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We've spent a grand total of 10 days in UK/Ireland, and there was a petrol strike on at the time which rather effectively limited our explorations, but I just thought I should mention a few places from the UK part of our trip that we really enjoyed. I don't know if it is a common feeling, but for us, being able to see buildings and structures that are many hundreds or even thousands of years old is very exciting - perhaps because the built environment in Australia is so young by comparison.
We flew into Manchester and hired a car there, which meant we were not far from Hadrian's Wall. (I guess it's all relative, but to us, distances in UK seem really small - we are used to driving several hundred miles / kilometres a day on our vacations).
Of course between Manchester and the Wall there are a few other things worth taking a look at - the Lakes District and the Dales spring to mind. Wish we had been able to take some pictures there, but we were stymied either by the narrow roads, with no-where to stop the car, or by traffic jams (around the Lake towns - and this was during a petrol strike and not in high season - goodness knows what it is like a peak periods!).
Anyway, once you are up in this part of the country, check out your map and you will see that bits of the Wall are accessible from various by-roads. It gave us a real thrill to be able to touch something this old - we are talking nearly 2000 years - and even walk on it, once the sheep gave us permission! It's a World Heritage site and of course there is a lot of information available - if you want to find out more, here's the Hadrian's Wall website.
This Castle is in Dumfries, in south western Scotland, on the banks of the Solway Firth. It was the first real "castle" we visited, and what a great place to start! It has all those things fairy stories had led us to expect from a castle - a moat, really thick walls, towers, turrets - and far more. There are actually two castles on the site, and the earlier one is the subject of an archaeological dig. You can find out more from the Caerlaverock Castle page on the About Scotland website
Tip: If you are planning to visit castles and other Heritage sites, you might want to investigate buying a Great British Heritage Pass before you go. It turned out to be pretty poor value for us, but that was only because we couldn't get to many places with so little petrol available, but normally it would save quite a bit on entrance fees.
This Museum displays common household items from prehistoric to present times in the history of London - a great way to get some sense of how people lived and carried out their day to day tasks. The website has a wealth of information, including how to get there by bus, tube etc (it's in London city).
I'm ashamed to say that my knowledge of English history is appalling, but I had at least heard of the Tower of London, so I guess that was a start. Silly me, I thought it was just a tower, which may or may not have the skeletons of two little Princes in it somewhere, depending on whose version of history you subscribed to. It's not, it's a great big complex of buildings and we spent more than half a day there, totally engrossed in everything we saw and heard. Now I'll go read up on my history (pity they didn't have excursions here from Oz when I was doing history - might have sparked a bit more interest!). Don't miss it.
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