Landscapes

One Last Time

It has been exactly a week since we left London. I feel like I had a connection to the city and it felt like home when I got there. It did not take long for my body and mind to adapt to local London time, but it took almost a week for me to get back on to Columbus time.
There were so many things that I really like about our trip, but one thing that stood out most is how we were able to walk anywhere or use public transportation system to get anywhere within a short amount of time. This stood out to me because I do not like to even walk across campus at home, but it is quite enjoyable in London. I walked a minimum of 8.5 miles daily during our stay in London. The option to utilize public transporation or walk from place to place has a very good impact our daily lives, and I think that we should start moving toward that lifestyle at home.
My favorite part of the trip was our long walk day across London. This was one of my favorite day because, I love walking around London and see how the scene, landscape, architecture as we move across the city. This was also a memorable day because my feet was in so much pain toward the end of the day because I have never walk that much in a single day, but the pain was totally worth it. I end up walking barefoot around the Princess Diana memorial to numb my feet so I can keep up with the rest of the group. Now looking back, I think I made the right decisions by walking in the cold water in order to see walk much more later that evening.

Prior to the trip, I was hoping to take the EuroStar to Paris for a day to visit some extended family and some old friends. Someone asked about this topic in class before I got to it and we were not allow to leave the country. It was a little dissapointing at first, but I got over it fast. Now that the trip is over, I am so glad that we were not allow to leave England. There are so much to explore within London alone, a trip to France is pushing for too much. I end up visiting Brighton for a few hours to see the Royal Pavillion and the coast of Britain. Then returned to London and contiuning to explore the amazing city. I felt very safe and like I was at home during my time in England, and it was a good feeling to have while abroad.
Overall, I think this trip was very successful for many reasons. First of all, the weather was very nice during our time in London. Secondly, we were able to adapt and quickly learn how to use the tube and other forms of transportation to explore the city. Lastly, and most importantly, everyone in our group was AWESOME! Hope everyone had as much fun as I did, and hope to go on at least one or two more trips with everyone!

 

Saying goodbye to London 10 hours before departure…

Capturing some art work before dinner on the last night

London not forgotten

London was a great experience, one that I will cherish forever. This trip was my first trip ever out of the country. I have traveled many times before but this was filled with many new experiences. My favorite thing about this trip was how I got the opportunity to form new friendships and strength existing ones. The day I enjoyed the most was our bus day. I got to see an ancient site that has stood for many years. Also seeing a magnificent landscape that was probably during one of the more beautiful days we could have visited it was amazing. I learned about Stourhead so many times but actually physically visiting and see it instead of just in pictures will be cherished forever.

Although I miss London I am glad to be back home and share all my experiencias with friends and family. I didn’t really have jet lag after returning but I do feel refreshed and ready for the last few weeks of the semester. This trip has made me want to travel the world even more and I hope that this is a start to a new addiction of going to new places and experiencing new things.

Good bye for now London…but not forever!

Makayla’s Post-Travel Evaluation

I can genuinely say that traveling to London was the highlight of my freshman year of college. A year ago, I would have never guessed that I would be able to travel internationally, and I am incredibly grateful for this experience. This study abroad has opened up a world of possibilities for me, and I aim to travel back to London and experience many more countries in the future.

On my first international flight, reality finally hit me, and it became surreal that I was so far away from the United States. It produced anxiety and excitement within me, but I am glad that I could finally kick-start a future where I aim to travel far. Upon arriving in London, I found it somewhat difficult to navigate throughout the city by bus and tube, but after a few days I had become very well acclimated the new environment. My favorite aspect of being immersed in London’s culture was the diversity among the city’s people. It was fantastic to experience life outside of the United States and directly feel and witness how London breeds such an accepting aura to people of all colors and from all parts of the world.

I loved experiencing the city and the bustling fast paced atmosphere associated with London, but my favorite part of the trip was visiting the landscapes. Stourhead and Kew Gardens were my favorites sites because they posed such a stark contrast to London. The diversity of plant life offered at Kew was incredible to see, despite not everything being in bloom yet, and it was surreal to stroll through a picturesque landscape and sketch what Stourhead had to offer. I was very captivated by London’s great architecture and how well it blends contemporary and historical architecture. Some of my favorite details to spot were how vegetation was incorporated into pockets of architecture. I occasionally found buildings lining busy streets where one building facade would be completely covered in vine and ivy, adding a dramatic pop of life to the architecture.

