My UK #staycation first stop!
Leeds Castle, Kent.

2nd stop
Reading Isaiah at Canterbury Cathedral, Kent.
#staycation #uk

How beautiful is constantly pulling aside while driving on English villages and towns’ narrow roads and then wave to each other when cars cross?

I guess I’m gonna be sitting here for the next 2 hours, in the gentle silence of sea waves.

Another stop of my UK staycation!
Botany Bay, Kent.

#summer #uksummer #britishsummer #kent #england #uk #broadstairs

At last I visited the Canterbury Cathedral spot where Thomas Becket was killed by 4 men loyal to King Henry II in 1170.

My Italian secondary school English literature teacher, who was so passionate about X-XVI century English history would be proud of me!
#staycation #uk

As a architecture monstrosity lover, I am in utter awe of this tower every time I enter Margate, Kent.
And what about the rest of the town.
No wonder TS Eliot wrote The Wasted Land here. Pure inspiration.
Margate I thee.
#staycation #uk #britishsummer #englishsummer

However, Canterbury Cathedral is being renovated and the recent lockdown is going to stretch scaffolding times even further, I am told. Alas!

#staycation #uk #uksummer #britishsummer #kent #canterbury #canterburycathedral #canterburybells

Kingsgate Bay Sea Arch, Broadstairs, Kent.
For @jerrysaltz

#staycation #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #kent #beach #britishseaside #englishbeach #englishseaside #england #wales

Fair enough.

Kingsgate Bay, Broadstairs, Kent.

#staycation #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #kent #beach #britishseaside #englishbeach #englishseaside #england

Ramsgate harbour, Kent.

#staycation #britishsummer #uk

St Margaret’s Bay, Dover, Kent.
#staycation #uk

Dover Castle has quite a view from the Great Tower.

#staycation #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #kent #beach #britishseaside #englishbeach #englishseaside #england #

Dover White Cliffs

#staycation #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #kent #beach #britishseaside #englishbeach #englishseaside #england

My AirBnb host in a village in Cornwall deep countryside is really kind.

She even left me Wodehouse and Faulkner on my bed.

But there is a new chainsaw, still boxed, at the bottom of the stairs of my bedroom.

Why?

However, I’m still alive and this is the breakfast she made for me.

And the bath is quite stylish as well.
#cornwall #staycation

Anyway, after talking with several AirBnb hosts from Kent to Cornwall so far, their refrain is: “I’ve rarely/never had so many guests/requests during this period”.

Sign that quarantine lists and the government staycation narrative have helped pretty much some local businesses.

J. M. W. Turner would paint out Eastbourne pier nowadays.

Eastbourne, East Sussex.

#staycation #uk

Eastbourne is traditionally considered “the sunniest town in the UK” but sure it has the darkest beach promenade ever.

In any case, my Airbnb host informed me that my bathroom was the one with the Jacuzzi.

#staycation #uktour #britishtour #eastsussex #britishsummer

Beachy Head, East Sussex.

According to researchers, more than 500 people have died at Beachy Head since 1965. It’s one of the most notorious suicide spots in the world.

#staycation #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #eastsussex

This is the most astonishing second-hand bookshop ever seen in my life, mixing English architecture and some Cubism.

It’s “The Fifteenth Century Bookshop” in Lewes, East Sussex.

#staycation #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #eastsussex

Morning from Blandford Forum countryside, Dorset, which is pretty close to Cerne Abbas Giant, a mysterious naked man chalked in the field, regarded as a sign of fertility due to his large, erect phallus.
Cc @jerrysaltz
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cerne-giant 
#staycation #uk #uktour

Meanwhile, all my recent dieting efforts pulverised by visiting two Cotswolds farm shops.
#staycation #uk #Gloucestershire

I frankly didn’t know that Stow-on-the-Wold is more trafficked than Tower Bridge at rush hour.
#staycation #uktour

After 30 mins spent in the most chic organic shop in the Cotswolds, I think I’ll have oily fish&chips, filthy burgers and prawn cocktail crisps for the next 4 days in a row.

I was craving to see Robert Baden-Powell statue in Poole, Dorset.

#staycation #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #dorset #beach #britishseaside #englishbeach #englishseaside #england

Ruins of Corfe Castle, Dorset.

Lady Bankes resistance in 1646 wasn’t enough against Oliver Cromwell.

#staycation #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #dorset #beach #britishseaside #englishbeach #englishseaside #england

And then it happened.

#staycation #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #dorset #beach #britishseaside #englishbeach #englishseaside #england

Tyre replaced and back on track.

But how come Lonely Planet never mentions Salcombe, Devon?

I was intrigued by the location on map and went there. It’s fab - not just because of delicious crab - apart from the stressful steep narrow roads on a SUV.

#staycation

An updated “Wanderer above the Sea” by Caspar David Friedrich from the westernmost point of “continental” Britain.

Lands’ End, Cornwall, England.

#staycation #viaggioininghilterra #uktour #britishtour #summer #britishsummer #cornwall #england #romanticism #romantic

A guy in Wales has just called me “chavy”.

My stay in Ilfracombe in a nutshell:

- The hotel receptionist was bloody pissed.
- The mini fridge in the room had the cooling temperature of a oven.
- The bath smelled like decomposed feet.

The next morning I got soaked to see:
- Towers of aliens.
- @hirst_official’s Verity.

I forgot this gem found on my way.

The 13th century idyllic village of Polperro, formerly a smugglers hotspot, now an adorable place in South Cornwall.

Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka, upon discovering Polperro, spent a year here between 1939 and 1940.

#staycation #uk

Another outstanding British seaside spot.

Porthcurno, south Cornwall.

This was the first centre for transatlantic telecomms and until the 70s it was the point at which many submarine telegraph cables came ashore.

And, awww, the Minack (amphi)Theatre.

#staycation #england

Lol

#staycation #wales

I’m in deep Wales, the lady hosting me is so gracious & kind

But I’ve just discovered that my fine apartment is in the basement which had been the cold room of the upstairs butcher for 30 years, I’m starting to hear the lambs bleating and she’s just slammed the door behind her

I had never been in Bath before.

I think it’s the “Florence” of England

According to the legend, Bath was founded by King Bladud, father of Leir of Britain (then Shakespeare’s King Lear), who recovered from leprosy “after immersing in local muddy swamps”

Then came Roman Baths.

How beautiful is to sleep and then wake up in Gloucestershire’s Cotswolds with your private brook gently running?
#staycation #uk #viaggioinuk #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #england

The astounding Tintern Abbey, in Monmouthshire, Wales.

Founded in 1131, ruins came after Henry VIII expelled its priests in 1536.

Now it’s this.

Do you remember Wordsworth with “Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey” and J.M.W. Turner on it?

#staycation #uk

Cotswolds state of mind.

#Staycation2020 #staycation #uk #england #wales

I was in Chester today for my first time ever and I must say that it is the most fascinating town ever seen in UK, for a number of reason that I’ll set out shortly on this thread along with pics. I could retire there in a few decades. And I also found the house where I will move.

BTW, badass in Chester today after a Boots stop.

#staycation #viaggioinuk #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #uksummer #cheshire

Meanwhile, Gloucester Cathedral.

I was fascinated by the big words:

“A universe inside me turns”

I found out that it is a verse of an anonymous poem, part of a major large-scale poetry installation which involved 80 contributions of citizens.

Here more
https://www.gloucestercathedral.org.uk/events/of-earth-and-sky-by-luke-jerram/

And to finish with:

My solitary outdoor Placebo pint in uptown Cardiff, where I couldn’t apparently see any human around.

Tomorrow, some gems from Wales.

Meanwhile, see you at the bitter end.

#staycation #viaggioinuk #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #britishsummer

Rhossili Bay, Gower Peninsula, Wales.

When tide is down, you can see also the wreck of the Helvetia, a Norwegian ship sunk just here in 1887 during a storm.

Down the beach there’s the Veil, one of last examples of fields still parted like in the Middle Ages.

#staycation

I’ve just had Quince cheese for my first time. I need a time machine. Now.
#staycation #uk

Sheep queuing for the loo.
#staycation #uk #Pembrokeshire #wales

Penally, Pembrokeshire, is a little jewel.

Curiously, here there is the only survival example in UK of practice trenches, created urgently in 1914 to train British soldiers in trench warfare before sending them to France.

#staycation #viaggioinuk #uktour #britishtour

Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales (Snowdonia National Park).

Elevation 1,085 mt above sea level, it’s the highest mount in the British Isles outside the Scottish Highlands.

#staycation #viaggioinuk #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #wales

Thank you @NHSuk (in Welsh) also on Mount Snowdon, Snowdonia, Wales.

#staycation #viaggioinuk #uktour #britishtour #ukstaycation #summer #britishsummer #wales

I’m staying overnight in a deep remote Cumbria forest, there’s no mobile service, but my lady host is so kind and gracious

Just one thing: I’ve just spotted her cleaning the carpet stairs to my bedroom. “Oh, the guest before you was bleeding earlier today.. erm, from his chin”

I wanna say a few things about Chester, the town I most loved during my #staycation

First: these adorable brutalist council houses by river Dee in the town centre, similar to the ones in Thamesmead (see Clockwork Orange) brutally wiped out recently to be replaced by skyscrapers.

Ok, the Walls, but what about the Roman amphitheater in #Chester?
It’s the bigger known in Britain, it could seat 7,000 spectators AND, like a stadium today, by the 3rd century it was enlarged to this capacity from the older and smaller version.

#staycation #cheshire

Then in Chester I found this among the adjacent ruins of St John the Baptist parish, a sandstone Anglican church dating back to the 11th century

What does it mean, Twitter experts?

I just understood the 2nd one “Dust to Dust” inscribed in a medieval oak coffin

#staycation

Then I went to Blackpool, Lancashire, for my first time.

I immediately fell in love with it.

It’s my Werner Herzog full mode in UK, with a pinch of Alan Sillitoe.

I was just mesmerised by Blackpool immense heavenly decadence.

#staycation #viaggioinuk #uktour #britishtour

My new favourite drink: Dandelion & Burdock.

I bloody need it at home in London while having a think or writing.

Way better than listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor.

#SingingRingingTree #burnley #staycation #uk

St John the Baptist, Garsdale, Cumbria.
#staycation #uk #england

I frankly didn’t know that Sedbergh, Cumbria, is England’s “Book town” like Hay-on-Wye in Wales. What a nice surprise.
#staycation

I’ve been eating healthy bio farm food for 3 days now roaming the English countryside, instead of my usual beloved traditional English pub stuff, and I think it’s a shame.
#staycation #uk #sizergh #cumbria

A dream came true eventually.

I’ve visited the grave and all the houses in Grasmere and around of one of my heroes ever, the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth.

“And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils”.

#staycation #cumbria #lakedistrict

I mean, the original sofa of William Wordsworth.