Radio is a bizarre phenomena on this isle. From everything I've seen, there are only a handful of radio stations here at all. There is literally BBC 1-4, Heart, and a few more stations that I would classify as "wide spread." They are assigned ranges and broadcast within those areas. As you move about, you'll begin to lose signal on one frequency, so you simply tune to another frequency in that range to pick it up again. The programs are geared toward everyone, everywhere on the island. BBC 1, for example, is broadcast from 97.7 to 99.7 and during the day plays popular music, with genre specific shows into the night. BBC is very similar, as is Heart and the other wide broadcast stations. BBC 3 seems to focus on classical, opera and Jazz, while BBC Classic is classical music. BBC 4 is mostly arts, culture, and news.
In addition to these long broadcast stations, we've found a handful of regional stations. There is a BBC Welsh and BBC Gaelic in those respect languages (Cymru and Gael). There is a BBC Scotland and I think a few in other major cities. What is odd is that in addition to these stations, we've literally seen only 2 other stations. One is a local variety station based out of Oban, and according to a Radio Maps website, the only station to service the 90,000 people that live in the Argyll and Bute area. The other was a rock station that I think was based out of Glasgow. The variety of stations focusing on specific genres of music that we are so used to in America is almost non-existent here. It's quite weird!
TV was a weird disappointment for me. We've seen a handful of new things that are good, but most of the British TV shows are pretty bad, even to the people that live here. Most of the TV on the air here is imported from America. Scrubs is vastly popular, The Simpsons are on regularly, Friends, and How You Meet My Mother and in demand as well. Many of the movies on TV and advertised here are, understandably, from Hollywood. The movies that I've seen advertised that are from the UK are generally quite bad looking. Understandably, Bollywood films are in high demand around the island.
Showing posts with label Wales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wales. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
3 countries in one day!
Today has been GREAT! We started the morning off in incredibly wonderful Northern Wales; it was amazing there. I know I suck at describing things, but as we began to venture away from Wales and back to the Midlands region of England, the landscape really began to change, flatten out, get more brown and dreary. Wales was so green, the villages had a sort of Austrian feel to them, and it was wet and lovely. The roads were curvy, the villages set in valleys that had amazingly steep descents, and water was flowing in wonderful streams. It was sort of like the most awesome bits of the Smoky Mountains, but on steroids. I absolutely loved it. It was, quite possibly, one of the most naturally beautiful places I've ever been. I could see living in an ancient villa hear, attempting to live by some old craft or art.
This morning started off a little bit different. We checked out of the hotel (which was GREAT and very affordable! www.whitewatershotel.co.uk/) and hit up the local co-operative grocery store. We spent less than £20 on enough food for breakfast and lunch. We got 4 mini baguettes, 2 chocolate croissants, 2 multipacks of crisps, 2 bottles of water, a chocolate bar, 2 apples and 2 pears, and 2 really tasty sandwiches for like £18!!! Breakthrough! We should have done this days ago! DUH!
After eating breakfast in the parking lot of the co-op, we crossed the River Dee and back toward England, soaking in the beautify countryside. Heading back into England was a bit depressing to me, but looking forward to Scotland was exciting. It got quite bland around Manchester and traffic a bit thick, especially in the opposite direction. We didn't have to stay on the motorway for very long, we were headed to Lake Country. This region is a famous as a holiday destination and even in the heavy weather it was still quite busy in the little villages along the lakes. As we rolled in to the southern part of the region, we passed loads of Bed and Breakfasts and outdoors shops, and a lot of families out hiking. I had initially planned on stopping at Hillside, Beatrix Potter's former house, but it was closed for the season and a good was out of the way, so we stopped for lunch alongside a creek and took a bunch of great photos. We then proceeded on to Grasmere, where William Wordsworth lived and were a museum about him resides now. Karen wasn't particularly interested in seeing the museum and Grasmere passed by so fast that we decided it wasn't worth stopping. I think it was a good idea.
As we rolled through the Northern part of the region, we were simply blown away. It had been extremely foggy throughout much of the day, and it had gotten even heavier as we arrived in the Lakes District. It began to lift some as we passed Thirlmere lake and the views we were afforded we breathtaking. Simply incredible, big mountains on the sides, smooth, partially frozen placid lakes and incredible rocky crags. The traffic was pretty light, so I slowed down and we really enjoyed it. We stopped at one point and took some cool pictures of this neat series of large, steep hills that had been divided up with stone walls, presumably to keep sheep in specific "fields." It was great!
