Help me (not) sleep under a bridge

[dhampyresa]

I am most likely going to spend about three weeks/a month in Great Britain this August.

It'll be just me.

I have no idea what I'm doing yet. I want to go Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, possibly more places, and will likely spend a couple days in London, if only to get over the massive jetlag of going from a French to British timezone. A whole hour, the horror.

I may also see some people. Both from RL and fandom -- definitely lunik_the_bard for sure.

I'll probably go to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival, likely in the first half of the month, as apparently that's when most the shows I want to see are. But nothing's set in stone.

Literally nothing is set in stone.

I don't want to do super touristy stuff for this trip, I'm looking for more unusual stuff like stuff I wouldn't find out about if someone didn't tell me about it. But anything interesting will do. Nothing is too weird! (I will totally sleep under a bridge if that's an option.)

TL;DR: Rec me stuff to see/do in Great Britain. Assume I know nothing.


EDIT: I will not be using a car, I will also be doing England and I will basically take any recs, nevermind how touristy.

Comments

[hokuton_punch]

Hmm, I would like to recommend you places in York but much of what I know is on the touristy side. D: Although I really feel that everyone should go to the Roman Baths Pub on principle of it is a pub right on top of the remains of the Roman garrison's baths, which is touristy but in a low-key way.

Also there is a small restaurant on Gillygate called Asia Gourmet which has a prawn tempura with cheese roll that is EXCELLENT, 100% recommend.

[isis]

When I was in York we did the "walk along the old city walls" thing which was really interesting! No tour guide, just read the plaques. Plus you get to go for a walk.

[dhampyresa]

Thank you for the rec!

[dhampyresa]

Thanks for the recs! Tbh, I would also take recs for more stuff to do/see/etc in York.

[hokuton_punch]

Ahh, let's see what else I can think of... (I was really a terrible international student, I hardly went out exploring at all. /o\ ) The Guild Hall museum off Fossgate is pretty interesting! And King's Manor is not very far away from the Minster and neat to explore, plus the City Museum and gardens are right behind it and full of stuff (like the multangular Roman tower with Norman construction on top of it). I second walking around the walls, that's a lot of fun. And the Minster library in the old archbishop's palace is neat, though they don't have a lot of displays or anything. And the Shambles is nice to walk down (with a little shrine to a Catholic saint who was martyred in York, St. Margaret of Clitherow).

[dhampyresa]

Thank you!

[dolorosa_12]

If you're going to Wales, I highly recommend Bangor and/or Anglesey. It's a bit of a pain to get there (although there is a direct train from London), but it's well worth it. The train journey up the coast is really beautiful, and you're close to cool stuff like Conwy Castle or Church Island on Menai Bridge. (That may be too touristy, I don't know...)

You didn't mention England at all, but have you considered stuff like the Uffington White Horse or indeed any of the other chalk hill figures which are scattered around in various places? They're pretty impressive (although often somewhat difficult to get to).

Are you going to have a car, or are you going to be only using public transport?

[dhampyresa]

Thanks for the recs!

I will also be doing England and the chalk figures is a great idea, thank you!

I'm not taking a car, let me edit the post.

[isis]

When I was in Edinburgh I enjoyed hiking up Arthur's Seat for the view and the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel.

I also liked seeing both ends of Hadrian's Wall, at Wallsend on the east and Birdoswald on the west. Both sites have Roman fort ruins and museums.

As for non-super-touristy (well, I guess it's still touristy but more quirky) I really liked watching the Millenium Bridge in Newcastle tilt to let river traffic go under!

[dhampyresa]

Thank you so much for the recs! I can't believe I forgot Hadrian's Wall!

[glitterburn]

May be relevant to your interests: if you're in Oxford (which is easily reachable by bus from London), the Ashmolean Museum has an exhibition on 'Storms, War and Shipwrecks' around Sicily, which features the ram from a Carthaginian ship and two from Roman ships that were sank at the Battle of Egadi.

