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Monthly Archives: May 2011

There is only one “perfect view” in Britain

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Posted by trev on May 19, 2011 – 10:45 am
Filed under Attractions

Take the sat nav out of the glovebox and enter “perfect view” and it’ll direct you not to Scotland or the Lake District, but to Bath.

It turns out there is only one “Perfect View” in Britain and remarkably this street on the edge of the Roman city of Bath really rather lives up to its name.

For most really good views you need to climb, and this is no different in Bath which is very much built on hills, but what might seem a slight inconvenience turns out to be perfect view’s Pièce de Résistance.

You can of course follow the usual tourist trails and marvel at the Georgian architecture of the Royal Crescent and the Circus, but for a true picture of just how spectacular the architecture in bath is, you really need to make the effort to drive then walk the last 100 yards up this road.

This video from Martin Wainwright should give you an idea just why the street is called Perfect View (ignore the first 10 seconds as that’s an advert).

If the video doesn’t work (seems tempramental), click here for the Guardian page on perfect view.

More Bath Resources:
Tourist attractions in Bath
Hotel accommodation in Bath
Bath self-catering apartments

Man tries to recreate Pony Express on Aviva trains

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Posted by trev on May 19, 2011 – 9:46 am
Filed under Events

A Wrexham man it seems took the idea of increasing footfall on trains a little too literally when he tried to board an Aviva train with his horse!

Aviva trains have released footage of a man arriving at Wrexham Station and initially trying to board the 19:02 Wrexham to Holyhead train with his fully grown horse. When the conductor refused to allow the horse on board, he calmly went to the ticket office and tried to “pony up” for two tickets.

We know that for many years the public have been encouraged to take the train as an eco-friendly way to travel, and many railway companies will allow dogs and small animals on board…but the emphasis is on “small”.

Wrexham man tries to board train with horse:

Man then tries to buy ticket for horse:

The identity of the man is currently unknown, but Aviva trains spokesperson said that he left the station after being refused a ticket for the horse and she’d never heard of anyone trying this before.

We can only assume the horse wanted to enjoy the view along what is probably one of the nicest train routes in the country. Perhaps this will encourage Aviva and other train companies to think about a “pets carriage” option in future?

Video of the horse boarding the train can be found on the BBC.

More Wrexham Links:
Things to see and do in Wrexham
Hotels in Wrexham (not sure if any take horses)
Wrexham self-catering cottages (some may take horses)

A burst of colour across The National Forest

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Posted by admin on May 18, 2011 – 4:51 pm
Filed under Attractions, Miscellaneous

With the bluebells fading and snowdrops a distant memory, it is now the turn of the showy summer wildflowers to splash vivid bursts of colour across The National Forest landscape.

Willesley Wood near Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire sees a rich colourful display of wildflowers every year. Wildflowers attract insects and other invertebrates, making these meadows a rich wildlife haven.

Sence Valley Forest Park is home to a wonderful array of butterflies including Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Speckled Wood, Small Skipper, Green Veined White, Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell – all attracted to its wildflower meadow. Managed by theForestryCommission, Sence Valley Forest Park is a wonderful example of how a disused opencast colliery can be transformed into a diverse wildlife haven.

There are many beautiful sites within the ancient Charnwood area of The National Forest including the Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust’s Lea Meadows Nature Reserve. In June many hundreds of common and heath-spotted orchids flower near to the stream at Lea Meadows. These are just two of the 240 species of plants that have been recorded at this reserve, which is one of the best places in theEast Midlandsfor wildflowers. As well as seeing some of these rare plants, the lucky visitor might catch a glimpse of a kingfisher darting over the stream, which is also home to the endangered white clawed crayfish.

One of the most stunning wildflower meadows is at Billa Barra in Leicestershire, which is owned by Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council. The meadow was created in 2003 in partnership with Landlife, the national wildflower charity and Barlows, commercial interior design specialists. Visitors to the site can enjoy lovely views over Leicestershire’s rolling landscape amid the wildflowers.

The National Forest has produced a leaflet showing where to see wildlife across the Forest including wild flowers. To get a copy of this or The National Forest and Beyond visitor guides, which contain ideas on where to go, what to see and places to stay, contact The National Forest.