We ambled out of the area, eventually making our way back to the motorway for a quick jaunt across the border into Scotland. It had begun getting dark so we didn't get to see much, but the fog got thicker and it started raining, which I think is going to be good for even more snow removal, unless it freezes tonight. It's not slated to be any more worse than today was, which would be fine with me. We arrived at the Urr Lodge (http://www.urrlodge.co.uk/) at around 4:30 and checked in. It's a hostel, but I really like it. Karen seems to as well. It's got a nice big eating area, communal kitchen, everything we need, and a nice community room for TV. After running to Tesco for dinner supplies (£9.56 for tortellini, sauce, 3 huge bottles of water, 5 tomatoes, a bunch of organic button mushrooms, salad mix (much better greens that at home), salad dressing, and a small coke! SCORE!) we cooked up dinner and chatted with the host couple. We've been watching various TV and chatting with them since. It's really nice. We are the only visitors here tonight, which is cool, but I think it takes away from the hostel experience some. We are staying at a hostel the next two nights though, so I think we'll get to interact with more people.
Tomorrow, into the Highlands of Scotland!
More pictures from today: http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll256/sandalscout/GB%202010-2011/Dec%2028-%20Wales%20to%20Scotland/
This morning started off a little bit different. We checked out of the hotel (which was GREAT and very affordable! www.whitewatershotel.co.uk/) and hit up the local co-operative grocery store. We spent less than £20 on enough food for breakfast and lunch. We got 4 mini baguettes, 2 chocolate croissants, 2 multipacks of crisps, 2 bottles of water, a chocolate bar, 2 apples and 2 pears, and 2 really tasty sandwiches for like £18!!! Breakthrough! We should have done this days ago! DUH!
After eating breakfast in the parking lot of the co-op, we crossed the River Dee and back toward England, soaking in the beautify countryside. Heading back into England was a bit depressing to me, but looking forward to Scotland was exciting. It got quite bland around Manchester and traffic a bit thick, especially in the opposite direction. We didn't have to stay on the motorway for very long, we were headed to Lake Country. This region is a famous as a holiday destination and even in the heavy weather it was still quite busy in the little villages along the lakes. As we rolled in to the southern part of the region, we passed loads of Bed and Breakfasts and outdoors shops, and a lot of families out hiking. I had initially planned on stopping at Hillside, Beatrix Potter's former house, but it was closed for the season and a good was out of the way, so we stopped for lunch alongside a creek and took a bunch of great photos. We then proceeded on to Grasmere, where William Wordsworth lived and were a museum about him resides now. Karen wasn't particularly interested in seeing the museum and Grasmere passed by so fast that we decided it wasn't worth stopping. I think it was a good idea.
As we rolled through the Northern part of the region, we were simply blown away. It had been extremely foggy throughout much of the day, and it had gotten even heavier as we arrived in the Lakes District. It began to lift some as we passed Thirlmere lake and the views we were afforded we breathtaking. Simply incredible, big mountains on the sides, smooth, partially frozen placid lakes and incredible rocky crags. The traffic was pretty light, so I slowed down and we really enjoyed it. We stopped at one point and took some cool pictures of this neat series of large, steep hills that had been divided up with stone walls, presumably to keep sheep in specific "fields." It was great!
We ambled out of the area, eventually making our way back to the motorway for a quick jaunt across the border into Scotland. It had begun getting dark so we didn't get to see much, but the fog got thicker and it started raining, which I think is going to be good for even more snow removal, unless it freezes tonight. It's not slated to be any more worse than today was, which would be fine with me. We arrived at the Urr Lodge (http://www.urrlodge.co.uk/) at around 4:30 and checked in. It's a hostel, but I really like it. Karen seems to as well. It's got a nice big eating area, communal kitchen, everything we need, and a nice community room for TV. After running to Tesco for dinner supplies (£9.56 for tortellini, sauce, 3 huge bottles of water, 5 tomatoes, a bunch of organic button mushrooms, salad mix (much better greens that at home), salad dressing, and a small coke! SCORE!) we cooked up dinner and chatted with the host couple. We've been watching various TV and chatting with them since. It's really nice. We are the only visitors here tonight, which is cool, but I think it takes away from the hostel experience some. We are staying at a hostel the next two nights though, so I think we'll get to interact with more people.
Tomorrow, into the Highlands of Scotland!
More pictures from today: http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll256/sandalscout/GB%202010-2011/Dec%2028-%20Wales%20to%20Scotland/
Monday, December 27, 2010
TODAY WAS AWESOME!
