Saffron Walden

July 22, 2005

Hey! today was another adventure! I got up and got ready and went to breakfast. After, we all met at the porters office and walked to the bus station. We caught a bus to Saffron Walden. The bus ride was hilarious. I was on the top level and we hit tree branches and were swaying everywhere. It's a good thing I don't get sea sick!

We got to SW and Margaret Love Denman told us to go- have a good time- take as long as we want, have dinner, see the sights. So we walked through an estate and down the road to the manor.

Walking down the path to the manor house

Audley End- my new home! Oh my gosh! It was amazing. I found my Pemberly. Now all I need is my Mr Darcy! It was so beautiful. Just what i want in a dream home. You think I'm kidding. Nope.

The manor house 

(we weren't allowed to take photos inside the house so I got this for you)

The stables

The guard station

The original kitchens

the small cafe in the new kitchen of A.E.

So we walked around in there. I was one of the first ones in and the last one out. I soaked in every detail I could. I didn't want to leave. But I met up with Deann and Trish and we saw the gardens- beautiful. Sigh... 

Just wandering around on the grounds.

sculpted hedges

I can't remember what it was about this tree that had me so intrigued.

The gardens and back of the house.

The grounds. Isn't that a fair prospect?

We walked back to town and saw and old church then we walked to an old museum. Interesting. I think that's the first museum where I've walked out of one room with mummies and sarcophagi- into a room with Barbies in the display... ?  whatever. They were along with other old toys from the past century or so. 

The church at Saffron Walden

Centuries old tombs

That stained glass window was amazing!

What a beautiful little church

The stocks

I can't believe that I failed to mention in my journal that this was where I saw a lock of Napoleon Bonaparte's hair! all these years later and that's the only thing I remember from this museum.

Outside the museum we saw and old castle keep- nearly 850 years old. Wow! It's just a ruin now.

We walked to the great city maze. it was supposed to be this grand maze that's thought to be 800 years old. We thought it was a hedge maze but it was just a brick path. It was pretty anti-climactic. We decided to head back to Cambridge but as we walked through town we passed a nice Italian restaurant so we went in to eat (when I say "we" I mean, D, T and I and a kid named Harry). Dinner was amazing. Probably the best food I've had in England. My dessert was absolutely amazing. It was some mousse cake with biscuits (cookies) and ice cream. Oh! Wonderful. Oh- I forgot- Earlier at Audley End I got a piece of nettle and gooseberry cheese cake. It was gross- but Mel will be proud of me for trying it. Anyway, after we all aged 100 years, our waitress brought our check.

We walked to the bus stop and checked the schedule. Remember MLD told us to take our time and go back whenever we wanted. well. She failed to mention that the last bus leaves at 5:30! We sat at the bus stop for 45 minutes before we realized we'd missed it. We'd looked at the wrong day. So we hailed a Taxi. It was my first time in a taxi, in a Mercedes, in an English car, in the American driver's side with no steering wheel. It was cool! Our driver was Jasel Ahmed. He was boring- but he got us back to Cambridge quickly. It cost us 25 pounds. Anyway- it was fun.

We emailed when we got back and De and I got tickets for the tower of London tomorrow. We studied a map and tried to figure out a game plan. We played half a game of farkle but we quit early cuz we gotta be up at the crack o dawn. So that was my exciting day! Expect another one tomorrow!

Goodnight!
love Heather