{"id":1883,"date":"2007-05-04T19:25:22","date_gmt":"2007-05-05T00:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.jackjia.com\/?p=1883"},"modified":"2007-05-04T19:48:47","modified_gmt":"2007-05-05T00:48:47","slug":"20070504%e4%b8%8d%e5%88%97%e9%a2%a0%e7%be%a4%e5%b2%9b25%e4%b8%aa%e6%97%85%e6%b8%b8%e8%83%9c%e5%9c%b0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jackjia.com\/?p=1883","title":{"rendered":"20070504\/\u4e0d\u5217\u98a0\u7fa4\u5c9b25\u4e2a\u65c5\u6e38\u80dc\u5730"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 25 travel wonders of the British Isles<\/strong><\/p>\n

From The Times
\nMay 3, 2007<\/p>\n

Richard Morrison
\n25 Ultimate Experiences in Britain and Ireland<\/p>\n

1 Soaking up the Edinburgh Festival <\/p>\n

2 Walking the Pembrokeshire Coast Path <\/p>\n

3 Punting on the Cam <\/p>\n

4 Supping Guinness in Dublin <\/p>\n

5 Wandering Borrowdale in the Lake District <\/p>\n

6 Being humbled by Durham Cathedral <\/p>\n

7 Cycling in the New Forest <\/p>\n

8 Seeing the Belfast murals <\/p>\n

9 Surfing in Newquay <\/p>\n

10 Breathing the sea air in Tobermory, Isle of Mull <\/p>\n

11 Hiking in Snowdonia <\/p>\n

12 Hunting ghosts in York<\/p>\n

13 Hitting the streets for the Notting Hill Carnival <\/p>\n

14 Getting away from it all on Skellig Michael, off the southwest tip of Ireland <\/p>\n

15 Getting lost in the Balti Triangle, Birmingham<\/p>\n

16 Clubbing in London <\/p>\n

17 Walking on Dartmoor<\/p>\n

18 Trundling along Scotland’s West Highlands Railway <\/p>\n

19 Seeing the sun rise on the winter solstice at Br\u00fa na B\u00f3inne Neolithic site in Ireland <\/p>\n

20 Watching football at Old Trafford <\/p>\n

21 Losing yourself on the back roads of Connemara<\/p>\n

22 Strolling from St Paul\u2019s to Tate Modern <\/p>\n

23 Visiting the best beach in Britain: Holkham, on the Norfolk coast <\/p>\n

24 Walking the walls of Conwy Castle, Wales<\/p>\n

25 Experiencing Glastonbury <\/p>\n

The Rough Guides charmed themselves into a million backpacks by pointing intrepid travellers towards authentically pongy byways rather than tourist-fleecing highways. So the first surprise about this choice of 25 \u201cultimate experiences\u201d in Britain and Ireland is how conventionally touristic many of them are. Punting on the Cam; guzzling Guinness in Dublin; culture-vulturing at the Edinburgh Festival; carnivaling at Notting Hill; gawping at the Lake District \u2013 these are the kind of bog-standard day-trips flogged to Japanese and Americans by the coachload. <\/p>\n

The next surprise is that even the Rough Guide\u2019s street-savvy authors occasionally let themselves be dazzled by hype. If you want foreigners to taste English football at its most quintessentially passionate, why direct them to the soulless money-making machine that is modern Old Trafford? Why not Vicarage Road or Upton Park, where you still smell the fried onions and feel the agony of defeat? <\/p>\n

Similarly, why fall in with the trendy herd and eulogise (yet again) Tate Modern \u2013 a far from comprehensive modern-art gallery that is often horribly overcrowded \u2013 when London has dozens of stunning little museums and galleries that almost nobody knows about? Or send more hordes of litter-dropping tourists up Snowdon, which is already busier than Piccadilly Circus, but make no mention of Scotland\u2019s almost deserted Munros \u2013 all 284 of them? Or rave about Glastonbury (bizarrely described as \u201cthe grandaddy of all festivals\u201d by someone who has no knowledge of world history before 1970) when you have a better chance of being killed by your own duvet than of getting a ticket? <\/p>\n

Still, the great thing about this sort of list is that it is endlessly arguable. Is the Indian cuisine of Birmingham\u2019s Balti Triangle really hotter stuff than that of Manchester\u2019s Curry Mile or London\u2019s Brick Lane? Call me a cynic, but I suspect that the authors couldn\u2019t think of another way of sneaking the poor old Midlands into a list of pukka scenic glories. Is Durham Cathedral really a finer architectural wonder than, say, Wells? And why is this ecclesiastical pile extolled, while the chapel of King\u2019s College, Cambridge, is damned with an anticlerical sniff as \u201ca structure of forbidding, single-minded authority\u201d? <\/p>\n

I agree that the fish-and-chip van on the quayside at Tobermory, on the delightful Isle of Mull, provides one of the great seaside eating experiences (though the 40-minute queue to reach the counter would probably tell you that anyway). But the inclusion of \u201cSurfing in Newquay\u201d as another great British seaside experiences is odd. Surely Newquay offers nothing that Malibu or Bondi don\u2019t offer ten times more thrillingly? Or am I being unpatriotic? I would have substituted one of those cheery cockles-and-mussels resorts \u2013 Brighton, Blackpool, Whitby \u2013 that you find nowhere else in the world. <\/p>\n

Our most famous prehistoric monument isn\u2019t included, and quite right too. These days Stonehenge is a national disgrace, and long-discussed plans for improvement have been dumped. Those responsible for this offical vandalism, from the Culture Secretary downwards, should be taken out there at dawn on Midsummer Day and ceremonially sacrificed in a peculiarly painful manner. Meanwhile, far better to direct people, as the Rough Guide does, to Ireland\u2019s \u201cStonehenge\u201d \u2013 the stunning 5,000-year-old tunnels at New-grange, with the altar that the sun\u2019s rays hit only at dawn on the winter solstice. <\/p>\n

Otherwise, it comes down to personal preferences. I am surprised that neither the Dorset coast nor Salisbury Plain gets a mention \u2013 both fabulous landscapes for ramblers, with the added excitement, if you stray into the wrong bits, of being shot by the Army. Lord\u2019s cricket ground; Leeds\u2019 gorgeous Kirkgate Market, with its irresistible odours and gaudy stalls; the abbey at Iona, possibly the most peaceful place on earth; the Thames Path, tracing not just a river but a nation\u2019s history; the verdant gardens of Tresco on the Scillies; downtown Newcastle on a freezing Saturday night, with birds and blokes blithely flaunting as much flesh as you see at Benidorm in midsummer; Dartmouth in full sail during regatta week \u2013 all these might make my own list of classic British experiences. <\/p>\n

But there again, they might not \u2013 because the ultimate \u201cultimate experience\u201d is to meander off the main road, discover a village so enchanting, so unspoilt, that it seems like paradise on earth \u2013 and then keep quiet about it. I have a few such elysian fields locked away in my memory. And that\u2019s they will stay. <\/p>\n

http:\/\/travel.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/life_and_style\/travel\/best_of_britain\/article1737404.ece<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 25 travel wonders of the British Isles From The Times May 3, 2007 Richard Morrison 25 Ultimate Experiences in Britain and Ireland 1 Soaking up the…
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