Adders

England’s most lethal animal is the Adder.  They inhabit Hatfield Moors where I walk with a group every other week. They are very shy and will disappear if they hear noise or feel vibrations from walking. They come out to sun, but if it gets too hot disappear.  It is tricky to catch them.  You need a morning that is dry, cool, with sun just coming out. It has taken 2 ½ years, but I’ve finally seen three of them. I didn’t have my camera the day we saw a large male, but today I got pictures of two females.  The Males are a darker almost black/ blue color with the same tan marking. 

 

Doddington Hall

Main house from the gate house

Doddinton Hall and gardens were built in 1595 and has never been sold out of the family. It is still lived in by the family and holds 400 years of collections of painting, ceramics, and textiles. Like many of the English manor houses it has been opened to the public to help pay for the maintenance and upkeep.

Dinning room

Sitting room with Venetian glass lights
 

Manor houses start to look alike in many cases.  They all collected the same types of things.  The differences are the style of the architecture and they grounds.  Doddington had some unusual items probably because the same family has owned the house for 400 years, so those are what I've shown.

 

Unicorn is on Family crest, so shrubs are cut into a unicorn.

 

Fox heads labeled with date and time of the hunt in gun room.

 

Arab tent brought back by one owner from his time in the British army.  It is set up in one of the bedrooms so that it can be enjoyed.  Has been used in the past  in the garden in the summers.

View of the part of the formal garden, pool, and tennis court from the house.

 

Notice the heart in the wall to the right of the window. The brick layers got tired of using the locally boring bricks so started putting patterns into the brickwork as they layed them.  The designs and were not supposed to be there, but the brick layers were  forced to stop making them but not to take them out. There is a checker board on the other wing.

Copenhagen- Kobenhaven

Easter weekend is a national holiday in England, so we used the long weekend to visit Copenhagen.  It was beautiful weather and a relaxing weekend.

We flew from Manchester which takes us 2 hours to reach from Haxey, and the flight to Copenhagen was an hour and 45 minutes. Denmark is nice as most signs are in Danish and English. We took a train into the center of the city and walked 4 blocks to our accommodations in an older grand hotel across from the city hall.

City Hall

We had a nice room on the 4^th floor overlooking the roof tops to the north. After being there a few days we could identify the church or palace spires we saw from our window.

We both knew nothing of Danish history, so Friday afternoon we started our weekend in the Danish National Museum’s ancient history section. It’s always fun to see history from another countries point of view.  We kept seeing references to the fact the Vikings were given a bad reputation. They really weren’t as bad as portrayed as they opened up a lot of trading route and integrated cultures as well as established robust cities in previously lightly populated areas such as the York area of England.

John relaxing in front of Palace Hotel

Like all of Europe, museums close early.  We knew we would have to come back another time. We returned to our hotel and had drinks on the front walk over looking city hall. It was warm, sunny, with no wind unlike England.

For dinner we asked a desk clerk at the hotel where she would go. She recommended Restaurant Puk serving traditional Danish food. We’re very glad she called and made a reservation, as while we ate probably 30 people were turned away. We ordered a dinner that was a sampler of traditional foods.  It was delicious, gluten free, and we were stuffed. We had pickled herring, dilled cod, sushi like salmon, liver pate, roast pork, red cabbage (like my Danish grandmother made), and new potatoes.

First of three trays brought out for dinner.

Being the Easter weekend I had read that all shops would be closed Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday.  We were just hoping the museums and palaces would be open. As it happens the main museums were open and we saw everything we’d planned to see.

Rosenborg Castle

Our first stop Saturday was Rosenborg Castle.  This was a summer palace built by the Danish King Christian IV. The next three generations lived in the castle until King Frederik IV built Frederiksberg Castle in 1710. 

John and Kathy in Long Hall or throne room

One of three silver lions from 1670 in throne room

Rosenborg has always belonged to the monarchy so the treasures inside were intact and the tapestries, that we hear about in other castles, were actually hanging in place on all the walls.

Tapestries on wall behind decorations

t was very nice to see a castle/palace from 1606 as it would have looked and been used. The basement now holds the crown jewels.

We walked across the old town to the harbor to see the little mermaid statue.  I must say it reminded me of my first impressions of the Mona Lisa, smaller than imagined. I assumed it was in the middle of the harbor.  It is right next to the shore.

Mermaid in Copenhagen harbor

After joining the throngs viewing the statue, we boarded a hop-on hop-off canal tour. It was nice in that it explained buildings along the canal and history of the town. 

Nyhaven Canal

Custom House tower is entwined dragon tails.

