A trip to England Nov 27 - Dec 02
And again, I’m late with this posting. Hmm, does anybody care how late I am… probably not. It seems I’m just doing this for myself - it’s just fun to see which countries my bog gets hits from.
Anyways, here’s my current story - I was in England for one seminar which took place in the Defence Academy on Nov 27- Dec 2. The Academy is situated in Shrivenham - all the participants were accommodated in Swindon - well, it’s always good to know the bus routes of other countries, isn’t it :) The seminary was very good - there were many very prominent speakers and lot’s of opportunities to ask all sorts of questions.
But what happened outside the seminar - our cultural programme included two main features - a trip to Bath and to Blenheim palace.
The town Bath got its name probably from the roman times - when a hugh spa was built on a geyser. If I remember it correctly, it’s the only geyser in England - there are couple of smaller ones surrounding it. During past times the spa buildings were covered with mud and most of the buildings had other buildings built on. In the Victorian times there were excavations done and a new main building built - so there’s the only roman-Victorian complex. The spa is now a museum (unfortunatelly not used for its original purpose any more) and it was booked for our visit - first, we had a nice mulled wine with snacks and then a great tour. I have to say, the steaming water in the main pool was so tempting. The water temperature there is constant 42 degrees or somewhere close to that. We were warned not to touch the water as it wasn’t purified. Now who can guess, if we followed that warning :)
After this splendid visit, our group was divided into four and each group had a separate pub for dinner.
Now, the second cultural event - a visit to Blenheim palace. It’s supposed to be the biggest gift a monarch has ever given to one person - a duke of Marlborough. And believe it or not, it’s still private property, owned by the 11th duke of Marlborough. And what’s even more astonishing, it was a birthplace for Winston Churchill, or should I say Winston Spencer-Churchill. Yes, in fact, he did have two last names.
OK, enough from reading - take a look at my pictures.