Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Kent

Hever Castle was the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, mother of Queen Elizabeth I and the woman whose face launched the Anglican Church of England. It is tucked away in the emerald folds of the Kentish countryside, just a stone’s throw away from Penshurst Place whose most famous resident was Anne’s contemporary, the courtier-poet Sir Phillip Sidney who wrote a beautiful poem immortalizing the ancient pile (“To Penshurst”). When, over a year ago, my friend Stephanie and I had taken one of our frequent detours on our Sunday sightseeing routine in the UK, we had strayed onto a path that led to Hever, only to arrive at its lovely Tudor gatehouse and find it closed for the winter. So I was particularly happy to actually get within its gates.

By medieval standards, Hever is tiny. I have toured castles far more impressive in size and grandeur (Glamis Castle in Scotland comes to mind, as, of course, closer to London, is Windsor). but then this wasn’t owned by royalty. It was the family home of one of the most ambitious of the monarch’s underlings, Thomas Bullen, whose father Geoffrey had purchased the property and surrounding acreage as a family home. It passed into the hands of the conniving Thomas who would not draw the line at pimping his daughters Anne and Mary to the King just so he could swell his wealth and rise in royal stature. A really sinister portrayal of him is played superbly by Nick Dunning in the HBO series The Tudors which Llew and I have been watching on DVD. He lies buried in adjoining St. Peter’s Church, Hever, which a lot of visitors also enter.

His spirit was more than evident at Hever, a pretty ivy-covered, double-moated castle with the cutest Tudor entry courtyard I have ever seen just past the drawbridge–all exposed black gables and stone turreted tower. Inside, there is some of the most ornate linen-fold wooden panelling I have ever seen–not for the Bullens the ordinary kind as found at Hampton Court or Sutton House in London’s East End–this is embellished superbly with aristocratic symbols. There are paintings on the wall that depict the pomp and splendour that was lavished upon King Henry each time he came along for a sleepover. Indeed his bedroom is the coziest and the brightest–large windows (unusual for Tudor homes) threw light upon his ‘tester’ bed–I bet there was no pun intended there!

Every attempt has been made to revive the spirit of the ill-fated Anne Boleyn through portraiture, wax models (as at Madame Tussaud’s), her own personal Book of Hours which poignantly has the words “Le Temps Viendra, je Anne Boleyn” inscribed on its first page–did she have a premonition that her time would come? Anne was especially fluent in French which she considered her first language having spent her formative years at the French court where her father dispatched her so she could acquire sophisticated European ways and eventually wow an English monarch who was best known for his roving eye. Elaborate family trees trace the origin of some of the times’ key players and I always come away from such exhibits learning just one more tidbit. For instance, I could never remember what made Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots ‘cousins’–the family tree allowed me to see that Mary was the daughter of Henry’s sister Margaret–hence Mary was Elizabeth’s father’s sister’s daughter. Still, despite all the memorabilia from Tudor and Elizabethan times, I came away thinking I’d learned more about the Astors.

That is because in the early 20th century, Hever passed into the hands of the American William Astor who made his fortune in fur trading. For some reason, at that time, Americans seemed to think that getting their hands on England’s real estate would increase their own stature and vied to make property investments across the pond (consider this: William Randolph Hurst, the Californian publisher-millionnaire bought nearby Leeds Castle; the Vanderbilts went one step further and arranged their daughter Consuelo’s marriage to the then Duke of Marlborough so they could get their hands on Blenheim Palace–poor thing had a miserable time until the couple divorced, but not before the Vanderbilts poured their ample funds into restoring what was then a crumbling pile. These bits of Anglo-American trivia have, somehow, stuck in my mind from past travels in the UK). The top floors of Hever are devoted to an exhibition about the Astors and there are a bunch of paintings and pictures depicting the clan way into the 20th century smiling for the cameras against the Castle’s ivy-clinging backdrop.

Hever’s Gardens are just as special as the House itself–there is a beautiful Rose Garden, an ornately laid-out Italianate Garden, a Half Moon Fountain and sweeping lawns that dip into a lake that boaters made idyllic. Children giggled in the Water Maze and in the other old-fashioned amusement area for there is a great deal to keep them occupied.

Close by is the pretty and very tiny village of Chiddingston which my guide book described as the kind of place from which you expect Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple to emerge from behind a hedge. It is a one-horse village with just three large structures–a stone church, a gabled guildhall and a Castle Inn that adjoins Chiddingston Castle, but taken together, the three present a chocolate box image of the quintessential English country village and are well worth a visit.
I saw a determined group of walkers, led by an equally focussed guide, disappear behind a corpse–no doubt, they were in search of the Chidding Stone that gives the village its name.

In the evening, when the day came to a close, my cousin Cheryl and her husband David who live on the Isle of Sheppey provided a snack supper. It was great to see them and their ageing cats, Morgy and Buttons, again and to catch up on their lives. As we ate in their living room, I enjoyed a view of the North Sea along the Minster Lees waterfront.

My travels outside London have come to an end. I am hoping I will have good weather as I spend the next few days dipping into lesser-known bits and pieces of my favorite city.

