Aquathlon

On the 19^th of June I did an Aquathlon in London with Gabby and some of our friends; Tomer and Orli. There were about 400 competitors and I was in the Tristar 2 age group.

An Aquathlon is like a Triathlon but without the cycling, so just swimming and then running. I swam 250m swim and ran 2km.  It was great fun!

Transition from the swim to the run.

Running

After the race

In and Around London

From the 12^th of June to the 20^th of June we were in London.  For the first 4 nights we were in a Travel Lodge hotel in Kingston and the last 4 nights we were in Wimbledon at a friend’s house.

We went to;

- The Tower Bridge

- Tower of London

- Lego Land Windsor

- Buckingham Palace

- Natural History Museum

- Windsor Castle

- Stratford – upon – Avon (the town of Shakespear’s birthplace and where he died)

- Houses of Parliment

- Bourton-on-the-Water

The Tower Bridge:
Tower bridge is a very elegant bridge that was built in 1894.
It is a special bridge because it opens up when a big boat needs to come through!  There are also 2 small foot bridges above the one that cars and pedestrians can use.
Once the boats are through they can't go any further!

Tower Bidge as a tall ship goes under.

Buckingham Palace:

This is one of three of the Queen's residences, the others are Windsor Castle and Balmoral Castle

Whenever the Queen is home the British flag is raised.

Buckingham Palace is 208 years old!  It has 775 rooms, only 19 of which are open to the public, that means  756 are private!!!

Buckingham Palace

This is me pretending to be a Welsh Guard outside Buckingham Palace!

Tower of London:

William the Conqueror replaced an earth and timber castle with the White Tower in 1080!
The tower was used as a royal residence.  Twenty  years after it was built they kept prisoners and animals such as lions monkeys and Polar bears!  The prisoners were kept in the dungeons then they got executed.


Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters) are guards that have served in the Military for at least 22 years and have been awarded medals.  They live in the tower houses and give tours of the Tower of London.

The Beefeater that gave us a tour.

A Welsh guard

Beef-eaters.

Actors dressed up as people from the 1800's

Legoland Windsor:


Legoland Windsor was opened in 1996 in Windsor on the block of a Windsor Safari Park.  It is a big theme park filled with lego statues and rides, some of the rides involve you getting drenched and some are for you to look at the Lego statues.  The fun park is aimed for children 3-12.  It is obviously very popular because it is the 2nd most visited theme park in the UK!

This is one of the many huge statues!

Lego or real?

Do these look familiar from my last post of my canal trip? 
This is the model town which is all made of Lego!

These are the Welsh Guards outside Buckingham Palace in the model village.

Here are some Beefeaters!

Have you seen my new friends?

Bourton-on-the-Water:


This village is an exact replica of the actual town! It is made out of tiny bricks and roof tiles and everything that you would use for a real house!  My dad use to come here when he was little.  

This is the sign to the model Village in Bourton-on-the-Water.

This is a picture of the real town, the model town and the model town of the model town!

I had a fantastic time in London!


To find out more about the different places visit
Tower of London-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_London
Tower Bridge-http://www.touruk.co.uk/london_bridges/tower_bridge1.htm
Buckingham Palace-http://www.tourist-information-uk.com/buckingham-palace.htm

Canal Boat Holiday

For the next two months we will be moving between England and Wales.
From the 30th of May to the 6th I was on a canal boat. I went with Mum, Dad, Gabby, Amelia, Nicola, Kevan, Sophie, Helena and Huw. Nanny and Grandpa also came but they were on a separate boat. The boats names are 'Rowdyke' and 'Duke' I was on 'Rowdyke'.

Canal boats were originally used for moving materials such as coal, now they are used as houseboats and for holidays for people to enjoy the canals and scenery.

As each boat has a name. Lots of them are names of people. Here are some of the names!

Patricia

Bella

Helena

Amelia

We went from Rugby to Banbury, on the Oxford Canal. That route is about 78 miles long which is 126 kilometres.
By the way you are probably thinking that a canal boat would do that in much less than a week because you would have thought that it goes a little faster than 4 miles an hour (6.4 kilometres an hour)!!!
The longest time I steered for in one go was an hour and a half.

