Europe 2022 Trips - Photo Preview 19 - UK: London and its rural surrounding areas: 2022 INTRODUCTION - As I mentioned in the Introduction to this series in post 1, in 2022 we were...

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

2022 INTRODUCTION - As I mentioned in the Introduction to this series in post 1, in 2022 we were still quite concerned about the Covid-19 situation and thus planned our two trips in spring and summer to mainly spend with the families of our children living in the UK and in Switzerland and we also wanted to curtail flights and visits to restaurants. For that reason we mainly stayed at the homes of our children or rented a place for all of us together. You can see the actual flights/drives we took from the map appended below the images. For ease of presentation, I am mixing the images taken on these two trips together and show them totally out of chronological order, starting with the locations outside of Switzerland and ending up in Switzerland. I feel that this works best due to the relatively small number of images and posts for these two trips.

We had a flight from Switzerland down to Rome/Italy in spring to visit an old friend and to reacquaint ourselves with the "Eternal City" which we had not visited for too long. We started our summer trip with the families of our two children, staying for a week in mid-summer at a beautiful villa in Montauroux in the hills above the town of Nice. In late summer we spent a couple of weeks in the London/UK area. Other small day-drives were from Switzerland into Germany (Tübingen) and to the French Jura. In Switzerland we basically stayed at the home of our son in Lenzburg in northern Switzerland, but we did have a stay of all families together in spring for a week in the nice Alpine Resort Town of Crans-Montana in the canton Valais where we rented a charming rustic wooden chalet. We also spent 5 days together in the beautifully located town of Wengen in the Bernese Oberland. Additionally Susan and I spent 3 days in the Italian-speaking southern canton of Ticino in the small Intragna village near the bottom end of the famous Maggia valley. From all these locations we made day-trips into the surrounding areas.

EQUIPMENT - As indicated in the trip introduction, all the images were taken in 2022 with my then aging Nikon D610. I just realized that I made an error when quoting in set 1 introduction the lens on this camera: It was a Nikkor 24-120 1:4 G ED lens I used (and NOT the Nikkor 18-120 I previously quoted). I shot all photos in RAW and processed them in Lightroom Classic.

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After my "slight geographical deception" in my previous post, here now come the first images from Europe, starting with scenes in London and in the area southwest of London, close to Ascot where our daughter and her family live. Day outings brought us to a number of interesting places in that area, which I will briefly describe below:

BOURNE END - A village with a population of ~ 5000, it lies at the river Thames, with a number of nice estates on the river banks. Enid Blyton, a popular children's writer, Edgar Wallace, a prolific crime author and Louis Blériot, French aviator and aircraft builder, lived here in the 1920s. Further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourne_End,_Buckinghamshire

TAPLOW/CLIVEDEN HOUSE - The Italianate mansion, also known as Cliveden House, crowns an outlying ridge of the Chiltern Hills close to the South Bucks villages of Burnham and Taplow. The main house sits 40 m / 130 ft above the banks of the River Thames, and its grounds slope down to the river. There have been 3 houses on this site, built in 1666, 1824 and 1851. The first two houses burned down. Cliveden has been the home to a Prince of Wales, two Dukes, an Earl and finally the Viscounts Astor. Today it functions as a 5-star hotel. Further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliveden

BRAY - Culinary powerhouse in the UK, it contains two of the eight three-Michelin-starred restaurants in the United Kingdom. The Church of England parish church of St Michael was built in 1293, supposedly to replace a Saxon church. Further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bray,_Berkshire

EGHAM/SAVILL GARDEN - The Savill Garden is an enclosed part of Windsor Great Park in England, created by Sir Eric Savill in the 1930s. It includes woodland, ornamental areas and a pond. The attractions include the New Zealand Garden, the Queen Elizabeth Temperate House and trees planted by members of the Royal Family. Further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savill_Garden

Notes
TRIP INFO: Set # 1 provides a brief introduction to this series. Please use the link below if you would like to review this intro:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-797460-1.html

EARLIER POSTS of this series: Access my topic list at UHH, the new posts are listed in reverse chronological order:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/user-topic-list?usernum=45105

Thanks for visiting, I recommend viewing the downloads and look forward to your comments and questions.

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1 - London - View from Tower Bridge to River Thames with boats moored at Butler's Wharf Pier at right, an Uber River Bus in mid-stream and at rear the Canary Wharf Business complex

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2 - London - Tower Bridge viewed from the Queen's Walk on the south shore of the river, at rear left the massive Tower Hotel, at rear right a few towers of the Canary Wharf complex

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3 - Buckinghamshire/Bourne End - River boat moored on the bank of the River Thames

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4 - Buckinghamshire/Bourne End - Palatial mansion with expansive property on Riversdale Road abutting the River Thames

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5 - Buckinghamshire/Bourne End - Homes on Andrews Reach abutting the River Thames

(Download)

6 - Buckinghamshire/Taplow - Cliveden House: Viewed from The Parterre, a six-acres expanse comprising 16 triangular beds with box hedging and a bedding scheme with flowers that change twice a year.

(Download)

7 - Buckinghamshire/Taplow - Cliveden House: The Japanese-style Water Garden, designed in 1893, is the first such East Asian inspired garden in the UK - it evolved substantially from the duck pond that formed the starting point of this garden.

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8 - Buckinghamshire/Taplow - Houseboat anchored at the river bank amidst soothing greenery and reflections while we are cruising in a small electric boat on the River Thames in the vicinity of Cliveden House

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9 - Berkshire/Bray - St Michael's Church in Bray built in 1293 by Queen Margaret, the wife of Edward I

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10 - Surrey/Egham - Small pond at Savill Garden, an enclosed part of Windsor Great Park. The garden was created by Sir Eric Savill in the 1930. It includes woodland, ornamental areas and a pond.

(Download)

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

For your reference:

Map of Europe indicating our flights and drives as well as the location of the places in England shown in this set

(Download)

NMGal Loc: NE NM

Wonderful tour, Joe.

lnl Loc: SWFL

Your camera served you well here and certainly doesn’t appear to be “aged”. However I bet you’re having fun with your new camera.
It’s delightful to see photos of places near London that are so open and green. What a wonderful journey, to have children in England and Switzerland, and be able to visit areas surrounding their homes. You have family living in at least 3 different countries. I think it’s far to visit our children between the northeast and far west and south but all in the U.S.

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

NMGal wrote:

Wonderful tour, Joe.

Thank you Barbara - glad you still enjoy my mini-highlights-tour!

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

lnl wrote:

Your camera served you well here and certainly doesn’t appear to be “aged”. However I bet you’re having fun with your new camera.
It’s delightful to see photos of places near London that are so open and green. What a wonderful journey, to have children in England and Switzerland, and be able to visit areas surrounding their homes. You have family living in at least 3 different countries. I think it’s far to visit our children between the northeast and far west and south but all in the U.S.

Actually, the D610 was and still is fine - the only thing I did not like about it was that it was quite prone to get dust on the sensor, I spent each time before a major trip something like 50 dollars to have the sensor cleaned, which gave me a couple of thousand relatively clean pictures to work on after a trip, before my processing became more of a "cleaner's job" than that of a photographer!

England has plenty of open areas, even in the vicinity of London, and we are lucky that our daughter knows to many places in the neighborhood where I can exercise my photographic instincts. - Having children live so far away is a bit sad, but on the other hand it gives us a good impetus to go and see them and the grands and in that process always discover new things while we are with them, or on the way. That works well as long as we still can travel, will be a problem later on ...