UK Travel Guide

You can visit Roman ruins, gawk at Renaissance art, stay in tiny medieval hill towns, go skiing in the Alps, explore the canals of Venice and gaze at beautiful churches. Naturally you can also indulge in the pleasures of la dolce vita: good food, good wine and improving your wardrobe.

The game of bowls Players roll large black balls at a small white target ball. People play bowls on neatly cut grass lawns in summer and indoors all year round.

The people of Great Britain are known as Britons, or the British. Most Britons also think of themselves as English, Scottish, or Welsh. Each place has its own traditions and history.

Great Britain is a surprisingly small nation. Three countries the size of Great Britain would fit into the state of Texas, with room to spare! Yet Britain has a great variety of scenery that ranges from flat farmland and gentle, rolling hills to beautiful lakes, highlands, and steep, rugged cliffs. There are no really high mountains. The climate is mild, with plenty of rainfall that makes fields and woods very green. Britain is a land of big cities and small villages. Crowded highways pass by quiet country lanes.

Most Britons live in the central and southern parts of the country. In the southeast corner is London, the capital city on the Thames River. London is big and busy. People of many different nationalities live and work, study, and trade in London's business district. Its main airport, Heathrow, is the world's busiest international airport. Visitors to Britain fly in from all over the world. Welcome to Britain.

An accident of geography, an upheaval in the long forgotten mists of time, decreed that a part of the continent of Europe should become an island.

This happy accident, more than any other single cause, determined the English character and ensured that England should in time become what it is today; a part of Europe and yet set apart, not subject, as are many other lands, to the casual crossing of her borders by either friend or foe.

Throughout this planet there are so many lands to see and wander at. Some marvelously exotic, some awe inspiring, others that bask in almost daily sunshine, and beckon the traveler if for that alone. A few have less easily classifiable assets but beckon nonetheless, perhaps because they combine so much of the best that can be experienced in other places or perhaps because they have a unique charm that many find irresistible. Of these, few can have been more eulogized by poets, by painters, or by writers, than England 'this green and pleasant land'. For, guarded by her girdle of the sea she has, over the centuries, been able to develop and enrich her institutions, her character and her ways, at her own pace and largely without interference. Because of her position she could have her triumphs and rejoice in them; have her sorrows and grieve in privacy if she so wished. England has rewards in plenty to delight both those who live here and those who visit and would avail themselves of them. Here is the heart of a once mighty Empire the like of which has not been seen since Rome, and the trappings of such an Empire, the pomp, pageantry and tradition, remain. Travel in almost any direction, from any starting point, and history is there to be seen. From the grandeur and isolation of Hadrian's Wall to the legendary seat of King Arthur; from the brooding mystery of Stonehenge to the majesty of Canterbury's Cathedral whose pilgrims, immortalized by Chaucer journey still.

Of the history of London volumes could be written, as indeed they have been. About the beauty of London, in the face of wars, neglect, and redevelopment, concern has long been expressed, and this concern continues. Fortunately the beauty too continues, despite the planners and developers who do not always appear to either plan or develop as happily as could be wished. But, when the day is dying and the buildings remain only as silhouettes against the deepening sky, stand on any of London's bridges and it is not difficult to recapture the feeling that the poet Wordsworth must have experienced, and which inspired him to write his unforgettable sonnet 'Upon Westminster Bridge'.

England is by no means of interest only to those historically inclined for, above all else, England has variety to offer. Variety, for instance, in the beauty of its coastline. The remarkable thing about this is just how great a variety can be found in such a small area. Examples of this are to be found all around these shores, as may be seen at Westward Ho! in Devon with its wide, flat stretches of tide washed sand, where the sea seems to go out forever. Less than ten miles away on the same coastline, towards the picturesque Clovelly, may be found hardly any beach as such, but huge seaweed covered rocks dotted, at low tide, with dozens of rock pools where children may be seen playing for hours, shrieking with delight as they do nothing more exciting than disturb a watchful crab!

In countryside too there are considerable differences to be seen from one area to another. Nothing too dramatic; that would be out of character with the country. There is no Grand Canyon, and there are no Rocky Mountains. Instead there is a happy medium that ensures that changes in the landscape, whilst very real, are not overpowering. Contrast the grandeur of the Cheddar Gorge in Somerset and the craggy, brooding moors of the Bronte country in Yorkshire with the flat and peaceful lands of East Anglia, so beloved of the painters Constable and Gainsborough, and the soft rolling countryside to the south of the Thames Valley.

Above all, perhaps, there is variety in the weather! Much has been said about England's supposedly damp and foggy climate but, as is so often the case, there is a great deal of mis information and exaggeration about this. Certainly the 'smogs' which so afflict cities like Los Angeles were, until comparatively recently, a very real menace but, in London at least, they are now a thing of the past. So too is the image, so beloved of readers of Conan Doyle and countless producers of Hollywood films, of swirling mists and fogs in cobbled streets, as the dauntless Sherlock Holmes, accompanied by the ever faithful Doctor Watson, set out on yet another adventure!

It rains in England! It most certainly does, and we can be thankful for it. For without the rain there would be no lush green fields nor the profusion of Wild flowers that are such a feature of this land. Without the rain 'sweet Thames', and all the other rivers, would surely not 'run softly' if they ran at all! No, tales about the constant bad weather are, very largely, myths. Poor days come to an end, to be followed by glorious days of blue skies and scudding white clouds, their shadows chasing one mother over the hills and valleys. The church tower, now slumbering in shadow, suddenly brought to life as a cloud passes and the sunlight climbs its ancient stonework. Fleeting moments such as this lend magic to a landscape. They are well ,worth waiting for, and all the more appreciated when they occur.

A country does not consist only of its rocks, its earth, or its green fields. Nor is it to be found only in its buildings, monuments, or churches, however grand or humble they may be. A country is its people all its people. In many ways the and they live in has shaped them, as they in turn have shaped the land. Although there are no great and obvious differences to be seen in the faces of the English, nevertheless regional differences abound. London, of course, is a cosmopolitan city and as such, is home to many varied people from within these islands as well as to those from overseas. In spite of this the rue Londoner still remains and has changed surprisingly little considering the enormous changes that have taken place round him. To travel through the country is still a fascinating experience, if only for the richness and variety of accents that are still heard. Away from the cities the pace of life is, naturally, slower. People have more time to be interested and will invariably go out of their way to be helpful, particularly to strangers. Each part of England, each town, each village, has had is part to play, and has played it, to make up the whole.

There are few, whether natives of this land, or visitors to its shores, who could travel through it and not come away enriched by its sights, its sounds, and its people, and not want to come again and again to this land of such rich and varied charms.

Above all UK provokes reaction. Its people are volatile, rarely indifferent to anything and on one and the same day you might encounter the kind of disdain dished out to tourist masses worldwide, and an hour later be treated to embarrassingly generous hospitality. If there is a single national characteristic, it's to embrace life to the full: in the hundreds of local festivals taking place across the country on any given day, to celebrate a saint or the local harvest; in the importance placed on good food; in the obsession with clothes and image; and above all in the daily domestic ritual of the collective evening stroll or passeggiata - a sociable affair celebrated by young and old alike in every town and village across the country.