There and Back Again

»When I need a poem, the streets and the gutters will do.« Two German girls on a trip through Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England.

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Impressions from Camden Town, London, 09/04/2014.

Camden Town, often shortened to Camden is a district of Inner London in northwest London, England. Laid out as a residential district from 1791 and originally part of the manor of Kentish Town and the parish of St Pancras, London, Camden Town became an important location during the early development of the railways and is also located on the London canal network. Its industrial economic basis has been replaced by retail, tourism and entertainment, including a number of internationally-known markets and music venues that are strongly associated with alternative culture.

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Impressions from Regent's Canal, London, 09/04/2014.

Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal, just north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in east London. The Regent's Canal forms a junction with the old Grand Junction Canal at Little Venice, a short distance north of Paddington Basin. After passing through the Maida Hill and Lisson Grove tunnels, the canal curves round the northern edge of Regent's Park and bisects London Zoo. It continues through Camden Town and King's Cross Central, also known as the Railway Lands.

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St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

St Paul's Cathedral sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The cathedral is one of the most famous and most recognisable sights of London, with its dome, framed by the spires of Wren's City churches, dominating the skyline for 300 years. At 365 feet (111 m) high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1962, and its dome is also among the highest in the world. In terms of area, St Paul's is the second largest church building in the United Kingdom after Liverpool Cathedral.

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Impressions from Folkestone, April 4th 2014. 

Folkestone is a port on the English Channel in Kent, south-east England. It's located just just 10 miles west of Dover. 

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Impressions from Dover, 05/04/2014.

Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel. Dover’s name originated with its river – the River Dour, deriving from the Brythonic Dubrās ("the waters"), via its Latinised form of Dubris. The cliffs also gave England its ancient name of Albion ("white"). The Romans called it ’’Portus Dubris’’; the modern name was in use at least by the time Shakespeare wrote King Lear (between 1603 and 1606), in which the town and its cliffs play a prominent role.

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Christ College, Cambridge.

Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort in 1505, its royal charter granted on 1 May of that year, and was the twelfth of the Cambridge colleges to be founded in its current form. Christ's is noted for educating two of Cambridge's most famous alumni, the poet John Milton and the naturalist Charles Darwin.

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Impressions from Cambridge, England, April 3rd 2014.

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. It lies in East Anglia, about 50 miles north of London. Cambridge is most widely known as the home of the University of Cambridge, founded in 1209 and consistently ranked one of the top five universities in the world.

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Impressions from Oxford, 02/04/2014.

Oxford is a city in central southern England. It is the county town of Oxfordshire and forms a district within the county. The city is known worldwide as a university town. Buildings in Oxford demonstrate examples of every English architectural period since the arrival of the Saxons, including the iconic, mid-18th-century Radcliffe Camera. Oxford is known as the "city of dreaming spires", a term coined by poet Matthew Arnold in his poem Thyrsis.

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The Turf Tavern is a historic and well-hidden pub in the center of Oxford. It dates back to the 13th century and is therefor the oldest pub in Oxford. It is located at St. Helen's Passage, tucked away behind the Bridge of Sighs. 

According to local legend, it is where Bill Clinton famously 'did not inhale' while attending Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. It is also where former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke set the Guinness World Record for consuming a yard glass of ale in 11 seconds. 

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Keble College, Oxford.

Keble College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Keble was established in 1870, having been built as a monument to John Keble. It remains distinctive for its once-controversial neo-gothic red-brick buildings designed by William Butterfield. The buildings are also notable for breaking from Oxbridge tradition by arranging rooms along corridors rather than around staircases.

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Impressions from Cardiff Bay (April 1st 2014), including the Doctor Who Experience and Ianto's Shrine, a memorial wall dedicated to Ianto Jones, a fictional character from the BBC series Torchwood.

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Impressions from Cardiff, 01/04/2014.

Cardiff (Caerdydd) is the capital and largest city in Wales. The city of Cardiff is the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan (and later South Glamorgan). Cardiff was made a city in 1905, and proclaimed the capital of Wales in 1955. Since the 1990s, Cardiff has seen significant development.

In 1081 William I, King of England, began work on the castle keep within the walls of the old Roman fort. Cardiff Castle has been at the heart of the city ever since.

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Liverpool Central Library is the largest of the 22 libraries in Liverpool, England, situated in the centre of the city. It is located in several adjoining historic buildings on the city's historic William Brown Street.

In May 2008 it was announced that some of the complex of buildings that hold the Central Library will be demolished and replaced with modern buildings suitable for use with modern IT services. It re-opened to the public on Friday 17th May 2013.

It is a member of the Libraries Together: Liverpool Learning Partnership (evolved from Liverpool Libraries Group) which formed in 1990. Under which, a registered reader at any of the member libraries can have access rights to the other libraries within the partnership.

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Cathedral Church of the Risen Christ, Liverpool.

Liverpool Cathedral is the Church of England Cathedral of the Diocese of Liverpool, built on St James's Mount in Liverpool and is the seat of the Bishop of Liverpool. The cathedral is based on a design by Giles Gilbert Scott.

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Impression from Liverpool, 31/03/2014.

Historically, Liverpool was part of Lancashire. The city's urbanisation and expansion were largely brought about by the city's status as a major port.  Liverpool is also well known for its inventions and innovations, particularly in terms of infrastructure, transport, general construction, and in the fields of public health and social reform. Liverpool is noted for its rich architectural heritage and is home to many buildings regarded as amongst the greatest examples of their respective styles in the world. Several areas of the city centre were granted World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 2004. 

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Museum Gardens, York.

The York Museum Gardens are botanic gardens in the centre of York beside the River Ouse. They were created in the 1830s by Yorkshire Philosophical Society along with the Yorkshire Museum which they  contain. There are several historic buildings in the gardens, including the remains of the west corner of the Roman fort of Eboracum, the Multangular Tower, parts of the Roman walls, the Anglian Tower, the ruins of the abbey church, the Hospitium, the lodge and part of the surviving precinct wall.

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York Minster, York.

York Minster is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The formal titel of York Minster is "The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of St. Peter in York". The minster has a very wide Decorated Gothic nave and chapter house, a Perpendicular Gothic Quie and east and Early English north and south transepts.