Cerise gives you her #England #research trip schedule! #knights #Lords #castles

AMAZON   ARe   NOOK   KOBO   iTunes

I'm packing my bag (small, black, within airline weight), for England! Want to come along?

I'm doing Major Research and I have an Agenda. Want to see? Bring your walking shoes, umbrella, raincoat (could be chilly too), and a sweater. Also do bring your camera because I take a picture of ANYthing which appeals. Your shoelace. The waiter's tie. Notorious. Yes. And sad. I need many cameras for shots so I can write other blogs like this one! With GOOD pictures...we do pray.

YES! I'm off for England soooon for 2+ weeks!!! Our trip this year is to London, Windsor, Reading and Bath. I am so tickled, I am silly with it.

Yesterday at a day-long FB party (Hey, forgive spelling here, I'm still recovering), I "served high tea." My mother was of English origin and tea was served at our house the English way in a pot, mind you, milk and sugar on the side with a homemade scone or good shortbread cookie.

Mr. DeLand chuckles at my English tea. He needs his java. But he says he will partake. While in England, do as they do, you see.

I am going with superb expectations that I will cram everything in I need to do and see to satisfy my historian's soul—and my writer's heart. This means, of course, that Mr. DeLand knows how to amuse himself while I shop (that verb to him is dawdle) in a museum store or the palace bookshop. (He has decades of experience with me, so he is primed.)

This year I have research goals, as ever. But they are a tad different than in past. This year we do a LOT of Regency and another shot of Victorian areas and experiences. Why? Well, I am excited about Regency architecture. This is for my series that began with HER BEGUILING BUTLER. (See here.) DELIGHTFUL DOINGS IN DUDLEY CRESCENT is my series about lords and ladies (rom com, mystery, and tons of history to titillate) who fall in love with servants. Of course, none of the servants is of that class, else what is a Regency romance for, eh? It must focus on noblemen acting in extraordinary ways to achieve the ultimate goal, marriage. I digress.

Ready for that schedule? 

DAY ONE (which is really Day 2 because the DeLands get JET LAG like the POX has arrived!)

Apsley House, London Regency walking tour; and TOWER OF LONDON

This makes the 6th or 7th or umpty-umpth time we have done THE TOWER. But Mr. DeLand's forefather (and mine) came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror and Mr. DeLand  gets crazy mad goosebumps every time he visits. Ergo, one must, eh? I say his ancestor helped to either build said castle, defend it or had a room there. Hmmm.

DAY TWO: Windsor Castle  

I do wish I could say I am taking tea here.
Alas, it is Buckingham Palace and this year,
HRM is busy when we arrive.

See us on the train, walking, dining there. I was there back in the my grad school days. Mr. DeLand has never been. I think that decades on, for me, I will get to see more of the castle than I did back in the day. So much more is open these days!

DAY THREE: Royal Mews and Cavalry Museum

I am up for the Mews! Last year, we were in Paris for our research trip and we went to the Palais Royale in Compiegne. We dined in a FAB 5 star place for lunch, made our way to the Palais and by the time we finished the main house, the mews was closed. I wept fat tears. Give me a carriage. Always. I get my fix here!

DAY FOUR: Spencer House. Regency Walk around London in which we amble along to haberdashers, Fortnum and Mason, a few squares to look at architecture and to dine and do high tea!

DAY FIVE: Hampton Court Palace or Blenheim. This choice depends on how we feel that morning. Why? After doing this self-guided touring for years now, we understand that occasionally we have to NOT run ourselves mad and do something simpler, not so strenuous. Especially if the weather is not wonderful, we want to be certain to be kind to ourselves, our feet and our health.

Blenheim is necessary to me as I begin a series about American Heiresses who married English noblemen in the Victorian era!

DAY SIX:  Banqueting House and Museum of London. The Banqueting House is a bit of an aside, one of those "must do-haven't been there yet thingies" but it calls to me. In my un-copious free time, I want to write (research) Restoration period. 

DAY SEVEN: Osterley Park.

This is my big Regency house tour day. Mr. DeLand will sigh and nod and humor me for hours. But he will love the train and the countryside. I know he will!

DAY EIGHT: Arundel Castle or Free

This is a bow to Mr. DeLand's delight in early medieval castles and my tendency to write a medieval now and then!

DAY NINE:  Sir John Soanes House, St. Paul’s, and Dinner at Rules!

Ah, yes. That architecture thingie? This is where I get to drool. Soanes was a major architect during the Regency period for many and I understand that the house alone is a treasure. See me dropping many POUNDS in the shop. Not weight, no. MONEY. 

Why St. Paul's? To be honest? While Mr. DeLand has been here often, I have never. I must go this time. 

And dinner at Rules? Ah. Mr. DeLand says we must take out a home equity loan to pay the bill, but go we will. Have you seen the menu? O.M.G. An Englishman's heaven. Roast beef and oysters and kidney pie and soups. I may never leave. (See me doing the dishes?)

DAY TEN, ELEVEN, TWELVE, THIRTEEN, FOURTEEN: BATH

We take the train. Love trains. Bought our tickets on line and let me just give a plug to British Railways who, when this American could not read their website well, did reimburse me for the 4 extra tickets I managed to purchase for 2 people on the same train, same day, and another 2 which went the wrong way immediately after the first 2 arrived.

