Castle Rising And Hunstanton

“Rising Castle? Where is the castle rising?”, that is what I thought when I first read about this medieval castle nearby.  One afternoon, I was trying to figure out where we could drive that is less than two hours away for a day trip. I looked online, checked out Google maps (to see how far places are) looked over some “ideas for kids” sort of books.  I felt like we were not ready to take a real weekend trip yet but the weather was supposed to be fantastic, so we had to get out of the house.
We left our Bury village around 9:30 am, later than usual, but everyone felt very relaxed and excited that we can just go a little over an hour and get to an interesting place.  This time we took our small minivan—Vauxhall Zephira—a British made mini-minivan-haha. GPS in England is the way to go.  Every place has a postcode assigned to it, so you just put in a postcode into the GPS and it will take you directly to the street, it’s much more precise than zip codes in the states.  Well, for some reason, this time our GPS could not find Castle Rising, so I had to put in King’s Lynn (a city really close to the place we wanted to go to) and figured out our route. 

We got to King’s Lynn in an hour via some rural roads and wonderful scenery.  As we were approaching the central part of town, we were looking for signs to turn off to Castle Rising.  GPS was taking us through downtown so we decided to follow it to find a supermarket (it was almost lunch time, right?) to get some snacky type lunch.  Found some random supermarket, heard some Russian people arguing about what type of pears they should buy, got our lunches and began our attempt to get out of this town with the help of BOTH—GPS and our Smart phone.  GPS kept freezing and taking us to some very shady places! We don’t know what happened but apparently King’s Lynn and Tom Tom did not get along.  We would be completely lost if it weren’t for our mobile phones.
Finally! We found our way out and ten minutes later were parking at a place called Castle Rising.
We bought our tickets and paid for an audio guide that led us through eighteen points of interest in and around the castle.

Beginning our tour:

Now, a bit of history. Castle Rising is one of the most important TWELFTH-CENTURY castles in England. It was built around 1140 by William D’albini (I had no idea who this guy was) to show his increased importance on his marriage to Alice of Louvian, widow of Henry I. Nowadays, the main section of the roof does not exist, the walls are fully intact though and a couple of rooms look just like they did centuries ago. the most famous period in this castle’s history was when it was home to Queen Isabella, the mother of Edward III, following her part in the murder of her husband Edward II (as always crazy stuff going on with these royal families).

The castle passed to the Howard family in 1544 and that’s who owns it today—one of the descendants of the guy who built it.

Kids really did not understand who was who in the castle history, but they enjoyed listening about life in the middle ages and about ways people ran this castle.

Excited, surprised and scared?

Down on the ground level of the building that survived centuries!

We learned about how the kitchen was set up and where the noble people dined and prayed. The whole time we were feeling like someone was following us,

This is the picture of the castle from the back. This is where their commodes were, bathrooms in other words.

Here is the front with all the tents set up for people who come to the castle to practice medieval fighting—they have special reenactments once in a while on castle grounds.

We snapped this “picture of the picture” that is at the entrance to the castle grounds to show what the area looks like from above.

And here is a short recap for you of our favorite things

Castle Rising.

Almost perfect:

We left the castle and headed fifteen minutes north to the North Sea coast. You can see on this map how we travelled from point A –our house to point B, which is Hunstanton.

Hunstanton would be a lovely beach to go to in the summer. This particular part of the coast is quite touristy.  Lots of people had the same idea as we did taking a stroll along the pier to enjoy the view.

It was very windy the day we went, although sunny.  It was a beautiful view into the sea! Reminded me of the day I saw the North Sea in Holland.

And then suddenly we heard music from “Jaws” playing and this monster emerging from the water.

Just kidding.

Actually, the kids would love to take a tour like that sometime. Looks like a lot of fun.

Mark enjoying the rocks, shells and sand.

Then the kids watched a random guy digging out worms for bait.

And Alex was dying to join these guys playing cricket. Really, he was begging us to let him go join them and make new friends.

No one wanted to join these kids though-wearing swimsuits in this freezing weather???

We decided we’ll definitely go back to this area next summer but hope we find a better sandy spot where kids can play and swim.

And now we’ll always remember Castle Rising as the first castle we ever saw in England.

All right…Robert is watching X-Factor next to me and it’s very distracting. Good to watch something from the states sometime, ya know?:)

Good night,

Lyana

Watsons Go to London

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words.   Well, here’s 34,000 words for you, plus a few in between.

On Saturday, the Watsons did indeed go to London.  We’ve lived in the UK for a month and a half now, so it was about time we got off our duffs and visited the largest city in England.

Our first train ride in England was fairly painless.  It only lasted an hour, the carriages were well-heated (it was a bit nippy out that day), and the seats were actually rather comfortable.  The only painful part was that after arriving at King’s Cross station in London I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t purchased a parking ticket for my car.  A few frantic calls later and one of our good friends was on her way to the car park to get one for us and place it on the car before the wrong people noticed.  No tickets so far, so it looks like it might have worked.

Anyway, moving on.  I think I’ll try something new today.  Fewer words from me; more interpretation from you.  Here goes.

Waiting.  Train station.  Cold.

Destination 1: Museum of Natural History. 

Old building.  Cool architecture.  HUGE inside.

Dinosaur popa. 

Animatronics. T-Rex.  Ooooh I am sooo scared.  Most popular exhibit.  Long lines.  Lucky we saw it early.

Don’t.  Eat.  Me.

Alex.  Creepy Crawlies exhibit.  Ewww.

Dodo.  Extinct.

Big room.  Nice mural.

Blue whale to scale.  Wow!

Okay, let’s take a break from the short sentences for a bit.  The museum was enormous, amazing and FREE.  I like that.  So of course that meant it was very crowded.  Insane at times (don’t even think about seeing T-Rex after lunch.  Speaking of lunch, do not go to the restaurant in the museum – overpriced and tasteless.  Instead, go to the snack bar or the deli, which are also in the museum.  Less expensive and probably tastier too.  We didn’t get a chance to see everything in the museum because it was just too big, but who cares, it’s free!  After the museum, we walked up to Kensington/Hyde Park (which was also HUGE) and visited a couple special areas.  One was the “Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain”, which you see here.  And the other was the amazing playground, also named in Princess Diana’s honor.

Walking along the path from the fountain to the playground.  The walk itself took close to an hour (or so it seemed), but it was definitely a beautiful stroll.

Despite the signage, we still had to ask several people along the way for directions to the playground.  And when I say we, I mean Lyana.  This time, however, she didn’t have to hand gestures and sing-song to communcate.  Though, ironically, one lady she asked didn’t speak English.

Oh, I forgot.  Fewer words, more thinking by you.  Fine. 

Sitting.  Spinning.  Darth Kid in the middle.

Ship.  Overcrowded.  Who cares.  Still fun.

Katya and Mark.  Stuck?

Mom’s salad bowl.

Croutons?

Tube station.  Carriages smaller than Tokyo.  Much smaller.  Pain in my neck.  Literally.

London Eye. 

Can’t. Stop. Laughing.

London Eye.

Up close.

TTU.

Bicycle wheel?

ON London Eye.  See Big Ben?

Awesome.  Really.

Bridge.

House of Parliament.

Good-looking. 

Sunset over London.  Top of London Eye.

Bigger Big Ben.

EVERYONE LOOKING AT THE CAMERA AT THE SAME TIME!!

Feet tired.  Day over.  Go home.  Great time.  Can’t wait.  To go.  Again.

Rob