Day 16: Cardiff and Manchester: Cardiff Castle and Macbeth

On day 16, Patricia and I woke up early to go see Cardiff Castle. We got distracted on the way by a market, but decided to return there on the way. The castle is used a lot in filming Doctor Who, so that's why I wanted to see it.

The next pictures are all from the castle.

The view that you'd recognize from Doctor Who

Air Raid shelters!

Signs inside

Signs

A moat! 

The base of the former massive walls 

The ceilings were more ornate than at Versailles. They're like, tiered.

A fireplace mantel 

A nice guy dressed medivally took this for us. Then I paid him £1 to make a coin with a hammer! He said he works for the king and is the only one allowed to make money.

After the castle, we returned to the market. I bought a cute owl stuffed toy and some lunch.

It was more of a farmer's market than a shopping place, but it was neat to look around 

After leaving the market, we headed back to the room and checked out. Then we waited for our train at 12:55 to Manchester. I thought it was only a two hour ride, but it was three. We took a taxi to our hotel and at first, it looked kind of sketchy. It was a little bed and breakfast type next to the Manchester United stadium. It was really cute though.

We got directions to the tram station and took the metrolink to the centre of town to wander around until it was time for the Macbeth, the only reason we were there.

I wanted to walk to the stadium and take a picture, but I didn't.

The metrolink is all above ground. It's more like a trolley than a tram. It was really slow and crowded, but it worked.

We ended up in Manchester at the same time as a ComicCon. I wanted to go, but Warwick Davis was the only cool person there. There were some weirdly dressed people though. 

We decided to find dinner. We saw a nice little Italian place that was cheap enough and walked in. The man asked if we had reservations. It was a fancy place. Before we could leave, he found a table and seated us. I was in a t-shirt, Nike shorts, and Chacos. It was more fancy than Pelican's! It was really yummy though.

We then walked and found a gelato place. My first ever gelato was incredible.

Then it was time to head to the car park for Macbeth. The actual shows sold out in a mere nine minutes.  I should explain though. Lady Macbeth was played by Alex Kingston, aka River Song. We had to go.

We asked this lady and she gave us a map

The doors opened at 7. We got there at twenty after. I just THOUGHT this was a lot.

We got great seats though! 

At 8, there were this many.

There were at least 1000.

Only £3 and it's a fabulous program. BTWs, that's Gilderoy Lockhart.

The show was incredible. Alex Kingston was perfect, especially when she couldn't get the blood off of her hands. I got chills. It was worth the sitting in a parking lot in the cold with people I don't know!

Planning Part 2

So, Patricia (Allons-y) and I met up again to book tickets. We got our train tickets to and from Paris, booked our Cardiff hotel, and booked our Manchester hotel. We also got our train tickets to and from Cardiff and Manchester.

Unfortunately, it was not as easy as it sounds.

I booked my Paris ticket with the greatest of ease. Go Mastercard! Patricia on the other hand had a Visa. She tried to book her ticket and it said error. Three times that happened. After twenty minutes of watching the available seat amount decrease, she called the help number on her phone. After another ten minutes of her trying to find a real person to talk to, we discovered that because she tried to buy something in London, her card locked. I suppose that's good to know they really care about keeping identities safe, but come on! But we got our tickets!

After we FINALLY got the Paris train ticket situation situated. I look really weird. Patricia is still on the phone with the nice lady who helped her. They shared in each other's joy.

Cardiff hotel was easy as pie, but the process not. We couldn't get from Newbury (where Downton Abbey is) to Cardiff unless we could somehow get to Reading first. That was not doable, so we just decided that Cardiff would be boring and we didn't need two nights there. Just one now. But that means we'll only have to carry two nights of clothes instead of three!

Train tickets were simple. She bought two for going to Cardiff and I bought two for going to Manchester. Easier than trying to get one each.

