England is not just London!
Look at this place behind me … try to imagine where I am.
Maybe in Sardinia …maybe in California or Australia?
How many time we have heard these words?
This is the biggest and most common mistake, people living abroad can do, when judging this island in the north of Europe.
Probably because nobody has thought to promote properly the tourism during the last years apart London, Bath, Oxford and Stonehenge.
I had the misfortune to live with a man who for three long years abused me emotionally …but thanks to him and his house in the British countryside I have known and started to love the beauty of Wiltshire and Somerset.
When finally my relationship had an end, I decided after 6 months all alone in the sad London to move all my life to Bristol.
I did not know a lot about Bristol but immediately I had a good feeling and knew it could bring a better life.
And after 1 year, even with this COVID pandemic, I must admit that is the best choice I could do to have back my mental health and life.
Thanks to a few very good friends have now the possibility to go around quite every weekend for long walks that in the UK are called hicking.
Yesterday, for example, we arrived in Dorset for a 17 km long walk.
We left Bristol by car in the morning at 9.30 am and were back at 11 pm.
I was tired and hungry at the end of the day, but my heart full of joy for the laughs done with my friends while trying to escape mad cows in the fields and for the beautiful sceneries I had in front of my eyes the whole day.
Inside a painting of David Hockney.
Sometimes I thought to be inside a landscape of the famous artist and painter David Hockney! What shade of colours, in particular the green tones.
The hicking was hard up and down the hills and we arrived at our car park just a few minutes before the darkness.
We were lucky to arrive on time because the last metres of our walk was in the middle of fields nearby dangerous cliffs.
The location is called Golden Cap.
It is a beach near a lovely village called Charmouth where also King Charles II and Catarina D’Aragona ( first wife of Henry VIII ) had a visit during their lives.
Why Golden? For the colours of its rocks.
The name of the location comes from a hill and a 191 mt high cliff that can be reached thanks to a walk starting from a village called Seatown.
After 40 minutes, my friends and I had a stop on top of the cliff for our lunch and it was worthy also for a short meditation trying to get the best from the fresh air and beautiful sight.
The hill is owned by the National Trust and form part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site.
The base of the cliff is covered with large boulders and is easy to find fossils like ammonites and belemnites.
Just behind the coast, there is the Langdon Wood full of Corsican Pines maybe imported by the Romans during their long settlement in England.
We walked for long hours crossing farms, wild horses on the hills, mad cows and rivers …
We did not forget to buy the traditional cakes of Dorset called Bowl …but be careful to ask these cakes in the shop because for a second meaning of the word you can create a comic and embarrassing situation with the male shop assistant.
At the end of the walk, we had also time to put our naked feet inside the cold ocean looking for fossils and pebbles to decorate artistically
Thanks, England
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lauraartist68 