Hotel Endsleigh

For many years I’ve wanted to see Devon and Cornwall, the two counties that make up the southwestern tip of England. I picture elegant country estates and postcard-perfect seaside villages.

Our first stop checked off that elegant country estate box just perfectly. We spent two nights at Hotel Endsleigh on the edge of Dartmoor National Park in western Devon. The hotel is a destination unto itself, and I don’t think I ever left its expansive grounds. It sits on a hill that descends dramatically to the River Tamar, which forms much of the border between Devon and Cornwall.

Built between 1810 and 1816, Endsleigh Cottage was a favorite home to a famed aristocrat, arts patron, and socialite named Georgina Russell. Born to a noble family in Scotland, Georgina was originally supposed to marry Eugène de Beauharnais, a stepson of Napoleon. When that fell through she was intended to marry Francis Russell, the 5th Duke of Bedford. But he died before the wedding, so she instead married his younger brother, John, who became the 6th Duke of Bedford.

Giorgiana chose this spot for a summer home for her growing family, which included the Duke, three children from his previous wife Giorgiana, and 10 more children from the second Giorgiana. In 1823 artist Edwin Landseer was commissioned to paint a portrait of the duchess. He also gave her art lessons and had a very long affair with her. Landseer is best known as the sculptor of the lions at the base of Nelson’s Column in London’s Trafalgar Square.

We didn’t do much more here than enjoy Giorgiana’s beautiful home and spectacular gardens. All has been lavishly restored by Olga Polizzi, a famed English interior designer and hotelier. What a magical place she has created.

The reception hall

The flower gardens are spectacular

A pre-dinner cocktail in the library, anyone?

The public interior spaces are stunning

Lunch on the terrace

Lunch on the terrace

Walking paths along the Tamar River

The grounds include 1,000 acres of gardens, lawns, grottoes, and forest

Jim lost in a book

Did I mention the flower gardens?

Mark in front of Bath’s Royal Crescent, built of Bath Stone in the late 18th century and considered among the best Georgian architecture in the country

We loved Bath, the only city in England that is a World Heritage Site in its entirety. Founded by the Romans in the first century AD at the site of natural hot springs, the town grew as the Romans built a temple and then an increasingly complex bathing complex over the next 300 years. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century, though, the bath complex fell into disrepair and eventually disappeared entirely under rising water and silt.

The town continued to limp along and by the late 7th century first a convent and then a monastery was founded there. In 973 (so nearly 100 years before William the Conqueror) Edgar was crowned as the first King of the English in the monastery; there had been local kings before that but he was the first to claim jurisdiction over all of England. Thus during her long reign Elizabeth II came to Bath to celebrate 1,000 years of English royalty.

Stained glass representation of Edgar being crowned King of All England in the Bath Abby

And time went on. In the 12th century the abbey was rebuilt and significantly enlarged, and then plans were underway for yet another major refurbishment in the 16th century when – whoops! – Henry VIII took over the Church of England, declared his independence from the Pope, closed monasteries like the one in Bath, and took their wealth. The Abbey was left to rot.

Eventually, in no small part to the help of Elizabeth I, the Abbey was resurrected and refit in much the form it stands today. It is still known as an Abbey, though technically abbeys are the home of monks or nuns, none of which are to be found there today.

The Abbey is particularly known for the fan vaulting seen here

Bath really began to flourish in the 18th and 19th century as the supposed health benefits of the hot springs brought large numbers of tourists to the town. The local postmaster, Ralph Allen, was so good at his job that he became postmaster for areas all the way up to the Scottish border and into Wales. With the wealth from that position he started buying up quarries where Bath Stone had a distinctive honey color. That stone gives much of Bath an amazing beauty today.

At the same time the old Roman baths, which had silted and covered up for over a millennium, were rediscovered and, over many decades, excavated. Today there is a great museum at the site of the old baths with really good explanations of what used to be there and displays to help you translate the ruins of today into the glory of nearly 2,000 years ago.

Ruins of the old Roman baths

So there was a lot to enjoy about Bath – great history, beautiful architecture, really good food. And great weather. We continue to be extraordinarily lucky weather-wise: no rain to speak of, no great heat or humidity, just pleasant temperatures all the time.

Oh, and one other way we’re lucky. We took the train from Cardiff to Bath, but figured we would have to get a car again for the next few legs of our journey. Instead we figured out how to get most of the way to our next stop by train and then found a car service to take us the rest of the way. It seems as though that’s going to work for the rest of the trip so … no more driving. Yay!

The Pulteney Bridge spanning the River Avon is one of only four in the world remaining with shops on both sides spanning the entire length of the bridge. I was confused the first day or so we were in Bath because I knew we crossed the river to get to our hotel from the city center but I never saw the river….

More of the Abbey

And odd feature of the Abbey are the angels climbing to heaven on Jacob’s Ladder

A small section of The Circus, what we would call a residential circle. The four sections of the circle, separated by incoming streets, are all this same beautiful Georgian architecture from the late 18th century. What really made it spectacular though were the enormous trees in the center of the circle.

