Herefordshire and The Map

Just had a long weekend away in Herefordshire staying just north of Ross-on-Wye and exploring this part of the country.  I get excited just crossing the bridge!

Of course, a visit to Herefordshire includes an essential trip to Hereford Cathedral, which is the first thing we did on the Saturday.

For cartophiles this holds one of the most wondrous maps ever, the Mappa Mundi.  It is the largest known T in O map dating back to the 12th Century: the rivers Don and Nile are the top of the T, and the Mediterranean is the stem, East is 'up' and the O holds the heavens.  This is the third time I've visited it and each time I am awestruck by its size and magnificence.

The chained library is also fascinating to visit and holds books dating back to 800 AD and is the oldest known surviving chained library in the world.  Hereford Cathedral rocks.  

On Sunday we did a circular walk starting at Kilpeck.  Kilpeck Church is renowned as being one of the most perfect examples of a Norman Church.  It was built around 1140 and boasts some magnificent stone work.

The views were wonderful as we climbed up onto a ridge and had far reaching views to the Brecons and the Malverns.

The local name for a small hill is a Tump and we found a little Ruth treat on top of Coles Tump.

Late afternoon we popped down to Monmouth for supper.  I remember first seeing the Monnow Bridge when walking Offa's Dyke.  Nice to see it again.

It was grey and damp on Monday morning, so we decided to visit some of the Black and White villages of Herefordshire.  First off was Weobly which had a sign posted trail around the village highlighting its key buildings, the first of which wasn't even black and white!

The richer you were the closer you could afford your wood beams to be, so you'd see houses with closely spaced beams at the front, where they would be seen, and more widely spaced ones further back from the public eye.

Loads and loads of black and white houses, of various states of verticality!  The building below on the right was the old school.

It had started raining so we drove off to Eardisland.  As I had an Ordnance Survey map in my hands I got distracted by a trig on the way, so we stopped, hopped over a fence into a muddy field, and bagged this one.

Back to the villages...Eardisland is the 'jewel' of the Black and White village trail, and I can see why.  It is very picturesque even in the drizzle.  It also regularly floods which is, sadly, unsurprisingly as it sits on a river which has been split to feed a water mill.

The last village was Pemberton which had an interesting bell tower set apart from the church.

And more photo opportunities.

On Tuesday, on our way back south, we stopped at Tintagel and walked the Angidy Trail which follows the wire work industry which date back to the 16th century.  You start by walking up old leats amongst worker cottages, discovering dams designed to generate a head of water to drive the water mills.  

Although the guide book talked of furnaces, kilns etc, on the whole there was little evidence except for overgrown walls and the dams.  The only surviving feature is the depilated furnace buildings, with placards telling you that, once the furnace started, it would be kept going for months at a time.   

The walk back down to Tintern was through a pleasant wood and the fungi reminded me of Luxembourg over the New Year. 

St Mary's Church was an interesting fine.  The stile to keep animals in/out was made from a re-used grave headstone. 

The church was destroyed in a fire in 1977.

Back down the River Wye, a pub lunch and then a quick photo of the Abbey before homeward bound. 

Eden Revisited

I've been to the Eden project a few times.  The first time was in the early 2000s.  There was a large tyre in the tropical dome then and we took a picture of the girls on it.  I remember this day well as Caitlin had just had a bike crash and her lip was bloodied and then, poor thing, she shut her fingers in the toilet door!  Riona, meanwhile, was wearing no shoes.  We were camping locally and we'd swung by the playground in our van to scoop her up. We only realised once we got to the Eden project that she was shoe-less!

In 2007 we were a tad more organised.  Caitlin was in one piece and Riona had bought shoes.

I visited again in 2009. I like visiting the Eden Project but it's expensive, and I didn't feel I needed to keep re-visiting.  However, I was jogged to visit recently as I had a free ticket, and I'm never one to turn these things down.  JC and I visited last Saturday and it was pretty much as I've remembered it.  

The crested partridges are still running around, but, sadly, the big tyre as gone.  

The sausage tree was going well.  

In the temperate zone I found the giant lemon.  Which doesn't look to scale unless you're next to it.  But, trust me, it's massive.

A Week in Luxembourg

I have just returned from a week in Luxembourg visiting JC and his parents.  Luxembourg, like most other countries, is operating under Covid rules so we were limited with what we could do.  We did however manage a few walks on dry days. 

One day we headed to Little Switzerland and walked around Mullenthal.  Our route took us through woodlands with wonderful rock outcrops and startlingly bright moss green patches.  

It also did a fine line in fungi.

Our route not only took us past some amazing rock formations, but through them!

We then passed the largest waterfall in Luxembourg.  I present to you The Schiessentümpel Waterfall.

On New Year's Day we went for a stroll by the Mossel.

I do so love a water level.  So much so that these are the only photos I took!

The next day we walked what is dubbed one of the most amazing walks in Luxembourg.  Manternach Fiels, also known as a Dream Loop, covers a 10 km stretch by rivers, through woodlands and with wonderful views around Manternach.  It was a nice walk, indeed, if not super muddy underfoot. 

The first muddy part was through a woodland which, once again, did a superb line in fungi.

Then across a river, up past some wonderful rock formations, and down to another stream on a muddy footpath.  

We had a slight pause here whilst I waited for the photographer.

Then it was up through some muddy wood and around a few fields.  We dropped down through an ancient terrace vineyard and back through a muddy trial down to the river where there was an abandoned water mill.

It was a lovely walk, but I certainly wouldn't rate it as one of the best in Luxembourg.  Little Switzerland has some far more amazing ones.  And did I say it was muddy?

The rest of our time was spent popping in on relatives, random shopping, a hard jigsaw (which I sadly had to abandon) and prepping for our trip home - the paperwork for testing, entering France, leaving France, entering Britain etc was pretty extensive!

We drove home on Thursday, 4 countries in one day.  First off was the Luxembourg/Belgium border.

Then heavy rain followed by snow in Belgium!

The French border was hard to spot - I'd hoped for a flag or two but it was just a sign which we nearly missed.

Then it was Calais for the Eurotunnel.  As we drove towards the border control, we saw the long queue for the British passports and switched to the EU queue which was a lot shorter.  Now I'm wondering if it's a problem that we went in and out of Europe on different passports.  I doubt it.  

The drive back on the UK side was uneventful, which is how journeys should be.  We arrived home after 11 hours door to door which isn't too bad at all :-)