Travel By Book: Bryson’s Britain

Posted by Kanga.

Bryson, Bill. Notes from a small island. London: Black Swan, 1996. Print.

During this two week stay at home vacation I am visiting Britain through the eyes of Bill Bryson. We have a very similar sense of humor and perspective on the world, so reading a Bryson book usually results in my laughing out loud and then reading the passage aloud for DaddyBird.

Bryson is at his best when he is making up words, like imaginary (but believable) place names – the Buggered Ploughman pub, Ram’s Droppings bypass, or the rail crossing at Great Shagging. Or mocking the formality of a restaurant menu by asking for “a lustre of water freshly drawn from the house tap and presented au nature in a cylinder of glass.”

His description of Daniel’s department store in Windsor makes me want to explore it. The sad part is that it is probably not there anymore. In this book Bryson is describing his “farewell tour” of Britain in the early 90′s. He combines flashbacks to the 70′s when he first arrived in England and his 90′s observations giving a taste of nostalgia for the things already lost to the passage of time. His travel plan was to use only public transportation (bus and train), but 1990′s reality was that much of the public transport network had disappeared.

Travel by book means that I have no pictures to show my daily adventure. However, having been to Britain a time or two, I will slip in one of my favorite pictures from a previous trip.

Southwark, London 2009

Idyllic view

This is in Feltham, the neighborhood near Heathrow where we stayed before leaving. It’s not as idyllic as it looks in this picture because you can’t see the rubbish floating in this pond. Sometimes illusion is a good thing.

Heathrow

We had a unique experience at Heathrow. When we arrived at our gate, we found not a plane, but buses. We were all loaded onto buses and then driven a significant distance to the plane. This confused several of the young children in the crowd. I heard them saying to their parents, “I thought we were going on a plane.”

Banksy

[First let me say that these pictures may give you trouble and not load quickly or completely. Try refreshing your browser screen or click on the spot where the picture should be to get it to appear.]

So, we got up early (actually didn’t sleep much due to noise from the disco night club somewhere near the hotel and when that died down the seagulls began screaming), checked out of the hotel and walked down to the museum.

We got in line at about 8:40 am and we entered the museum about 10:15 am.

I’ll post just a few of the works we found the most poignant or amusing. The exhibit included original paintings:

Sculptures:

And animatronics:
One of Banksy’s main targets is McDonalds. These chicken McNuggets were animated and drinking out of the BBQ sauce cup. Kinda creepy.
We approached this from the back and it looked like a very realistic Jaguar twitching it’s tail. However, from the front…

It is actually a fur jacket.

Banksy also likes to take paintings or prints by other artists, usually of idyllic scenes and add his own touch to them. These were sprinkled throughout the normal museum displays, so it was like hunting for Easter eggs.


When we left, this was the line of people waiting to go in.

We exited the museum a little after noon. The last bus from Hereford to Hay-on-Wye was at about 4 pm. It was clear we weren’t going to make it, no matter how good the train connections were. Had we gotten any sleep in the Clifton Hotel, I might have suggested we stay another night, but it was noisy, shabby and overpriced. So, we headed for the train and Hereford. We did indeed miss the bus. There was another one listed on the bus stop sign, but further investigation showed that it only went to the edge of Hereford, not to Hay. So, we approached a taxi at the train station and inquired if he would take us to Hay and how much would it likely be. It was affordable, so we had a nice taxi ride home.

So, what seemed might be an exercise in futility worked out rather nicely, on the whole.

Bristol

Saturday we took the bus and three trains in order to reach Bristol with the intention of seeing the Banksy art exhibit. We left Hay-on-Wye at 10 am and reached Bristol, checked into the hotel and walked to the museum 5 hours later. We had fairly good connections between the bus and each of the trains.

Bristol Temple Mead train station

Here is our hotel – the Clifton Hotel (the neighborhood is called Clifton).

Clifton Hotel, Bristol

Across the street from our hotel -

St Paul's Church, Clifton

We walked a short distance to the museum.

a street in Bristol

We arrived to find this line of people waiting to get into the museum.

People in line to see the Banksy exhibit

The museum closed at 5 pm. They stopped allowing people to join the line at 3 pm. It was just a few minutes after 3 pm. So, we were out of luck for getting in on Saturday. We had to travel (5 hours) back to Hay-on-Wye the next day, so it appeared that we might have come all this way for nothing. The museum was to open at 10 am the next morning and they advised us that people started lining up around 8:30 am. That was going to make it a very close call.

I’ll tell you the rest of the story tomorrow. It’s cruel, I know.

Even more Hay-on-Wye

Tired of Hay-on-Wye, yet? Of course not.

This is my personal favorite - a convergence of geometry

The view out our inn window

More Hay-on-Wye

The town is surrounded by lovely green hills, some inhabited by sheep.

Clock tower

Hay-on-Wye continued

"The adjoining mound is the original motte of the Motte and Bailey Castle of the Hay (La Haie) built by the Norman lord Bernard Newmarch c1100 AD."

This is just a block or so from where we are staying.

Just next door to the motte is St. Mary’s Church.

St. Mary's Church

St. Mary's Church

Hay-on-Wye

I should probably start with a brief explanation of why we are in Hay-on-Wye. The shortest explanation is that there are 30 bookstores in this small town. The longer story is that I heard about it about 20 years ago and have dreamed of coming here ever since.

Hay-on-Wye is very photogenic and I have lots of pictures. I’ll give them to you a few at a time, so as not to overwhelm.
Castle Street is one of the main streets.
This structure used to be the butter market. There is a weekly street market held each Thursday and this and other areas of the town are used. We bought some lovely green olives stuffed with garlic cloves which is a combination we haven’t found in Dubai, yet.
Here is the Castle. Of course, there is a bookstore in it.

The Catholic Church.

We are enjoying our stay here. It is very peaceful and lovely. My only complaint is that the entire town is on a slope, so it is hard on my ankles to be walking on uneven ground. Daddybird says we can retire here, but I would need one of those motorized chairs that old people use to get around. Works for me!

Godot

God bless British public transportation! We were able to take a train and the underground from our hotel (out near Heathrow Airport) to the theatre in the heart of the city. It wasn’t necessarily cheap (29 pounds, approximately $47 for the two of us), but it was easy. Actually, cheap is a relative term, based on our previous taxi experience, it probably would have been around 80 pounds ($130) one way by taxi.
We walked through Trafalgar Square on the way to the theatre. I just love people who see that I am taking a picture and stare vacantly into the lens. GET OUT OF MY PICTURE!

Trafalgar Square

Here it is. The theatre where the magic happened. Taking pictures inside was forbidden, although I saw several others do it anyway. I behaved myself, so this picture will have to serve.

Theatre Royal, Haymarket, Waiting on Godot, July 2009

The play was marvelous. We both had trouble staying awake due to sleep deprivation and the stuffiness of the theatre. McKellen and Stewart were charming, funny and as excellent as one would expect. I was very sad when it came to an end. It was a once in a lifetime experience.