The head of Sulis Minerva, the goddess worshipped by Romans at the baths

Part of the 2,000-year-old plumbing to maintain water levels in the baths

One of my favorite parts of Bath was the Kennet and Avon Canal with its tow path perfect for walking, running, and biking

These narrow boats were lined up for miles along the canal with odd people living and vacationing on the canal. Some of them looked relatively nice but some were really trashy.

Mark and I did a big loop hike one day up above Bath, parts on forested trails like this…

And parts with big open fields like this

And some great views above Bath

Here I am early in the hike at Sham Castle, so called because it is in fact a sham, just the facade of a castle built for ornamentation

Wildlife on the hike

Just a beautiful country estate

I took a big walk one day up to Prior Park, once the home of Ralph Allen, the postmaster who got really rich. That’s his home way at the top of the hill with great views of Bath. More importantly from his perspective was that all of Bath could see his property built of Bath Stone which he was eager to sell.

Allen’s Palladian Bridge, designed by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio, is one of only four in the world (three in England and one in St. Petersburg, if you were wondering…)

The view of Bath from Allen’s mansion

Lamb at La Terra, a beautiful Italian restaurant in Bath

And then there was our final dinner at The Herd, a well-reviewed steak house. We got there and the restaurant was two floors below the entrance level, but because of the hills of Bath it was at street level down there too. The problem was that the dining room was small with walls of old stone, and there was a group of 10 or 12 thirty-somethings who were incredibly loud. We asked if there was a table outside and they accommodated us … on this weird street with industrial fans blowing on us at an entrance to a tunnel that may in fact have led to the Gates of Hell. We didn’t investigate, but we had a pleasant and quiet meal there.

Couldn’t resist posing with the Fab Four

We broke up the journey from the Lake District to Wales with a two-day stop in Liverpool. Not that I was ever dying to see Liverpool, but I did have a bit of curiosity. In my mind the name conjures up gritty old industrial England, coarse football enthusiasts, and a layer of dusty magic from a bygone era of musical greatness.

The spectacular interior of the massive and surprisingly modern Liverpool Cathedral

The Cathedral mixed Neo-Gothic splendor with modern art, like this neon sculpture by the daring English artist Tracey Emin

I wasn’t totally off the mark; I found all three of those things on broad display here in Liverpool. And yet the place was so much more lively and dynamic than that.

The days as an industrial powerhouse have left behind plenty of grand architecture — some in need of repair and lots more turned to new uses. There is a lot of slightly gritty urban beauty to it all.

But the streets were absolutely teeming with life. Admittedly, we arrived on a Saturday, so our first evening probably saw the week’s biggest crowds. But the city center was truly alive — block after block of Liverpudlians out and partying in every direction. It’s hard to imagine seeing so many people out and about at the center of a comparable American city. If you were in Milwaukee or Cleveland or Baltimore, you might find a busy few blocks someplace, but I doubt you’d ever find a city center remotely as full of life as this one.

As far as the coarse football enthusiasts go, my expectations weren’t that far off. This is not a fashionable London crowd. You hear a lot of tough to understand northern industrial accents, not so much the Oxford and Cambridge kind. The place is certainly not overrun by tourists. You just find a lot of ordinary Scousers out enjoying the scene. (Liverpudlians are also called Scousers after a seafood stew called scouse, long favored by local sailors.) And a lot more football jerseys than designer clothes.

And yes, music remains a big part of the excitement because something truly special happened here in the 1960s. An incredible music scene developed in Liverpool, one driven by post-war working class youth, a unique local identity, and the inspiration of American Rock & Roll. A new generation of musical talent packed the clubs along Mathew Street, and eventually took the whole world by storm. Paul, John, George, and Ringo are still present everywhere in Liverpool, and it’s a joy to see.

The almost sinister bulk of Liverpool Cathedral, the largest church in Britain, built between 1904 and 1978. It’s stunning to see such an audacious project built in the 20th century.

Buzzy Mathew Street, home of the little clubs that fueled the unique Liverpool music scene in the 1960s

A replica of the Cavern Club, the little underground space on Mathew Street where the Beatles performed 292 times before emerging as global superstars

Scousers out having a rowdy good time

Delicious Turkish food on lively Castle Street

Beautiful architecture in the buzzy central city

Monumental architecture, including our hotel with the huge clock tower

The city had kind of a rainy, gloomy hangover by Sunday morning

OK, there is one peculiar and not at all good thing about Liverpool. Some genius here decide to make crosswalk signals work differently than every other place on Earth. When you want to cross the street the signal is not directly in front of you on the other side of the street (like it is in every other city on the planet). Here in Liverpool, the signal is tastefully and discretely placed just to the right or left of where you are standing. So when you look across the street, where you expect the signal to be, you are actually looking at the signal for the people who are trying to cross the street perpendicular to the one you want to cross. The result is that when you see the crosswalk signal you are looking for, it’s exactly the opposite of the one that applies to you. So if you look up and see a green man that means you are certain to be mowed down and die if you cross now. Who came up with this madness?

If you see a green man in front of you, that means you will be killed if you try to cross the street. You are supposed to be looking at the red man on your right instead. In fact, it’s the guy standing in this picture who has the right of way, not me. Uniquely Liverpool!