I am incredibly thankful that I had the chance to receive such an amazing travel opportunity. I explored and experienced everything that I wanted to see in London, but in the future, I would love to return and expand my knowledge and experiences within the city. I am grateful to have been around so many great people on this amazing trip, and I hope to travel much more in the future!

Uh. Bath.

I made such a correct choice of staying in Bath for one night to have a whole understanding of the entire town during day and night. I started the trip at Paddington station and rushed to my destination on a bullet train. With the beautiful sunset of Friday, I arrived, at this little town with such a uniformed architectural language. The city reveals itself as a roman town with clear Cardo and a less obvious Decumanus. The Roman Bath ruins are right at the crossing. Originally there is a temple and a forum for assembly at where now the Bath Abbey stands. The ruins shows the roman technology, glory and their sensitivity of space organization for both bathing experiences and the absolute hierarchy to the God (the temple of Claudius at Colchester).

The Bath Abbey is also astounding. I personally love it better than Westminster Abbey when comparing them both as Gothic churches. The Bath Abbey is much cleaner, purer and only designated to worshiping since it’s a pilgrimage church. With too much glory of the royal family and all the power that people want to show, Westminster Abbey give me a sense of showing off. While in Bath Abbey, with all the carving stones white or in light color, all the thanks written in words not represented in golden or colorful symbols, the devotion to Christ is fully shown.

The city itself stroke me the most with its uniformed language. It fully showed the theory that ‘if you have a good design, someone will finish it later even when you can’t finish it by yourself’. Thanks to the Woods, Bath established it’s row house language and carried one for hundreds of years. The Royal Circus is great as a self contained space, trying to establish a center, an inward facing community while the Royal Crescent made a genius move to open the circle up to views. To be honest, I was quite scornful when Jackie was talking about the how the green space in front of the Crescent and the slight change of perfect circle to half oval have brought a dramatic openness to the building and space. The shape seems simple, the green spaces seems requiring little thinking. But only until I saw the magnificent view of the city on the other side of the valley in front of the Royal Crescent, I realized that the lawn is just setting up the foreground. The view is far deeper and richer than I imagined and the slight change to oval shape have made the approaching view of the whole row houses much compelling. I was trying so hard to capture the entire view by camera but there is just no way. The breathe taking beauty of Bath is not describable and capturable. At least not by me.

By the way, I highly recommend staying in one of the Boutique hotel or some Airbnb houses in Bath so that you can get the experience of the typical row house organization.

Pulteney Bridge Night View

Bath Abbey Exterior

Amazing Breakfast included by the hotel!

Bath Abbey interior – amazing fan vaults

Roman bath in the snow

Royal Circus

Royal Crescent

Lovely Room for one night

Holland Park + The Design Museum

After our tour of Westminster Abbey, I had to make a decision of what museum to visit, and after considering the National Gallery, Tate Britain, and the Design Museum, I chose the latter of the three. I took the tube to Holland Park and walked south through the park on my way to the museum. I stopped for lunch at the café in the garden, and the space inside was so nice, with so much natural light, that I had to sketch it.

Looking out onto a patio at the café, I chose to not include furniture, as it would have taken away from the landscape and building itself.

The museum has an exhibit in Ferrari’s history, as it was their 70th anniversary last year. I chose to pay the £18 and see it, as I am a huge racing fan, and Ferrari fan. The exhibit included many hand drawn diagrams of the earlier Ferrari’s from the 1960’s, which was incredible to see up close. You could see the pencil marks and slight mistakes on them, but at the time, it didn’t matter, as the cars were all hand built anyway. As I made my way through the exhibit, I thought about what to sketch inside, and it hit me right at the end. I decided to try my hand at sketching something less architectural: the Ferrari F2001 driven by Michael Schumacher. Compared to its modern day counterparts, the car is aerodynamically simple, which made it easier to sketch. Getting the perspective just right was tough, but I think this is one of my favorite sketches so far. I focused less on line weight and more on working quickly, which made the sketch a little rougher, but better

A front view of the race car, this sketch only took about 10-15 minutes

The White Cliffs of Dover

For our free day, we traveled to the Cliffs of Dover. This particular day was cold, around 35°, windy, and snowing. To get to the Cliffs was quite the task since it is a footpath with little protection from the elements, but the view was worth the endeavor. The attached picture displays the White Cliffs covered in snow. This picture helps me to understand how on this particular day the Cliffs seem to blend the land above with the ocean below instead of separating them. The now is so white that the Cliffs appear a darker shade such plummets into the darkest hue that is the sea. On any other given day the Cliffs would’ve stood out against the sea and land as a clear divide, but it is interesting to think how just a change in weather/season could change how the whole scene is perceived.