Useful links:
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Campsites near The National Forest

Finding free music venues in London

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Posted by trev on May 18, 2011 – 12:25 pm
Filed under Attractions, Events

If you don’t want to spend a fortune at the Royal Albert Hall, why not try some of the free music venues London has to offer?

London has quite a selection of music venues and theatres, but some of the more famous ones tend to be very expensive such as the Royal Opera House which could easily charge you £150 – £200 for a ticket.

However, there are plenty of other venues where you can find a wide range of music available entirely for free, or for a small donation. We’re not talking about the many buskers who seem to appear round London Underground, although some of those are quite talented.

1) St Martin in the Fields is a church which specialises in a whole range of musical talent, although they often try to offer visitors the less well known artists as well as performances from the Royal Academy of Music students. For an optional donation of £3.50 and no booking, you can hear some of the best up and coming musicians before they are famous.

There are regular concerts on Monday, Tuesday and Friday lunchtimes and being located right next to Trafalgar Square, this church really does offer a little spiritual and non-spiritual relaxation from the hectic London lunchhour. You can even have coffee in the crypt if you want.

2) St. James’s Piccadilly is another church located as you might guess in the famous Piccadilly region of London. This church tends to specialise in more established artists, although they do offer chances to the up and coming talent too.

Many of the concerts happen again around lunchtime such as Rosie Aldridge from the Royal College of Music who will be performing on the 20th May along with Craig White, as an example. Much of the musical genre is classical, with an especial interest in piano pieces.

3) The National Theatre offer evening concerts usually from around 5:45pm and some lunchtime concerts over a weekend. All such concerts are free in what’s known as the “Foyer Music” section.

As an example, tonight you could hear Clare Foster Trio with their Jazz and Brazilian repertoire, on the 21st The Long Notes will be performing Acoustic experimental folk music.

More London Links:
Visitor attractions around London
Hotel accommodation in London
Thanks to brilliant London Blogger Cat Hughes for the inspiration!

Model T Ford drives up Ben Nevis

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Posted by trev on May 18, 2011 – 11:15 am
Filed under Events

100 years ago, the son of a Ford dealer from Edinburgh drove a Model T Ford up Ben Nevis and to celebrate this, some nutty people did it again.

It was 100 years ago today that a 20 horse power Model T Ford, one of the bastions of “family motoring” was driven up Britain’s highest mountain, managing to scale a massive 4,409 feet. The whole drive took about 10 days originally hampered by boggy ground and snowdrifts.

The modern day adventure was a little quicker taking only 5 days, but as people are more worried these days about damaging the hillside, the car was driven half way up and then dismantled & carried the rest of the way. It was finally reassembled on the top of the mountain.

Exactly how they’re going to get it back down we’re not too sure, although freewheeling would be an interesting option – especially considering the primitive brakes.

For pictures of the event, see the Daily Mail

More Fort William Links:
Things to see around Fort William (near base of Ben Nevis)
Hotels and B&Bs in Fort William
Fort William self-catering cottages

Premier Inn to open first “floating” hotel rooms

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Posted by trev on May 18, 2011 – 10:15 am
Filed under Accommodation

Budget hotel chain Premier Inn have announced plans to open a so-called “floating” hotel room in London designed to minimise external noise.

The rooms will effectively “float” on neoprene pads with each room being essentially separated from the next by an air-gap which should help reduce noise the nightclub which will sit below the Leicester Square hotel when it opens.

As well as insulating floating gaps, the rooms will also include mineral wool insulation in the walls which is very efficient at keeping the heat in and room to room noise out. Plus there’ll be the addition of quad-glazing to ensure a good nights sleep for guests.

If this wasn’t enough, the rooms won’t even be connected in the traditional way to the corridors and main structure of the building. Instead, springs will be used to dampen any external noise ensuring guests really can drift off to sleep with absolutely no disturbance.

Perhaps the only thing not being supplied are the sheep to count…but then again, where did they get the wool?

The Leicester Square Premier Inn should be opening in February 2012. In the meantime, there are plenty of other Premier Inn hotels in London.

The Sun has a Premier Inn graphic which explains how this will work.

