Daily Archive

I have become convinced that England is a beautiful country. Much better than Wisconsin. Every time that I drive somewhere, the rolling countryside looks marvelous, with its real green fields and historic non-striaght fences and walls. I wish that I could capture the look of the area better, but its hard. Recently, I managed to travel through the Lake District and County Durham, though the overcast skies prevented any nice photography (and the fog … there are massive amounts of fog, sometimes through the whole day blocking out all viewing of the sun).

Otherwise, I bumped into a fantastic article in Top Gear Magazine, that almost makes it onto the web version. Around the World in 80 Drives, theoretically 80 of the most beautiful/interesting roads to drive down. The web article is much more limited (cutting out some fo the descriptions and road names) but has some excellent photos.

We visited St Albans last week for a quick afternoon. My guess, is that its probably the nicest place in Hertfordshire, though we haven’t poked around enough. Regardless, St Albans at least has the most history of any location in Hertfordshire. Originally, it was called Verulamium and was the third largest city in Roman England. Later, around 250AD, a Roman citizen named Alban sheltered a refugee Christian priest, Saint Amphibalus and was executed for doing so. Supposedly, a shrine was built at the point of execution and Alban becamse St. Alban, England’s first martyr.

The local cathedral, built around the shrine, was only made a cathedral in 1877, prior to that it was one fo the largest abbeys in England (with much of the original building starting in Norman times, around 1100). However, the Dissolution of the Monastaries (blah, blah, blah, Henry VIII) act destroyed almost all of the abbey, and left only the church and a gatehouse. The church was purchased by the township, and became the parish church was upgraded to a cathedral in Victorian times.

Unfortunately, while we saw the cathedral, we missed the Roman History museum (called the Verulamium) and anything else of significance. The Good Beer Guide lists 8 marvelous pubs to visit, and we managed to miss all of them, though that will certainly change sooner or later. And finally, a couple of photos were taken:

St Albans Cathedral from the front.

The Nave; The Ceiling of the Tower