Monday, December 8, 2008
Giant’s Causeway and Londonderry

Paddywagon runs day tours to the Giant’s Causeway on the North Atlantic shore of Ireland–a must-do trip for anyone who visits Belfast, even if briefly. Several companies run this tour but Paddywagon was different in that it did not follow the scenic coastal route but went inland to the Giant’s Causeway and from there traveled further west to Londonderry or simply Derry as the Catholics call it. Since I was keen to see as much of Northern Ireland as I could, I opted for Paddywagon.

This meant awaking at the crack of dawn to walk to a neighboring hostel on Lisburn Road to pick up the coach at 8. 30 am. I bought a croissant and a take-away coffee and set off, found our driver/guide David and a bunch of other young folk brave enough to visit Belfast in the heart of winter. By the time we set off from the city, it was about 9. 30 am. As we passed through the urban midst of Belfast, David pointed out buildings of particular interest. Before long, we were coasting out of the city and on to the highway, passing by Cave Hill, which had been the inspiration for Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The profile of the hill does look suspiciously like a giant sleeping on his back. When viewed against the dockyards of Harland and Woolf, the many men rushing back and forth all day appeared to be running across the giant’s face and stomach. This provided the image for Gulliver in the Land of the Lilliputs and led to the 18th century novel that sealed Swift’s reputation.

An hour later, we arrived at one of Northern Ireland’s best-known attractions, the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge which is simply a swinging cable bridge that connects the mainland to a small salmon fishing island. To get to the island, visitors cross the bridge, one at a time. This wobbles dangerously about 70 feet above the sea and is not for the faint hearted. I doubt I would have given it a shot, but at any rate, I wasn’t allowed to find out as the bridge is closed in the off-season. Perched high above the cliffs, we received a good view of it as well as the distant shores of Scotland (the Mull of Kintyre was clearly visible when the fog lifted) just behind Rathlin Island to which ferries sail in the summer. The sheer isolation of this venue was deeply striking especially when viewed against the emerald-green of the dales that sloped down softly to the seas.

About half an hour later, past marvelous rural countryside, dotted liberally with black-faced sheep, we arrived at the Giant’s Causeway about which I had heard so much when I was researching a visit to the Republic of Ireland about five years ago. David told us about a restaurant called The Nook that served really good traditional Irish fare and as I was keen to taste some of it, he took orders from all of us. He recommended the Irish Stew strongly but the Steak and Guinness Pie even more warmly–so I opted for that. We were given an hour at the Causeway and were told to return at noon to the restaurant for lunch.

The Giant’s Causeway is a natural phenomenon caused by a sudden volcanic eruption, 60 million years ago, that pushed molten basalt from the core of the earth to the surface. Because it cooled down rather quickly, it contracted and, in the process, formed straight columns that have perfectly even polygonal sides. These nest together in a sort of honeycomb at the water’s edge, washed by the thundering waves of the Atlantic.

Of course, because Ireland is also full of local folklore, the story goes that an Irish giant named Finn McCool fell in love with a Scottish damsel named Nieve. To reach her easily, he built the Causeway. When Nieve’s love, the Scottish giant Oonagh, realized that Nieve had left him for Finn, he set out to claim her back. Finn was afraid of the consequences of a conflict as Oonagh was larger and stronger than he was. But the wily Nieve disguised Finn as a baby and instructed him to lie on his back on the bed. When Oonagh arrived in Ireland, Nieve informed him that she could not return with him to Scotland as she had just had Finn’s baby who, she pointed out, was asleep on the bed. When Oonagh saw the size of the ‘baby’, he panicked, wondering just how huge the father would be if the baby was so massive. He turned tail and returned to Scotland in such a hurry that he broke the causeway into pieces leaving only a few bits of it surviving today. David told us the story with relish and invited us to choose whichever version most appealed to our temperaments.

The National Trust manages the Giant’s Causeway which has been ranked as one of the ten best free sights in the world. To get to the sight, however, you need to wind your way down a steep mountainside to reach the edge of the ocean. While making it down is manageable enough for most people, the climb upwards is steep and no picnic–at least not for those who do not exercise regularly. I was pleased to see a small coach called the Causeway Coaster coasting right past by and when I flagged it and asked the driver if I could hop one, he said, Sure, for a pound each way, I was welcome. Well, I was downhill in two shakes of a tail and before I knew it, the rain came down in sheets and it grew bitterly cold.

Of course, this sudden dip in temperature had to happen at a time and in a place in which there was no where to shelter. Fortunately, I had my brolly in my pocket and I whipped it out smartly but it was no match against the ferocity of the wind. Then, I was taking pictures quickly of the vast basalt columns that form a natural wall on the hillside near a projecting mountain called the Aird’s Snout.