Jaime’s Day Eight

For our free day, Taylor, Rachel, Keith, and I went to Canterbury and Dover. We rode a high speed train to get out to these locations and it was a really fun and unique experience! Unfortunately the weather here was cold, windy, and snowy today, which made it unpleasant to walk outside. However, it made for a really beautiful train ride! We stopped first in Canterbury and were hoping to get a free view of the cathedral, but unlike other cathedrals, it was very private and hidden behind shops and walls which meant there were very few good views of the structure. The views that we could see were covered in scaffolding due to restorations. Next we went to the White Cliffs of Dover. It was incredibly cold and snowy here and the view of the cliffs was very limited but it was still a unique experience! We also planned to go to the Dover castle, but it was closed due to high winds that limit the safety of people within the castle. Overall it was a fun trip with a lot of unique events, but it might have been more successful if we had gone on a day with better weather!

Cliffs of Dover

Taylor’s Day 5

Kew Gardens was my favorite place we went to so far on the trip. I liked seeing also the flowers and plants. The space was designed nicely, spreading the buildings out in the space to have you walk through the landscape to get to each destination. The buildings and greenhouses were also very beautiful architecturally. I have never saw a greenhouse quite like the Plam house or Princess of Wales conservatory ever before. I think that this intricate architecture helped to add a sort of whimsical element to the space that fit nicely with the landscape. The thin white structure appeared light and blended in as to not take away from the plants and nature. I think I would have spent the whole day at Kew if time allowed just so that I could see everything.

Inside the Plam House

A pathway through Kew Garden

Stourhead and Kew Gardens

Throughout the trip we visited many landscapes. It was very impressing to see Stourhead and then visit Kew Gardens the next day. It was a great way to compare both landscapes and see what makes them unique and what qualities they have that makes them somehow similar. Since I’m interested in pursuing landscape architecture, looking at Stourhead was fascinating. The use of sunken paths is allowing the landscape to continue, which allows the visitors the view of the whole surrounding panorama. Then the monuments are starting to be used as a frame for one another and as a “sequence” of the landscape. I feel like the use of several lakeside paths, the unarranged placed of monuments/temples, and the incorporation of grottoes starts to confuse the garden’s chronological order, which I thought was very interesting.
On the other hand, Kew Gardens is another landscape that was just a wow factor from all the places we have visited. As well as Stourhead Kew Gardens is a man-made landscape. It does not follows a chronological order for the conservatories and all of its features, which I also found really amazing. The different types of plants makes you feel like you’re going through a series of different environments all in a single place. For such a huge garden, I found that Kew Gardens didn’t have that many follys as I thought it would have, but instead it creates a different mood to see how more vegetation and conservatories serves as the spotlight of the landscape. Overall both landscapes were spectacular and beautiful!

Peacock in Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens

Palm house

Last view of Stourhead as I’m leaving

Stourhead

View out to the landscape from the grotto

Makayla’s Day 4

We woke up extremely early to catch the bus, but it was well worth it. Heading to Stonehenge was an absolutely fantastic experience. It was incredibly surreal to see and experience such a monumental site that has survived through so much history. I find it crazy that a massive formation of rocks can be so mystifying and confusing to humans. After Stonehenge, we had some major traveling mishaps, but I did not mind since we still got to enjoy our full stay at Stourhead. This was the most exciting part of the day for me. As a Landscape Architecture major, I find it fascinating that this entire landscape was designed and constructed after a painting and to convey the story of Virgil’s Aeneid. The garden was massive and so well designed that each of its features encapsulated my attention. I loved to see the beautiful swans and ducks and how they interacted with the beautiful vegetation existent in the park. I also thoroughly enjoyed the follies and how I could see replicas of unique buildings I have not been to. The grotto was my favorite part though. I loved the darkness of the feature and how the water made it into its own room within nature. Stourhead was my favorite destination of the day, but I also thoroughly enjoyed Salisbury. It was fascinating to see such a massive cathedral with a great historical presence and witness how it has withstood over such a long time. The town of Salisbury was also very quaint and cute to stroll through and enjoy. Overall, I really enjoy the day and how the trip provided a sharp contrast to the fast paced London life and honed in the history present outside of the city.

