Signs

One of my favorite things through-out the trip was the signs -- the design of signs, the funny names, the interesting grammar -- all of it.

Through-out London, there were these black signs directing you to tourist attractions and important buildings.

T

McDonald's in Windsor.  The options on the menu are much more limited than in the U.S.

Uncle Vernon was right:  there is no Platform 9 3/4!

Red Lion pub, which used to be a coaching inn back in the day when people traveled by coach.

This was just too cool for words.

A lot of the pubs and shops have signs that advertise their wares without having to use words.

One of my favorite pub names:  Hung Drawn and Quartered -- located near the Tower of London and Tower Green where all of the beheadings took place in the 16th century.









The street signs are all located on the sides of buildings at the intersections.  Makes it very easy to see where you are.

More of the "signs" that are simply pictures hanging on the outside of the buildings.  Not sure what the cricket is supposed to represent.

 This is in St. Pancras rail station.  It's one of those signs with the flippy numbers and letters like you see in all of the movies.  While we were standing there, all of the letters and numbers started flipping around.  It was cool!

Probably never going to see this particular business putting up a sign in the U.S.!  This was in Paris.

I almost feel like Napoleon put this up himself!

This totally summed up my feeling for Paris.  One of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen.

Some Cool Things

 This is the inside of an old church (or vicarage) and I hope I can explain it well.  In this first picture, I'm standing at the doorway facing the altar to take the picture.  You can see that the pews face each other like the seats in the Houses of Parliament.  As a matter of fact, this church has been used in movies as though it were Parliament back in the Regency days.





In this next picture, I'm standing up near the altar and taking the picture back toward the door (in the middle near the bottom of the picture).  Note the pretty ceiling in this little vicarage.  Above the door is the pulpit where the vicar reads his sermon to those assembled in the facing pews.  The area around the pulpit is a painting to it looks like it's up against a window.  Outside was the cemetery just like in all of the old Agatha Christie novels.


Five of us spent the night in the old vicarage and it was surprisingly large.  My room was up on the third floor (narrow, twisty stairs) and I had to drag my suitcase up there.  I chose the orange bedroom because it had it's own bathroom, but the fire escape left a little something to be desired!

 Next to the vicarage was a farm (with sheep, of course) with a really interesting basket-weave fence.

Not surprisingly, this is the red drawing room.

On the tour that I took from Bath up to Manchester, we visited many large estates and huge homes.  Some are still privately owned, but most have been turned over to the National Trust (probably because no one could afford to keep them up).  The exteriors have beautiful manicured gardens and the insides are jaw-droppingly beautiful.

Almost all of the ceilings had this beautiful painting and plaster work.

This is the portrait gallery.

On the last day of the tour, we took a buggy ride.  Can't go on a proper buggy ride without a hat, though.