s but have only visited occasionally since. Across the whole city it's become a much more multi-cultural place. 

Though the thing that has struck me most on recent visits is the in-your-face conspicuous wealth on display ( side by side with much deprivation). It's nothing like that blatant where I live.

[mjazzg]

The Edgware Road area has been known to me for the last 25 years or so as very definitely having a strong Middle Eastern flavour. Glad to hear you had a positive experience in the restaurant to balance the unpleasantness on the street.

Areas of the city are certainly more multicultural than others and many areas are distinguished by the predominance of one or two ethnic communities. In my years here those areas have changed to reflect different migration trends. Dalston, home of Cafe Oto and The Vortex, was distinctly West Indian in the 80s but is now very Turkish who in their turn are being replaced by predominantly white young hipsters.

For me, one of the great things about this city is the way it changes (although sadly not always for the best e.g. Bev's point about wealth disparity)

Edited August 6, 2015 by mjazzg

[Larry Kart]

FWIW, that was the Villa Durazzo is that photo above where Julie is languishing in the heat in Santa Margarita, not the Villa Ducasse (whatever that is).