[dhampyresa]

That is indeed relevant to my interests, thank you.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Not sure what sort of thing to rec... If you are going to North Wales, then a stop in Chester maybe? it's a surprisingly beautiful Roman/medieval town and seems to be a bit off the usual tourist tracks. Caernarfon is interesting but I always think it feels a bit Iron Fist of the Normans even now.

Wales is not designed to get from North to South in. Basically all the roads are for the English to invade along and run East-west, and the railways tend to follow their example. :-D

I've not been to Harlech in years, but I remember that as the most beautiful of the castle-towns, and it's more Welsh and less Norman stomp-face-y, if that makes sense.

Cornwall... did you know that there's a direct ferry Roscoff-Plymouth, you don't *have* to go round via the Great Wen both ways... I'm assuming you aren't bringing a car?

If you fancy a small boat trip, you can get across from Plymouth (which is worth a visit in itself) to the Rame Peninsula on the Cremyll ferry. I rather love the Rame, it's a bit of a forgotten corner. And there's the Tamar Valley line upriver to Calstock .

Or you could go further West to Falmouth and explore around there, there's a ferry across to St Mawes...

I think personally I'd probably go to Falmouth over Penzance, unless you have a reason to go to Penzance particularly (like you are going to the Scilly isles or the Minack theatre).

Newquay is trendy and surfy but personally I think it's a bit less characterful. Do NOT go to Land's End, I'm pretty sure you'll hate it. Most people do.

St Ives is great (and has a station) if you fancy bingeing on art, I don't like the Tate Modern much, but wandering round all the commercial galleries (mostly small and run in a rather amateur and unintimidating way) and seeing all the wildly contrasting styles is much more fun in my book :-D

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for all the recs! :D And the advice about the railways/roads in Wales.

I will indeed not be using a car.

I definitely want to go to the Minack theater ever since you mentionned it, it looks amazing!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, you could go to Hay-on-Wye! It's a tiny, tiny village in Wales remarkable mostly for being entirely composed of bookstores. There's pretty much nothing to do there other than look at bookstores, though, so I wouldn't recommend spending more than a day there, at most. On the other hand, it's right on the edge of the Brecon Beacons park, so if you're into hiking through terrifyingly isolated moorlands and hills, you could easily get in both on one trip.

Also, this is probably too touristy for you, but I highly recommend the London Walks:
http://www.walks.com/
They do all sorts of walking tours (mostly in London, though there's a few in other parts of the country as well) on different themes: Shakespeare, Harry Potter, ghosts, Jack the Ripper, Victorian era philanthropists, beer and pubs, food, etc. I go on one pretty much whenever I'm in London, and must have been on at least a dozen by now. Every single one I've really enjoyed and learned a lot. And their guides are really knowledgable and nice! Once I even made such good friends with a guide that we ended up grabbing dinner together afterwards, which was cool. They're also only £10 (£8 if you have a student ID), so it might be worth checking one out just to see if you like it.

If you like Indian food at all, you should totally check out Brick Lane in London. You can literally just walk down the street, pick a random restaurant, and it will be the best Indian food outside of South Asia. It's all so delicious, I practically dream about it.

I always have had a secret desire to go see the Orkney Islands, both for King Arthur and because they're such a random, out of the way place to visit. But it turns out, shockingly, that random out of the way places are pretty hard to get to, and so I've never managed it. But if you're going up to Edinburgh you'll already be much closer than I ever have been, so maybe that's an idea?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh! And if you make it up to York, it has a Viking Museum that's supposed to be legitimately amazing.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

THE BOOKSTORE VILLAGE AKA MY DREAM PLACE YES I WILL GO THERE

Thank you for the recs! The Orkneys look cool and I think it'll be nice to go there.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Enjoy it :D

Oh, and since you'll be in Edinburgh, I just heard recently that they have a catacomb-like system of underground tunnels called the "Edinburgh Vaults", and you can go on tours of them!

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

That is very RTMI, thank you!