When I had my share of this portion of the Causeway, I walked towards the bus stand and discovered that the other passengers on my coach had reached the shore. At this point, the hexagonal columns were most marked, their regularity stunning in the visuals they presented. Though lapped by the waves and whipped by the wind, they created a startling effect on my senses as I took them all in. Some of them created mounds, like little hills, and we climbed and posed on these to take pictures. Others formed natural stone steps. Yet others spread out evenly towards the waves. The colors were also varied. Grey, black, even ochre, they are a wondrous sight and no matter how many pictures you might have seen of the phenomenon, it is still fascinating.

Then, I was on the Coaster again, driving up to the summit where, at the gift store, I purchased a few postcards as souvenirs. All of us were ready for our meal by that point. We were hungry and more importantly, we were freezing. The Steak and Guinness Pie completely lived up to its promise. Portions seemed to have been created for Finn McCool and Oonagh–they were gigantic! I was able to eat heartily and have more than half of my plate packed up for my evening meal. Served with mashed potatoes, it was Irish comfort food at its best and we all ate well as we washed it down with glasses of Guinness–does anyone know why Guinness tastes so good in Ireland?

Coastal Castles:
Then, we were on the coach again, heading further west along the coast to see the ruins of two castles–Dunsverick Castle of which only one sturdy wall remains at the water’s edge and the far more picturesque Dunluce Castle of which many more ruins remain. We posed at both spots for pictures but did not venture any closer to the cliffs. As the coach moved on, we passed by other places of interest: White Rocks Beach with its surfers tumbling merrily on the crashing Atlantic waves below us, Bushmills–the town that is famous for procuring a license to brew whiskey from James I in 1609 and today offers tours and tastings in its distillery, Portrush, a pretty resort town that is perched on the cliffs. The countryside of Ireland was most soothing to my soul as we passed by myriad flocks of sheep, all marked with bright spots of color to help identify them. The mountains were never far away from sight as the Mourne and the Sperrin Mountains came within view. David told us we could doze off for the next one hour until we reached Londonderry but the countryside held me spellbound and I was the only person on the bus wide awake as I took in the charms that only Ireland’s bucolic rural escapes can offer.

London(Derry) Here We Come:
As predicted, we were in London(Derry) within the hour. David offered us an optional walking tour for 4 pounds each–which all of us on the bus decided to take. He then introduced us to Rory, a radical Catholic, who took us through the walls of Derry towards the ‘Bogside’, the area that was ravaged by the religious turmoil that shattered Northern Ireland in the 1970s. David had laid the foundation for us on the bus, telling us about the troubled history of Ireland from the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Dublin to the 70’s when Bloody Sunday led to the rebellion and the founding of the IRA or Irish Republican Army with strong Catholic ties and a determination to free Ireland of the British yoke.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, Rory took us towards the many murals that remember the tragedies of that period and the courageous men and women who gave up their lives fighting for what they believed to be a just cause. As someone who can trace his family lineage to centuries in Northern Ireland, long before the English took control of the island, Rory is fiercely proud of his heritage and refuses to recognize the control of the English crown over his beloved land. He told us that as far as the IRA is concerned, though labelled terrorists and militants and guerrillas, they are merely fighting for what they believe to be their birthright–an Ireland free of the English. We paused by Celtic crosses with verses penned in Gaelic that recall the sacrifices of these young men and the passion that led them to their goals and their deaths.

Of course, we received only one side of the debate from Rory, and, no doubt, I would receive the Protestant version from another equally impassioned fighter before I got out of Ireland. But in his retelling of the tragedies of that period, I received an insight into the history of a people and a country that has laid a pall of gloom over the culture. Indeed, it amazes me that in the midst of their multiple losses and suffering, the Irish people still find the joy in their lives to indulge their love of music, dance, drink and merriment.

Derry is an extraordinary city perched upon a mountain that is enclosed by walls that were built in the 1600s. It is divided by the River Foyle that cuts through the Protestant and Catholic parts forming a natural line of division to keep the warring factions at bay. With my mind still wrapped around the strife, I arrived at a large public church yard where a recent X-Factor star called Owen made an appearance, much to the thrill of pre-teen girls who had arrived there to catch a glimpse of him. It is manic, this power of reality TV and the reations it can induce.

By 4. 30, we were bidding goodbye to Rory, then boarding our Paddywagon to head towards Belfast where we arrived after darkness had fallen. It was a long ride but a very pleasant one indeed. I noticed that there is little in terms of the countryside to distinguish Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland further south. They can both boast incredibly beautiful countryside that is unspoiled by human development, a slow pastoral lifestyle that is characterized by good music and loads of good stout.

It was to experience some of this that I headed to Robinson’s Bar, one of the most famous Belfast pubs with Marina, an Italian from Ancona, and as we chatted over a cold cider, I realized how enlightened I had become by my visit to Northern Ireland. Our travels in the Republic of Ireland, a few years ago, while introducing us to the bloody uprising of 1916 on O’Connell Street at Dublin’s Post Office, had not prepared us for the immediate encounter I had with more recent strife in the Northern part of the country.

As Belfast attempts to rise up, phoenix-like, from the ashes of her troubled past, I could only hope that the Peace Agreement, however tenuous it may now seem, will be a long-lasting one, and that the country may enjoy the same lightness of spirit that is so easily evident down south.