More Leicester Square Links:
Tourist attractions in Leicester Square
Hotels right around London

The route taken by the London 2012 Olympic torch

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Posted by admin on May 18, 2011 – 10:06 am
Filed under Events, Miscellaneous

LOCOG, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, has announced the route that will be taken by the Olympic torch and revealed the first 74 locations of the torch relay route, beginning at Land’s End.  Here are the key dates in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympic Games:

May 19th – Land’s End
May 25th – Cardiff
June 1st – Liverpool
June 6th – Belfast
June 8th – Glasgow
June 10th – Orkney
June 15th – Newcastle
June 23rd – Manchester
June 30th – Birmingham
July 12th – Weymouth
July 27th – Opening ceremony

The BBC has published a torch relay map which gives a bit more of an insight, and more route details are due to be published later this year.  The torch will visit every country in the UK and include six island visits (to the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, Shetland, Orkney and the Isle of Lewis).

The torch will cover some 8,000 miles and LOCOG are looking for 8,000 inspirational people to be torchbearers.  Details of the nomination process for potential torchbearers is due to be announced later this morning.

Useful links:
UK hotels
UK B&Bs
UK cottages
UK campsites
UK tourist attractions

Nickelodeon Land opens in Blackpool

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Posted by trev on May 18, 2011 – 9:20 am
Filed under Attractions, Events

The brand new Nickelodeon Land opens in at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach today as part of a massive multi-million pound revamp for the resort.

Blackpool is trying to clean up it’s “kiss me quick hat” image and as part of this, Blackpool Pleasure Beach is opening the new Nickelodeon Land extension to its already popular theme park.

The 12 rides based on characters from cartoon network Nickelodeon TV, will include rides such as SpongeBob SquarePant’s Splash Bash waterslide ride, the Bikini Bottom Bus Tour and Diego’s Rainforest Rescue.

You can also dine out in the Big Pizza Kitchen and spend your hard earned cash in the Nick clothes and souvenirs store.

If Nickelodeon isn’t your thing, there are over 100 other rides including of course the Pepsi Max roller coaster.

More Blackpool links:
Things to do in Blackpool
Hotels and B&Bs in Blackpool
Blackpool holiday cottages
Campsites and caravan parks in Blackpool

Olympic Park naming competition closes tomorrow

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Posted by trev on May 17, 2011 – 3:14 pm
Filed under Events

A reminder that the competition to name a part of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park after the London Olympics closes on the 18th May 2011.

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is the area surrounding the London Olympic stadium, Olympic Village and such where the games will be held in 2012.

After the Olympics, the area will be redeveloped into leisure, retail and residential zones and each needs a name. The Olympic Legacy Committee want the public to name all five zones and the chosen names will become new parts of London on all the maps and signs.

The competition to name the Olympic zones has been running for several months with many thousands of names submitted, but if you want to have a chance to be part of London history you need to submit your name by the 18th May.

Start thinking and then select the region you want to name from the Olympic Legacy naming competition web site. This also contains lots of information about each region such as historical references.

One name that is coming out quite highly currently is Redgravia named partly after Sir Steve Redgrave and of course the existing Belgravia region of London.

More London Links:
Things to see and do in London
London hotels

London guided tours meets the Italian Job

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Posted by trev on May 17, 2011 – 2:23 pm
Filed under Attractions, Transport

A London company has created what it sees as some of the most quirky and personal tours of London money can buy with just you, your guide and the classic Mini Cooper, a la Italian Job.

You can of course take the guided tour in a oversized Merc or even Rolls Royce, but the mini really gets down with the city and is so much a part of British culture to make this something special.

Themed from the 1960s, presumably to connect with the time when the Mini was most popular, the tours try to take you around the parts of London most “posher” tours would miss – helped considerably by the Mini’s ability to go down narrow London streets.

Tours run from 30 minutes to around 3 hours, unless you take the Tale of Two Cities which covers London and Paris, but as we’ve not currently worked out how to re-invade France that’s a little outside the remit of this blog.

They do an Italian Job tour amongst others, although blowing doors off, hanging off cliffs and racing Ferrari’s are probably mostly off the agenda…mostly due to the lack of cliffs in London.

For more information on the London tours, see the Small Car Big City web site.

Nice little video of the Mini Cooper:

More London Resources:
Hotel accommodation all over London
Visitor attractions around London
Thanks to Smitten by Britain for the heads up on this