The end of our journey

Today we drove to the Gatwick Airport to fly back to Germany. We wrote a little list of rates, so that you can look, how much money we spent on our journey. All in all each of us needed about 500 € for the whole travel.

Here is our list of rates:

• flights
• Köln/Bonn – London Gatwick
• Wednesday June 8 2011, 9:55 am
• London Gatwick – Köln/Bonn
• Wednesday June 15 2011, 2:10 am
• hire car
• Peugeot 107
• costs
• flights:                  187,06€
• luggage:                 22,00€
• hire car:                141,05€
• petrol:                   56,70€
• food/drinks:          240,00€
• others:                  28,34€ - Bournemouth Eye 
•                             38,54€ - Theatre
• hotels:
• 67,96€ - Hastings
• 65,68€ - Eastbourne
• 47,56€ - Brighton
•      /     - Portsmouth
• 54,36€ - Southampton
• 56,62€ - Bournemouth
• 67,96€ - Plymouth
• 984,95€    total

We hope you enjoyed our reports about our trip to the south coast of England!

Bye,

your Janina and Alena

In the Dartmoor National Park

Our last day was so wonderful. Today morning we drove from Bournemouth to the Dartmoor National Park. The nature, all the animals, flowers and plants were really beautiful. We arrived at 10 am after a 2 and a half hour drive. After arriving we ate something and then we explored the park. We had the selection between walking, cycling, riding and climbing. Also we could do geocaching. We decided to ride horses. We rode 3 hours and we saw so much of the park. Some people live there in the park in little villages. You can also live for a few days there on a camping place.

On our tour we didn’t see everything. We rode on bridleways through villages and over grassland and have seen wonderful places of nature.

If you want to walk, you can walk where you want. You needn’t go on the ways and streets. But (, but) you aren’t allowed to go to 16% of the park, because this is protected.

Dartmoor was very nice, but we also wanted also to see some of Plymouth. We arrived at 4 pm. We went to our hotel and checked in. After that we looked for the Smeaton's Tower and we found it. It is the most notable Eddystone Lighthouse. The building was finished in August 1759 and since 1884 you can visit it. We visited the Lighthouse and we could see the beautiful places of Plymouth. The view of the beach is so wonderful and after enjoying it we went down to the beach and spend our evening there.

Tomorrow we’re going to fly home. Now that is the end of our journey. We really enjoyed it and we would do it every time again. We hope you learned something about the south coast of England and enjoyed to read our blog.

We say good night from Plymouth and we will see you tomorrow evening for the last time.

Stonehenge and the beautiful Bournemouth

This morning we started early, because we wanted to see the sunrise near Salisbury, at the Stonehenge. This event was so beautiful. The sky became red, orange and pink and after an hour there were clouds. Then the clouds weren’t dark or white, they were orange. This process was one of the most beautiful one, we have ever seen.

Stonehenge is near Salisbury and about 5000 years old, but just in the 20th century reliable information was found to help to find out the order of the Avalanche Control of the stones.
The Stonehenge was created in three phases from 3000-1500 BC.
The first phase was from 3000 to 2000 BC, the second from 2100 to 2000 BC the last period from 2000 to 1500 BC.
Within those years, Stonehenge was built. The stones came from far away countries and the builders got a lot of view that they could transport the stones.

Stonehenge consists of three parts: the Avenue of Stonehenge to the nearly river Avon, the Wall and the grave condition and the actual stone circle system. The entire structure is aligned to the summer and winter solstice.
The Avenue begins at the north-east edge of the complex and bends exactly to the east. At last it leads to the river Avon.
The complex is surrounded by a wall and a moat, the wall and grave-conditioning.
There are two stone circles, the interior and the exterior.
The interior circle consists of 5 buildings like horseshoes. They are 6 meters high except the building in the middle. It’s 7 meters high.
The exterior circle consists of two circles, the Blue-Stone-Circle and the circle around that.

Until a few years you were allowed to walk in the complex, wherever you wanted, but now you have to walk on a marked way.

At 11  am we drove down to Bournemouth. We arrived at 12 am and then we went to a café to have a nice lunch. We sat in the sun and enjoyed the view of the long and wonderful beach. In the afternoon we went to our hotel and in the evening went to the beach and the “Bournemouth Eye”. We enjoyed this day much and are now really excited about being in Plymouth tomorrow.

The great harbor

Hey guys, this day we spend in Southampton, the city with the major port in the south of England. Southampton is located in the north of the Southampton Water, which is a deep water estuary, which was formed at the end of the last Ice Age and it’s 30km north-west of Portsmouth. The Southampton Water has the avail of a double high tide, with two high tide peaks, which makes the movement of big ships easier. It’s a function of the shape and depth of the English Channel. The climate of Southampton is influenced by the sea and rivers. It has an oceanic climate with an annual average temperature of 10.7 degrees Celsius. The warmest month is July and the coldest month is January. The average low temperature in January is 2.7 degrees Celsius and the average high temperature in July is about 22.2 degrees Celsius. Southampton is the only city in the UK with a geothermal power station, which provides hot water to a city centre district heating scheme and it’s one of the lowest carbon emitting cities in the UK. Southampton’s strong economy is promoting major projects, like the city’s first skyscrapers on the waterfront. When we arrived in Southampton and saw the huge harbor for the first time, we were speechless. It’s the biggest port we have ever seen. You have to know, that we weren’t enthusiastic to see the harbor, because we thought it would be a harbor like every other harbor, but this harbor is better than the others. It was really interesting to listen to all the things we were told. The port of Southampton is the cultural and economic centre of the town and it’s the port and home of some luxury cruise ships, like the Queen Mary 2.

