Surrey Sussex

Upon landing in jolly olde, the 1st step in the journey was to the south to Brighton. Brighton was originally a fishing town until Prince Regent George (later King George IV) decided to make his abode there and had a small country home coverted into what is now the Royal Pavillion.

It is a very palatial building, the main dining room has the highest wow-age factor of any room I have ever been in. It has a neo-Indian outside with a Chinese interior. The dining room has 4 dragons in each corner that once upon a time breathed fire which of course did cause smoke damage.

Not far west from Brighton is the towns of Chichester and Fishbourne, it was here that the Romans around 100AD built a fabulous palace, alas around 300AD it was destroyed by fire and little remained above ground. However most of the mosaic floors and lower part of the walls survive to this day. This palace was one of the largest EVER built in the Roman empire comparable to Emperor Domitian's palace in Rome.

Bath, Avon and Wiltshire

Well a while ago somebody somewhere sometime decided to do another meetup in the city of Bath. Originally this was set for February of 2003, now I'm not saying that these people work for Microsoft but finally after much negotiating with all parties in October of 2003 it happened.

The Bath meet was great, weather by and large was sunny with a few patches of cloud, oh sod it, I never wanted to be a weatherman, I wanted to be a ... LUMBERJACK.

Not far away, well in the Canadian sense of not far, are many neolithic stone circles, certainly the most famous is Stonehenge, what we know is they certainly were used to tell solstices and equinoxes. Were they temples where people worshipped, well we really don't know. Less famous but much much much (did I say much?) bigger is the stone circles at Avebury. Some of the stones are 5 times larger then the largest ones at Stonehenge. One of the circles and it's related moat and dike extend around the 16th century town of Avebury. Related to it is the flint and chalk Sillbury Hill. When you consider neolithic man had antler horn picks and cow shoulder blades for shovels it is very impressive what they were able to accomplish.

Yorkshire

Well Yorkshire is naturally the county where York is located (imagine that). And in York there is a reasonably good railway museum, reasonably good meaning, the best in the United Kingdom. While they don't have the 1st train ever built they do have the fastest steam engine, a Japanese O type shinkansen (bullet train) engine and the Harry Potter train, although that is in Scotland at the moment for the filming of the 3rd movie.

Also in the county is the wonderful city of Bradford, home of the National photography museum. Nearby as well within the county is the city of Leeds, once an economically depressed city, but now undergoing a boom, so much so, that it was virtually impossible to get to the National Armory Museum located there, sigh. But they do have a wonderfully Victorian Quarter of downtown.

On the north part of what was Yorkshire now called North Yorkshire, (boy you have to love the imaginative names). Along the coast lies the town of Whitby it was and still is a fishing town. On a nearby hill up about 200 or so steps (I didn't count) lies the ruins of the Whitby Abbey which was built, destroyed, re-built, destroyed, re-built and currently in a bit of ruin, but even in it's ruined state it is still very impressive.

Near Whitby is the small town of Robin Hoods Bay, where local residents still claim that Robin Hood actually lived and robbed from the rich. While this claim may or may not be true, there were numerous cuthroats who would place false lights on the rocks to guide ships to their ends and the cargo would be looted.

Scotland

Glasgow was founded by St. Mungo in the 6th century, and no he wasn't in the musical Cats. Unfortunately asides then the cathedral virtually nothing medieval still stands. But what a cathedral, built of brick, it was given money recently for restoration they decided to put in a decent heating system (thank you) rather then cleaning the blackened outside.

William Burrell amassed a fortune in shipping and over the years acquired a vast collection of paintings, sculptures and art work. Unfortunately for the collection no suitable home for it was found, because as a condition of the donation he specified that it had to be housed in a rural setting.

A few years after this, the Pollock family decided to give their family estate to the city and their lovely manor is now available for the public to tour, this also provided a solution as to where to house the Burrell collection, on the grounds of the Pollock estate.

Today the Burrell collection is wonderfully displayed in a new museum in a beautiful forested setting. One must see it.

Oh yah there was a meet up in Glasgow it went great, got to meet; Annetta, Dagman, Leefox, Tam.

Edinburgh is a city situated on many (seems like a million) volcanic hills. One of them known now as Castle Rock has 3 vertical sides. The Angles captured this rock in 638 and built a fort there called Dun Eiden or "fort on the hill slope". Over time the Scots tacked on the word burgh to the end of it giving it's present name.

Over the years the fort became the current castle which was fortified greatly. And was never taken in a direct assault, but then when you look at the near vertical hill it is on you can understand precisely why that is. Ironically enough the only successful time the castle was overtaken was by a group of 30 Scots who climbed up one of the near vertical cliffs.

On the other end of the city is Holyrood Castle and where the future Scottish government will eventually move into very very very expensive new home which was theorecticallly supposed to be finished this year. Near this is Calton Hill where the national momument to Nelson which was supposed to be a replica of Athens Parthenon is a little bit incomplete seeing only 12 columns stand.

Edinburgh is a beautiful city on a number of levels, literally. As it is very hilly many bridges go over little valleys where you can enter buildings on the ground floor and on another street the 3rd or 4th floor too.

London

Once again the Marlborough Head hosted a Cosmo meet for Azmm, Joannacat, Meggieclare, SMW, Waggette. All in all not too bad there was almost as many countries represented as people. It was great meeting some for the 1st time, some for the 2nd time.

Well proving P.T. Barnum's saying once again, David Blaine decided to prove himself as being dumber then TWO sacks of hammers by sitting in a plastic box near the Thames for 44 days with no food. Now when you consider the average Irish hunger striker lasted around 60 days without food Mr. Blaine didn't even test his own limits. So of course I like most people had to bug him, although I didn't see the hotdog stand until after I was in the line up, sigh. Hey Dave want a hotdog?

Denmark

København (Copenhagen) founded in 1167 by Bishop Absolon (that is a long long time ago in a galaxy not far away) by him building a fortress on Slotsholmen. After the fort was built the little harbor village grew and became known as Kømandshavn (merchant's port). Not a whole lot changed until the reign of Christian IV who built a whole whack of stuff like a couple of castles and observatory and a stock exchange.

Since then it grew with some exceptions like the Brits bombing it unprovoked in the Napoleonic wars, the bubonic plague and some fires. By and large the Danes are law abiding decent folk with the exception of a few *ssholes who decide to decapitate the little mermaid, or blow her up with explosives as what happened on the night of September 10th. Unfortunately for me, she was repaired and placed back on her rock a few days after I had left Denmark, sigh.

At one time it was a pain to get to Copenhagen but thanx to a few bridges built costing a few gazillion krone you can either drive or take a train from mainland Europe or Sweden.

Sweden

Malmö is Sweden's 3rd largest city, smack dab across the Öresund from Denmark. Not many years ago it was either a long ferry ride, or an even longer swim across, now it is a fairly short car or train ride from Copenhagen

Because of it's closeness to Denmark, in and out of Denmark a few times over the years due to man's inherant ability to kill his fellow man and go to war. The first castle in Malmö was built in 1434 and housed the Danish mint. Malmö's importance grew after it was in Swedish hands in 1658 and over the years heavy industry ensured it's growth and expansion. But like most places the huge steel based factories moved elsewhere and smaller companies have filled in the gap.

One of the more interesting quirks of Germanic languages, asides then Martin Luther's Diet of Worms, is the fact that city halls are called Rathuss, while it doesn't of course mean rat in German it still is very fitting. But like most cities in Europe they do tend to be very old, very beautiful and Malmö's Rådhuset is no exception.

Near the main square is the older Lille Torg with half timbered buildings and no statue of Charles the Fat.