Copenhagen is an area of islands that has been joined together by bridges. We also saw areas we were not going to get to by walking. We hopped off at the Christiansborg Palace on Castle Island. Crossing the bridge to the Island a very unusual sculpture appeared in the canal.

Merman with 7 sons

Christiansborg Palace is where the parliament sits and the Supreme court is found.  The royal family does not live here anymore, but they do use it for state occasions.

Looking at palace through 1167 original gates

The palace was originally built in 1167. It burned down in 1794, was rebuilt and burned in 1884. A lot of artifacts and treasurers have been lost.  The stable remains from the first castle and the church from the second. The current castle was finished in 1928.

1928 palace - home to parliament, supreme court, state functions

The first castle was built on the ruins of a bishop’s abbey.  The foundations of the original abbey were found when the last castle was being built, and you can see the excavation of those ruins under the castle.

Abbey ruins under the Christiansborg Palace

 

Stable- horses and coaches found here.

The stable is very opulent and still in use.  Horses are kept to pull the royal carriages when needed.  They are trained daily either on the grounds or pulling coaches through the town

 

Kathy in stable

.For dinner we got a second recommendation from our favorite desk clerk. We ate at Tight, a restaurant run by a Canadian and an Australian. Delicious. Following dinner we went to the English Anglican church for Easter Vigil service. It was a nice service, but I was surprised as only 20 people attended.  The choir was bigger than the congregation.

St.Albans Church

Sunday we finished the Danish National Museum, hopped on the canal boat to do the section we’d missed the day before, walked to the Amalienborg Palace where the queen and royal family currently live, and finished the day at Nyhaven. 

Amalieborg Palace is four separate building built around a common court.

Dinner was at Cap Horn Restaurant overlooking the canal harbor. It was the most touristy place we ate, but fun to watch all the people walking by as well as everyone enjoying their boats. Lots of beer drinking and sun bathing.

John at dinner in Nyhaven

Monday on the way to the train station we stopped at a bakery that was recommended for its gluten free breads.  That is what I bought and John purchased three kinds of Danish pastry.  The hotel had only served French pastry at breakfast. We have both enjoyed our purchases.

York

There are two county Museums in York.  The Castle Museum and the Yorkshire Museum.  the latter has just been remodeled and reopened so we took a day and went to see it.

St. Mary's Abbey Ruins

It is build on top of St. May's Abbey's ruins.  Part of the chapter house sits in the basement.

Fireplace from the Chapter House

 A large part of the museums collections are items from the abbey. The museum also houses a lot of Roman artifacts.

Roman Centurion Statue

The grounds are beautiful and the flowers were just starting to bloom when we were there.

Abbey grounds

                                       Also on the grounds are the ruins of a hospital

Hospital Ruins

                                              and the remains of the roman fort's wall.

Wall is part of original Roman Fort's wall.

We also went to the Treasurer's house next to the Minster.

Treasurer's House

  It has a 2000 yr old history starting with the remains of a roman road in the basement and the Edwardian servant quarters in the attic.  It was donated to the National Trust with 300 yrs of  furniture, ceramics, textiles in tact.


Main entrance hall of Treasurers House


        

Fifty years ago a young man was doing some rewiring in the basement of the Treasurer's House.  He was standing on the remains of a Roman road that runs under the house when a Roman Legion marched out of the wall. Four people have seen them.                                                                                                                                                                                



Wall in basement just over Roman road and through which a Roman Legion marched

Winter

The winter is a slow season for touring in England and the continent.  Most manor houses and tourist attractions run on volunteers, and with the bad weather they don't want to drive so everything closes till March. Now that Spring is here, and Easter has come flowers are blooming and  everything is opening again.

We did go see sites that don't require volunteers, and visit John's cousin in Germany.

Mannheim Germany

John’s cousin has a German husband and has lived in Germany with him and their 4 kids for the last 25 years.

Downtown Mannheim from train station.

They work in Mannheim and live west in the small village of Hertlingshausen near Carlsberg.


Water tower in center of Mannheim now a park area with city parking underground

Older building in Mannheim

Mannheim has a lot of art and sculptures. This is model of first Benz car.

Sculpture in downtown

Their property is in a beautiful spot nestled in the hills against the Black Forrest.

House from the swimming pond



Yard from the house
 

Forrest next to the house.

 We spent a very relaxing weekend with them. We saw Mannheim, a modern city, a castle in the village of Neuleiningen, and John went to a soccer game in Kaiserslautern.

Neuleiningen castle ruins
 

Castle Church

Vineyards in area, Mannheim in distance top right

Village nestled in the hills of the Black Forrest
 

 

Village street in Neuleiningen.(castle town)