We visited so many cool places today, it's hard to even begin to write about them. We got a fairly early start as we had an 8:00am time frame to get to Stonehenge for our special Circle Access visit. The hotel was only about 5 minutes from Stonehenge, and it was really neat to drive up to the rocks. We parked and we a little confused about where we were supposed to be, but figured it out and approached the area blocked off by cones. A friendly security guard let us through, and then we were escorted to the stones by another security guard who talked with us along the way about the weather and where we were from, general chit chat, but she seemed nice. We passed through a tunnel under the road and then emerged at the rock site. We were told the rules (No chanting, no dancing, no open flames, no touching the rock, etc) and then let into the restricted zone to explore as we wanted. It was pretty amazing to gain access to an area that not everyone gets to any more. We slowly worked out way up to the circle, taking pictures along the way and getting a general layout for everything. The structure itself is pretty interesting, the layout is five rings of stones, but only two of them are the larger stones that everyone knows. There are three other circles of smaller, shorter stones, about shoulder height and maybe as big around as a person. As we studied the graffiti (some from the 1600's, probably earlier too) I realized that there were several mounds in the distance that appeared to be man made. They seem to form somewhat of a ring about Stonehenge, most of them are probably 3/4 of mile, or more, away. It was really difficult to take it all in, and simply awing. We stayed around for about 45 minutes, until it started to become really cold, and we then headed out.
We returned to the hotel for breakfast, to pack, and to check out, and then we went just a little ways to Woodhenge. It's considered a sister site to Stonehenge as it was built during the same time (about 2000BCE), but it is different in it's construction. The layout of the sites is similar, but instead of stones propped up, there are holes that had timbers placed into them. The timbers have all rotted, but the holes have been filled with concrete pilings of the same size to preserve the locations. This site was not nearly as exciting, but it was still intriguing.
After our quick visit to Woodhenge, we hit the road, headed to Southern Wales. Our first major stop here (after crossing the Severgn River on a pretty cool bridge with a pretty steep toll) was to be Tintern Abbey. Tintern Abbey was built in the 1100s to be used by Cistercian monks and was used for over 400 years until King Henry VIII took complete control of the church. It was used as residence for local workers for a while during the early 1700s but mostly fell into ruin during it's unoccupied time. It became a popular destination in the late 1700s after it was mentioned in a book, and "wild travel" become popular.
Unfortunately for us, the site had experienced freezing rain before the snow came last week, and the ice was exposed yesterday, so it was not open for touring. The gift shop was open and the ladies working were very helpful and nice, but we were pretty bummed. We still got a TON of photos from outside the wall, and had a pretty good view of a large chunk of the structure. I was actually more blown away by Tintern Abbey than I was by Stonehenge. It's hard to imagine standing in a place that was the home of so many people for over 400 years, and still stands to this day, 900 years since it was built. Pictures cannot do this place justice. It is so hard to explain how awesome it is.
After seeing as much of Tintern as we could, we hit the road, off toward Raglan Castle. Driving in Wales, or even the new counties in England that we did today was better than Oxfordshire, in my opinion. The roads seemed wider (possibly due to melted snow and me being more comfortable with the car), and people weren't in quite the rush as I had experienced before. Southern Wales and West-Central England is gorgeous. It's actually quite green right now, grass on the ground, and small amounts of snow on the tops of the hills. The valleys that people live in are charming as hell.
Raglan Castle is probably the most famous castle in Wales, and it's also the newest. It's new enough, built in 1400s-1600s, that it has gun ports in addition to arrow ports for defending against attackers. It's pretty remarkable, and easily identifiable by it's 6-sided towers. It was very wet on the grounds, and a bit slick in places, so we didn't visit every open room, but we did a fairly thorough tour of much of it. Behind the main hall, you could see the various levels of apartments with highly appointed fireplaces, surrounded by elaborate carvings depicting what I believe was the people who hired the building of the fireplace. It was rewarding to tour my first real castle, I can't wait to see more. We saw some from the roadway today, but this was my first true medieval castle to visit.
The rest of the day was spent driving the remaining distance to Llangollen where we are staying tonight in Northern Wales. Wales has two official languages, English and Welsh. When we arrived at the hotel, we entered into the wrong door and there was a gentleman there to tell us that reception was the next door down, but he first said it in Welsh and then in English. It caught me completely off guard. Nearly all signs in Wales are dual language, and while just over 20% of Wale's citizens speak Welsh, the bulk of that is located in Northern Wales, mostly on the West coast. It's pretty wild to see such a strange language that a large percentage of the population can speak, but it's nice that English holds equal status. Many of the signs at the Bangladorian restaurant we ate in this evening were in Welsh. Pretty cool!
