Back on the Coach Again

We spent Tuesday in Chester and North Wales.
Chester is a great city with many places to explore,
including Roman walls on which you can walk and
see grooves in the stone path from the Roman Chariots.

Here is a fine example of Tudor houses in Chester.


...and poor Helen got thrown into the stocks by the
town crier.



North Wales is so beautiful -- more lakes and
mountains. This is Capel Curig near Mount Snowdon,
which is the highest mountain in England and Wales
at 3560 feet.



I'm not sure if this photo below is Snowdon.
I took it mainly for the sturdy English oak tree on the
left. The English have always been proud of their oak
trees because"hearts of oak" were what was used to
build the fine British navy ships in the times of Elizabeth I
-- but you'd never know it was an oak tree from this photo.
Couldn't decide if I wanted the tree or the view. I
was in a small tea garden waiting for the rest of the
gang to arrive and even got sun burned -- in England??



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From Wales we headed south to the Cotswolds, an
area of small, picturesque villages that used to be a
prime area for sheep and wool, but since there's
little call for wool these days they have turned to
tourism -- but tastefully, thankfully.


The problem here was when to stop taking photographs!



Again, the weather was gorgeous...



...and the photo opportunities spectacular.






How could we not take these photos?!



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Finally, we moved on to Oxford where folks with
more energy than I have, took a walking tour.
I took a bus! Many old buildings and of course
the town was full of students. This is the city
where C.S. Lewis and Tolkien lived and wrote.


This old brick cross was in the center of the road in
the market place and is truly alone worth the visit
to Oxford, for this is the place where Hugh Ridley and
Nicholas Latimer, and not much later Thomas Cranmer,
were burned at the stake for their Protestant beliefs,
during the reign of Mary I.

It is said that as the flames arose around them, Latimer
declared:
"Be of good comfort Master Ridley, for we shall this day
light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust
shall never be put out." October 16, 1555.
Less than 50 years after Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses
to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral-- (the beginning of the
Protestant Reformation), these men gave their lives so that
the man in the street could read the Bible for himself.