We stopped at a few places; Aynho, Banbury, Fenny Compton, Cropredy and Napton.  My favourite was Aynho.

This is the boat plan of Rowdyke:

When you go up or down a hill on the boat you have to go through locks.If you are going up-hill you go into the lock and then fill it by winding the cranks. Once the lock is full you open the doors and drive through.

The gates of the lock.

The two levels of the Canal.

The crank that you wind either to let the water in or out of the lock.

There was loads of animals around the canals. The animals, I saw were:
rabbits, brown hare, red squirrel, mallard and shovelers with ducklings, moorhen, mute swans with signets, hedgehog, red deer, pigeons, horses, ponies, sheep, pigs, chickens with chicks, geese, dogs.

Pony and it's foal

Ducklings with their Mother

Swans and their signets

Piglets

Duckling that is only one day old

Some other photos I took on the boat

There were lots of different birds along the canals.

A cottage in Aynho

Luckily this boat wasn't ours!!

The map below shows where I have been so far:

Next week we will be going to see the sights of London and also to visit friends.

Perugia, Italia

We had 4 nights in an old farmhouse in Perugia.  At the house there were some chickens and two dogs.

We went to loads of medieval hill top towns. 

They included:

-          Assisi

-          Spello

-           Montepulciano (Mon-te-pulch-iarno)

-          Pienza

-          Orvieto

Some streets were so narrow you couldn’t drive through them.  When we walked through the towns, we noticed that most of the buildings were tall and narrow sometimes arches were used to join two houses together (so you can go from one house to the other), or they were used to divide two buildings and create a walkway.

Almost all of the towns had at least one well in the town square.  This would have been where the town collected their water.  My favourite was the well in Assisi because it was really ornate.  It even had statues and seating around it.

Montepulciano's well.

Assisi was the biggest of the hilltop towns, it had a big church; the church of Saint Francis which was built more than 830 years ago.  You had to have your legs and your shoulders covered up to go inside as a sign of respect to the church.  Unfortunately for me I was wearing a singlet top and shorts – They had pieces of fabric for tourists who were not covered up, so I had to wear a piece of blue fabric like a skirt to be allowed in. 

In spring Spello is famous for its flowers, nearly every house is decorated with hanging baskets full of flowers.  It was really pretty.

In Italy there are lots of old Mini’s and Fiats, which are really small cars.  They have really narrow roads in some parts of Italy so you need a small car to get around in the old towns.  Another reason for it is that it is much easier to find a car park.  Here is one of one of the old Fiats that we found.  Look how small it is!

Firenze, Italia

We had 3 days in Firenze (Florence).  On the first day we went to Pisa and then Lucca.  In Pisa, we climbed the leaning tower.  We were lucky because 2 months ago it was closed.

We climbed to the very top and the view was amazing!  The stairs felt easier or more difficult depending on which side the tower was leaning.

This is me at the leaning tower of Pisa

Lucca is a little old town, surrounded by a 12 metre wall!  All the buildings in the town square, which is more like a town circle,  are curved in to make a circle. We spent a couple of hours there and we found a shop full of etchings and paintings, Mum, Gabby, Amelia and I all bought an etching. Mine is of the town square of Lucca.  When we were about to leave a huge marching band came into the streets!  There was drummers and the leaders.

Marching Band

The next day we went into Firenze and looked around.  We went to the Duomo ( The Duomo is a church with a big dome at the top.), we climbed all 463 steps  to the top. The Duomo was started over 700 years ago and took 150 years to build.   You can see the whole of Firenze and more from the top.  It is made of marble and stone, the ceiling  is covered in  frescoes! I find it hard to believe that it is even real, there is so much detail and the frescoes are so high up that you would needed scaffolding everywhere to paint it.  No wonder it took 150 years to complete!

The outside of the Duomo

The frescoes on the roof  of the Duomo

The veiw from the top of the Duomo