Famille Du Pentium

Another Day, Another Llama Video

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

London Day 4 Part 1 – Harry Potter Tour

During our trip, my cousin Lisa booked a black taxi Harry Potter tour.  This tour ostensibly goes to various sites around London where Harry Potter was filmed.  I say ostensibly, because I didn’t go (daddy’s special time with Ethan – we went swimming and to the arcade instead.)  However, Marla and Aaron both took pictures (although having seen Aaron’s, I can’t vouch for their story-telling value) and you can follow along the path of Harry Potter through London HERE.

Later, I’ll post pictures from the 2nd half of our fourth day – a trip to the London Transport museum.

posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 4:24 pm  

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

New Caerlaverock Castle Pics

As I said previously, at some ports I took pictures with my 35mm SLR manual camera.  Although they are lower resolution, I used different lenses (long and wide) and different settings to take these pictures… sometimes for better, sometimes for worse (I’m still re-learning how to use all the manual settings.)  So there might be some interesting shots here, different from the vanilla pictures produced by the Sony point-and-shoot I used for the previous pictures.

Anyway, I’ve uploaded new pictures for Caerlaverock and Newark – the Clan Maxwell castles we visited – and will also publish them for the other sites we visited (to be posted later.)  Enjoy Caerlaverock HERE, and don’t say I didn’t warn you!

posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 7:57 pm  

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Berkhamsted England

This is Day 3 of our London visit.  We went out to Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, England.  The purpose of the visit was really twofold: visit one of Lisa’s old friends, and to see the castle.  After taking the tube to Victoria Station, we boarded the National Rail service to Berkhamsted.  The train ride took about an hour.  Upon arriving, a short walk later we were at our guest’s flat.  From there, we walked all around Berkhamsted, a beautiful little hamlet with small shops and cafes, parks, and a river with longboats on it.  Toward the end of our town walk, we visited Berkhamsted Castle, which was the last stand for the English against the Normans… William the Conquerer accepted his victory at Berkhamsted Castle.

Then we went to Lisa’s friend’s daughter’s house where we were treated to pasta, Pimms Fizzes, and great conversation.

Pictures of the town and castle are here.

posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 2:40 pm  

Monday, August 2, 2010

Trip Day 1 – London Day 1

First off, I’m going to try to post about 1-2 stories per day about our trip, to try to spread them out a bit and make it a little easier to keep up.  We started a little out of order – so that the Renewal of Vows and Maxwell Family / Caerlaverock Castle visit would be up first, but those were actually days six and seven of the cruise, 11 and 12 of the vacation.  So now we’re back to the beginning.

Day one in the UK was London – we actually spent five days in London before our cruise from Southampton.  This is actually day 1 and 2, because that’s how I organized the pictures.  By the way, if you see a little drawn paper figure in some pictures, that’s Flat Stanley and it was a school project for Ethan to take pictures of Flat Stanley visiting as many sites during our trip as possible.

So on day one, we mainly tried to stay awake until UK bedtime, in order to avoid jetlag.  So first we went to the Sherlock Holmes museum at, of course, 221b Baker Street.  The museum building is laid out roughly how it is in the stories, with authentic era furniture and settings etc.  After that, we met up with Lisa, Jerry and Rory at the hotel and proceeded to our Duck Tours on the Thames river.  One more duck tour under our belt!  We’ve now taken Duck tours in California, Washington, Texas, Wisconsin, Missouri, and now London.  There are probably a few more I’m forgetting.  Anyway, after Duck tours, dinner and bedtime.

Day two, Lisa and company went to Stonehenge while we took the Hop-On, Hop-off bus tour of London… so you’ll see lots of pictures of London sites.  The pictures didn’t organize well, so it’s sort of a mix of Sherlock Holmes, the duck ride, and various sites around London.  Pictures, again, are HERE.

Next up, London Day 3 – Berkhampsted!

posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 5:48 pm  

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Maxwell Heritage – Caerlaverock & Newark Castles

OK first some family history – my grandmother’s mother’s maiden name was Maxwell.  From our records, we’ve determined that her family goes back to David Maxwell, who was born in Glasgow in the 19th century and moved to Champagne, Illinois sometime later.  David was one of the sons of the Honorable Joseph Maxwell, who was in turn the son of the 11th Baron of Herries, Marmaduke Constable Maxwell.   The lineage from Marmaduke Constable Maxwell traces back somewhat directly to Maccus, a Norse chief, and his son John Maxwell, who was Chamberlain of Scotland in the 13th century.

These Maxwells built and lived in several castles in lowland Scotland until the 17th century, two of which we visited during our British Isles cruise: Caerlaverock Castle in Dumfries and Newark Castle near Glasgow.  We, of course, took lots of pictures and I’ll walk you through them now.  If you open that link in a new tab or separate window, you can refer to this guide while viewing the pictures.

The first 16 pictures, through DSC03396, are from our trip from Glasgow to Dumfries, which is about 3 hours.  From there, you have the old Caerlaverock castle gate, and at DSC03400 your first view of the castle itself.  The rest are pictures from inside and around the castle, and of course the kids, up to about DSC03440 where we start making our way from Dumfries back to Glasgow to visit Newark Castle.  Mostly what you see is the countryside between Dumfries and Glasgow.

At DSC03453, we arrive at Newark Castle and start making our way around it.

The “DSCxxxxx” series pictures are from my point-and-shoot Sony; the following pictures starting with IMAG0001 are from Marla’s camera and so they repeat starting back at Caerlaverock and then moving forward to Newark.  I also took 35MM pictures with film and some long and wide lenses; I’ll post those once they are processed.

Our excursion was arranged in advance with a private tour guide and coach company, and everything was great.  The staff at Caerlaverock had been alerted to our arrival by our tour guide and treated us like royalty.  The tea room had a great lunch menu, and I even tried the haggis sandwich.  Then, we had to make our way back through Glasgow to Greenock, where our boat was docked.

posted by Michael Humphries-Dolnick at 9:20 am  
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