Now, we're on the Manchester hotel. I had found a perfect hotel less than a five minute walk away from where Macbeth is playing. I was about to book it when a bright green row of words caught my eye. "Must be 21 to book."

ARGHHHH. Neither of us are 21, so that really put a damper in our plans. We spend the next half hour trying to find another hotel within a reasonable distance at a reasonable price. Luckily, we found one.

All we have left to do now is buy tickets for sights (which we'll do when we're actually there) and buy our tickets from Manchester back to London.

Planning a Trip

Patrica over at Allons-y and I got together a few nights ago to start planning. We met at 5:30, ate baked potatoes, then realized soon that our phones wouldn't get us enough info at the speed we wanted it, so we relocated to Hastings with our laptops.

Our tiny table at Hastings was covered by paper and computers. On my screen, I believe I am looking at a Metro sign. I was trying to figure out how to get from Paris to Manchester, I think.

Originally, we were going to go to Highclere Castle on the first day of the mini break and then hightail it to Paris that afternoon. That Saturday, we were going to rush to Manchester to see Alex Kingston in Macbeth.
We then realized, we would have more time in Paris if we went on a weekend. So we are! Now we will actually be able to see most everything I wanted to see, including Versailles! We'll also add something I forgot about, but Patricia reminded me about: The Moulin Rouge. Now, we won't see a show there because it's crazy expensive, but a picture outside is on the to-do list.

We decided that during the mini break, instead of just hanging in the dorms while everyone else travels, we will go to Cardiff. We were going to go over a weekend, but decided we might as well just do it during the break. See the Doctor Who Experience, the Cardiff Castle, and whatever else there is.

Manchester apparently has a china town that's really big. But other than that, it looks really boring. Since there is nothing to do there, it means sleeping in instead of waking up early to rush somewhere!

We also decided that we were going to try and go to Brighton. I don't really know why, other than it has a cool pier. It's just a day trip though, so no hotels to worry about.

We're also going to take a Doctor Who Walking Tour of London. The Cardiff tours don't run while we'll be there.

A Paris planning sheet

The top has walking times between several of the sights I want to see as well as openings and closings. Always go to the place that opens earliest as soon as it opens. Best travel tip I know. I tried then to make a loose schedule for the two days, but it really depends on where our hotel ends up being. The side is the costs of everything in Euros and then in dollars. It's a little higher than it should be because everything had a "concession" option that included under 25s. I thought that meant food, so I didn't use that price until I was looking today. Whoops. You can see tons of mark outs because I took the Louvre off of the list and added Musee D'Orsay. The lines are shorter and I like Van Gogh more than DaVinci.



The hardest part of all this planning is finding hotels. All the cheap ones are nearly full and I don't think we want to book this early in advance in case we change our minds. Plus, cheap in Paris doesn't necessarily mean cheap in America, so that is a problem too. I think I've have narrowed the hotel list down though, so I'll show my parents and see what they say. Hopefully by the time this actually posts, the hotel is picked.

We spend nearly four hours planning this. We were going to play my new Doctor Who card game I won on a Twitter contest, but we were too busy planning. It was sad.

My Doctor Who 'war' card game! I'm excited to play this in London!!

Now all we have left to do is decide what to see in London. I made my lists. It includes Buckingham Palace, The Science Museum, The History Museum, Westminster Abbey, and The London Zoo. I also want to fit in at least two plays.

Busy busy busy!

So, we met again LAST night to finalize Paris hotel details. I had found a hotel that I LOVED and I was ready to book, but Patricia convinced me to keep looking. I did, but I didn't really 'look.' I was going to say "I never found any. Let's just stay here at this one that I love."

Well, I found one that was better. My eyes skimmed across a list of hotels and I saw an American chain hotel name. I then saw that one of my old teachers had stayed there. After texting her and getting a recommendation, I looked further to see that it had FREE breakfast! Most you have to pay €10 to get breakfast added and this was FREE. Plus it has free wifi.

Needless to say, we booked there.