Did you know, that the port of Southampton was the start harbor of the Titanic in 1912? We were told so much, that we don’t want to tell you all, because this would be take such a long time, so if you ever have the chance to get there, go and see the big harbor! It worth it!

Staying with our friends

Today we are in Portsmouth, the second biggest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England.

We won’t spend this night in a hotel, because two of our friends live here and they invited us to stay with them. A big thank you to you two, if you read this here. We know Kathy and Lisa from our school exchange and since then we are in contact, although they live in England and we in Germany.
When we arrived in Portsmouth, we had a delicious breakfast with Kathy and Lisa and after that we went to the “Spinnaker Tower”. This tower is 170m high and it’s the main item of the redevelopment of Portsmouth Harbor. The design is similar to the “Burj Al Arab” in Dubai, but the Spinnaker Tower is a way shorter than the Burj Al Arab. Its shape was chosen by residents from Portsmouth from a selection of concepts. The Spinnaker Tower was opened on October 18 in 2005 after several years of cost overruns and delays. When we stand on the top of the tower, the observation deck, we had a wonderful view of Portsmouth with its harbor and lots of other sights. We could look so far, that we saw the Isle of Wight, which is much kilometers away from the mainland of England.
After our trip to the Spinnaker Tower, we went to the “Royal Naval Museum”. It’s the museum of the history of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth.

In the afternoon we sat in Kathy’s and Lisa’s living-room and ate some cake and talked about all the experiences we have made. Now we have to stop writing, because we want to go for a walk to see the sunset. But we promise, that you will hear from us tomorrow. Have a good night.

At the amazing Pier

Today we had a sunny day at the Brighton Pier. Brighton is a town on the south coast of East Sussex with England’s most popular seaside resort.

Most time of the day we spend on the beach of Brighton and with hanging around the Pier. We learned a lot about the lifestyle in Brighton and these are the things we want to tell you about. The seafront of Brighton has restaurants, bars and nightclubs. There are more than 300 pubs where young people go to, every night. It’s considered to be one of the UK’s premier night-life meeting place and with lots of popular music artists, like ABBA. Brighton affords a multifarious cultural program with lots of theatres and museums. There are also lots of big, but also smaller fashion stores and that’s the reason of Brighton being such a popular fashion presented town. Because of its cosmopolitan ambiance it’s often called as “London by the sea”. More and more homosexual people settle in Brighton because of its serene attitude and easy way of living. All the people we met today were very friendly and kind, so we feel very comfortable in Brighton.

Now, we will go to bed to have enough energy to start in a powerful new day in Portsmouth tomorrow.

Sightseeing in Eastbourne

Today we are in Eastbourne and we did a lot here, so we’ll tell you all about our day in Eastbourne.

Eastbourne has a magnificent landscape including lots of parks. In some of them you can relax pretty well, but there are also parks for fun, sports and children.
In summer there are many open-air events. We spoke to some people from Eastbourne and they told us that these events are very cool.
The Carpet Gardens are the world’s most famous centrepiece of Eastbourne's beautiful seafront. Throughout the year you can see lots of various flowers. One example are tulips.
In the evening we went to “The Royal Hippodrome” and watched “Strictly Comedy & Dancing”. The Royal Hippodrome was built in 1883; therefore it’s the oldest theatre in Eastbourne.) The former name of this theatre is “Theatre Royal and Opera House”. Since 1904 it’s called “The Royal Hippodrome”, but the reason for changing the name is unclear.
In 2007 and 2008, the theatre was rebuilt and there has been made many technical changes.
Strictly Comedy & Dancing is a comedy play for the whole family with a lot of entertainment and lots of musical numbers.
All in all there are about 1000 castles, museums, art galleries and parks. In Eastbourne you can do everything, also boat tours.

What you can see afar on the coast is the large white limestone rock. Many tourists climb on the rock to sit there and to enjoy the amazing view of Eastbourne.
Also important for Eastbourne is the “Hotel Da Vinci”. It’s the first build hotel in Eastbourne. Today there’s a gallery in the hotel lobby, where local and international artists show their work.

Now it’s time for us to relax, because tomorrow morning we will start our journey to Brighton. See you guys!

Our first day in England

This morning we arrived at London Gatwick Airport at 10.20 am and drove south-east in our hire car to Hastings. After an hour and a half ride, we arrived in Hastings.

Hastings is a town in the south-east of East Sussex with a 5km long seafront where you can go fishing. After we checked in in our hotel, we went to Hastings Castle. This Castle was originally built as a motte –and -bailey castle near the shore, but in 1070 William of Normandy had given orders for the Castle to be rebuilt in stone, together with the St. Mary’s Chapel. In 1287 strong storms battered the south coast of England for many months and the sandstone cliffs were destroyed. Large sections and parts of the Castle fell into the sea. During the next century, more and more parts fell into the sea. In the middle of the 16^th century, Henry VIII commissioned that all catholic monasteries had to be destroyed. This left the Castle in decay for many years. After this, it was bought by the Pelham family and used for farming until the ruins had become overgrown and lost from memory. During World War II, the Castle was damaged very hard, more as Hastings was a target for bombing raids. In 1951, the Castle was purchased by the Hastings Corporation and converted into a tourist attraction.

Tomorrow morning we will start driving along the south coast to our next stop, Eastbourne and then every day the same. After 7 days we will drive back to Gatwick Airport to fly back to our lovely home country Germany.

See you tomorrow evening in Eastbourne,

Greetings from Hastings.