Stonehenge

Grotto at Stourhead

Stourhead

Sketch of Stourhead from Temple of Apollo

Stourhead is a beautiful landscape We visited on Tuesday, March 13. The landscape was based off a painting and has a clear forground,, middleground, and background. My sketch is from the Temple of Apollo which overlooked the rest of Stourhead from the top of a hill. From the sketch, I began to understand the formality of the wilderness laid out in Stourhead. The sketch helps me see how designers began to think about different plants and nature and how to use them to create such a picturesque landscape. The sketch also highlights how the pond is a figural void against which the rest of Stourhead is organized.

Thoughts on Stonehenge

I loved Stonehenge! I thought the site, visitors center included, was done very tastefully and I think the sustainability aspect was really nice. We were so lucky to have gotten there early enough where there weren’t too many crowds. I thought the stones were beautiful and the moss and coloring/discoloring of the stones were very interesting. I was lucky enough to be standing next to a tour guide who told me about “graffiti” on the stones and how they knew they were not from this area. I thought it was specifically interesting that, before the commercialization and tourism, people from that area could go to them as one would go to a park, without knowing their importance.

Sketching the stones was very difficult but it helped me to better understand their organization and coloring.

Sketch at Stonehenge

Stonehenge.

Day 4 – Road Trip!

Today we had our day trip to Stonehenge, Stourhead and Salisbury Cathedral. Today has been one of my favorite days so far since we got to see outside of the big city. The stones at Stonehenge were shorter than I expected, but nonetheless incredible. The tour guide mentioned that Christopher Wren lived nearby and that on the stones it looks like it says “I wren” and its theorized he may have frequented here as a child. Stourhead was absolutely beautiful. The fact that the landscape was all manmade is super interesting because it looks really authentic despite things being maybe a little too perfect. Lastly, Salisbury Cathedral was one I was looking forward to as a pre-law student. It is so cool to see one of the original copies od the Magna Carta since it’s such an important document that still influences the way the world operates today. I also found out that Salisbury Cathedral had the first all female choir. I did sketches at each location and truly enjoyed understanding each through pencil & paper.

Stonehenge sketch

Stourhead bridge

Plan of Salisbury Cathedral

Adventure to Stourhead

Stourhead was an absolutely amazing experience. Walking through that landscape completely made me forget that everything was deliberately placed but the it also made me consider everything that I could see in many ways by remembering that the placement of things had a purpose. My absolute favorite part was the Temple of Apollo, partially for the complete magnificence  of the building and partially because it’s the location of my favorite part of my favorite movie Pride and Prejudice. It was honestly amazing to be able to experience that area myself and it allowed me to establish many perspectives of the landscape. Specifically the use of the landscape and how many purposes it serves, there is the experience of walking through as a tourist, enjoying the day in a green area, and a movie set. Each provides unique uses for the landscape and establishes many bonds for people to connect to the landscape with.

Stonehenge

A good portion of Tuesday was spent in the bus; however, it was still a nice day. Getting to the bus by 7am was a struggle, but it was well worth it. Our first stop was at Stonehenge. While we walked up to the site, I realized that those rocks were just as massive – if not more – than I had imagined. I am not entirely sure what it is about Stonehenge that interests me so much, but I think part of it has to do with the mystery or simply unknown details behind it. While many people have their own ideas of how the stones were transported there or maybe even why that spot was specifically chosen, we really do not know all of the answers to these questions. We only had about 45 minutes to look at the stones and go through the visitor center, but I spent my entire time at the stones. Also, we took a moment to take an OHIO photo in front of the stones. A sketch was not required, but I also decided to do one of those simply because I have found that I pay much more attention to details when I do these sketches. I think the sketch and the photo help show how massive these rocks are. Thankfully it did not rain, and we quickly set out for Stourhead. I was not sure what to expect of stourhead, but it was far more beautiful than I thought. Even though it was all manmade, it still was really nice to walk through. Some of my favorite parts were the different types of trees (I love trees) and the stone walkways/rooms like the grotto and the one on the way to Apollo’s Temple. Our day ended in Salisbury where we saw the Salisbury Cathedral and walked through the town.

OHIO at Stonehenge