Tomorrow is going to be a long day, we've got about 4 hours of driving today to, and that's not counting a planned detour through the Lake District in Northern England. We will be in Southern Scotland tomorrow night! 2 days with a 4 hour trip, and then 2 days of 3 hour trips. Not bad, I just have to remember to check on Karen more often, she was not happy when we rolled into town tonight. It was dark when we got to Northern Wales, but I can't wait to see the area tomorrow.
Here are more pictures from today: http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll256/sandalscout/GB%202010-2011/Dec%2027-Stonehenge-Tintern%20Abbey-Raglan%20Castle/?start=all
We returned to the hotel for breakfast, to pack, and to check out, and then we went just a little ways to Woodhenge. It's considered a sister site to Stonehenge as it was built during the same time (about 2000BCE), but it is different in it's construction. The layout of the sites is similar, but instead of stones propped up, there are holes that had timbers placed into them. The timbers have all rotted, but the holes have been filled with concrete pilings of the same size to preserve the locations. This site was not nearly as exciting, but it was still intriguing.
After our quick visit to Woodhenge, we hit the road, headed to Southern Wales. Our first major stop here (after crossing the Severgn River on a pretty cool bridge with a pretty steep toll) was to be Tintern Abbey. Tintern Abbey was built in the 1100s to be used by Cistercian monks and was used for over 400 years until King Henry VIII took complete control of the church. It was used as residence for local workers for a while during the early 1700s but mostly fell into ruin during it's unoccupied time. It became a popular destination in the late 1700s after it was mentioned in a book, and "wild travel" become popular.
Unfortunately for us, the site had experienced freezing rain before the snow came last week, and the ice was exposed yesterday, so it was not open for touring. The gift shop was open and the ladies working were very helpful and nice, but we were pretty bummed. We still got a TON of photos from outside the wall, and had a pretty good view of a large chunk of the structure. I was actually more blown away by Tintern Abbey than I was by Stonehenge. It's hard to imagine standing in a place that was the home of so many people for over 400 years, and still stands to this day, 900 years since it was built. Pictures cannot do this place justice. It is so hard to explain how awesome it is.
After seeing as much of Tintern as we could, we hit the road, off toward Raglan Castle. Driving in Wales, or even the new counties in England that we did today was better than Oxfordshire, in my opinion. The roads seemed wider (possibly due to melted snow and me being more comfortable with the car), and people weren't in quite the rush as I had experienced before. Southern Wales and West-Central England is gorgeous. It's actually quite green right now, grass on the ground, and small amounts of snow on the tops of the hills. The valleys that people live in are charming as hell.
Raglan Castle is probably the most famous castle in Wales, and it's also the newest. It's new enough, built in 1400s-1600s, that it has gun ports in addition to arrow ports for defending against attackers. It's pretty remarkable, and easily identifiable by it's 6-sided towers. It was very wet on the grounds, and a bit slick in places, so we didn't visit every open room, but we did a fairly thorough tour of much of it. Behind the main hall, you could see the various levels of apartments with highly appointed fireplaces, surrounded by elaborate carvings depicting what I believe was the people who hired the building of the fireplace. It was rewarding to tour my first real castle, I can't wait to see more. We saw some from the roadway today, but this was my first true medieval castle to visit.
The rest of the day was spent driving the remaining distance to Llangollen where we are staying tonight in Northern Wales. Wales has two official languages, English and Welsh. When we arrived at the hotel, we entered into the wrong door and there was a gentleman there to tell us that reception was the next door down, but he first said it in Welsh and then in English. It caught me completely off guard. Nearly all signs in Wales are dual language, and while just over 20% of Wale's citizens speak Welsh, the bulk of that is located in Northern Wales, mostly on the West coast. It's pretty wild to see such a strange language that a large percentage of the population can speak, but it's nice that English holds equal status. Many of the signs at the Bangladorian restaurant we ate in this evening were in Welsh. Pretty cool!
Tomorrow is going to be a long day, we've got about 4 hours of driving today to, and that's not counting a planned detour through the Lake District in Northern England. We will be in Southern Scotland tomorrow night! 2 days with a 4 hour trip, and then 2 days of 3 hour trips. Not bad, I just have to remember to check on Karen more often, she was not happy when we rolled into town tonight. It was dark when we got to Northern Wales, but I can't wait to see the area tomorrow.
Here are more pictures from today: http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll256/sandalscout/GB%202010-2011/Dec%2027-Stonehenge-Tintern%20Abbey-Raglan%20Castle/?start=all
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