Yeah.

Don't ask.

In Bath, we will go go go to:

1. Museum of Bath Architecture

2. Fashion Museum, open 10:30-5:00 every day, 

Tours at 1200 noon and 4:00 each day.

See Georgian Exhibit

Entry to the Assembly Rooms is included in the Fashion Museum ticket. - See more at: http://www.fashionmuseum.co.uk/assembly-rooms#sthash.VTqcQfzi.dpuf

3. Assembly Rooms, 10:30 - 5:00, every day

4. Jane Austen Center, open every day

5. The Circus

6. Royal Crescent

7. Roman Baths

Before we leave Bath, I will ship home my READER SWAG and goodies for all those FB Parties in 2015-2016.  I learned to do this years ago rather than accosting airline check-in clerks with my displeasure at their dislike of my weighty luggage!

DAY FIFTEEN: We leave Bath. Color me sobbing! We take the bus from Bath to our hotel at the airport!  I do love airport hotels. Means I can get up the next morning and look like a human being instead of this mad woman who has to get to the airport through wild traffic only to stand in line...again.

DAY SIXTEEN: We fly home!

Cerise went to #Paris and shares 5 FAB.U.LOUS FREE things to do there!

You know I love to share my travels, especially to Paris and soon (be still my heart) to England and Bath!

But for Paris, ah, ma cherie, I have good news for you!

Aside from spending money, the best thing to do in Paris is spend time!

5. Walk along the Seine
Throw the guidebooks away for a day. Especially if that day is sunny. Take the Metro. Walk.
Go to Point Zero, which is a point in front of Notre Dame from which all points in France are measured!

Stroll along the river to admire the vendors with old postcards, prints, paintings, clothing and snacks!
Take pictures and breathe in the Paris air.

Buy an ice, if you must. But inhale the aromas of French roast coffee and baking croissants. Admire the flowers. I've never seen such blooms.

Walk over to the Place des Vosges, ordered built by Henri IV and a favorite place for Parisians today to take a picnic!

Doors at entrance to
Napoleon's Tomb

4. Go to St. Louis's Dome. Walk inside to visit Napoleon Bonaparte's Tomb.

Gives me chills every time I see it.

What a man he must have been.

Be sure to pay homage to General Foch who was the last of four French generals to lead the French military in La Grande Guerre, in the First World War.

Carried by a member of each of the branches of the French military, his coffin denotes the sorrow of the French who suffered enormous the destruction to home and civilians during that first global conflict.

General Foch carried by his French comrades
in Les Invalides

3. Visit the train stations!
I know you think I'm nuts, but really, they are a slice of architectural beauty. My favorite is Gare (pronounced not Gar, as in garage, but Garrrrrrrr) de L'Est. This Station of the East is a beauty opened in 1849 and it retains all the glorious expansive beauty of the Belle Epoch. Look at the fan windows. Admire the wide concourse. Both were innovations in their day.

Now imagine through here traveled millions of French and American soldiers from 1914 to 1919. Why?
The fronts were to the north of Paris for all Entente forces. The American front for the American Expeditionary Forces was to the north and east and the best way to get to them, if not by truck convoy, was by train. Often these train tracks did not couple and forces had to wait for hours for the arrival of another train on an adjoining track. Needless to say, the journey was long and arduous.

The cars, during wartime, were overcrowded, stinky, few seats available, without WCs (bathrooms, to Americans) and without any refreshment or dining cars.

People fled the fighting and the bombs and the invading armies on these trains. Carrying their chickens, their family photo albums, their clothes, millions boarded these trains and fled south. Many never returned. Villages were abandoned to the men fighting with sabers, rifles, flares, chemical gases and cannon.

2.  Take the Metro to Montemarte and walk into the square where you will find dozens of artists selling their wares. 

If walking distances is a challenge, get off the Metro at Lamark and walk up up up the stairs.  Good for the gluts, you see. (Yes, then another set of steps to the square!)

Dart into the many galleries to admire works by contemporary artists.

Walk down the steps toward Rue de Caulingcourt (named after one of Napoleon I's closest friends, ambassador to Russia and famous general). Note The Agile Rabbit on your right where dozens of Impressionist painters and sculptors and writers went nightly to drink and inspire each other!

Stroll along the Rue and walk into a wine shop for your vin. Next door, buy a cheese (dozens to choose from) and a demi baguette. Further along is a fabulous shop whose owner rotisseries chickens and little potatoes in a little roaster right out there on the sidewalk!

Take them all home or to your hotel and feast!

1. Walk along the Champs Elysee and discover Musee D'Orsay, Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries Gardens! 

Pack a lunch to sit in the gardens! Buy a sandwich of brie and ham, a chocolate croissant and coffee and admire what was saved for you by a Nazi general who refused Hitler's order to burn Paris in August 1944. Drop into Laduree and buy scrumptious macaroons.

Sit and imagine you are Marie Antoinette or Josephine or even Napoleon I or his nephew, Napoleon III admiring the view. Yes, on this site there once stood a Tuileries Palace where Marie Antoinette hid from the Revolutionaries and where Josephine bemoaned Napoleon's affairs. Admire what Napoleon saved and improved about Paris which include the bridges that bear his N emblem, river transportation, water availability and many roads into the capital.