The train from the London King's Cross/St. Pancras station up north to Edinburgh passes through some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen. I made the trip from London to Edinburgh this week, my first time doing so in spring, and the time of year makes a huge difference (which, really, is not a surprise...). Whereas the other four times I have taken this train trip (to London and back twice) it has been cold, wet, and grey outside, this time there was blue sky and a full sun. I know its clichéd, but “spring has sprung” here in the UK, and it's beautiful.
A slightly grainy photo, but it shows just yellow the flowers were. This photo is not photo-shopped or changed in any way. It's like a yellow sea.
A majority of the trip was spent passing rolling green hills covered with the stereotypical British sheep. Occasionally, the train passed huge fields completely covered with yellow flowers so bright that they looked fake, as if someone has draped a giant yellow blanket over the ground. There were also many streams and flowing rivulets that cut deep into the ground. I hadn't seen it before, but on this trip I noticed a large plot of land, very flat and green, with, of course, lots of sheep, but also a beautiful house. The house was quite large and bordered by a tall, thick green hedge. There was a small pond near the house, and a little building standing to one side of the house as well. A barn? A hay shed? A kid's playhouse? It could have been anything. Seeing that house standing in alone in the middle of the countryside made me wonder about whoever lived there. It was a big house, so was it home to a large family? Or maybe an old couple whose children had moved out, or a single person who had inherited it? I guess I'll never know.
Not the beach town I described, but another, larger town we passed by. My photo did not quite capture the beauty of the town, especially given the dead bugs and dirt seen on the train window...
After passing that house, a lot of the journey was spent with green fields and sheep on one side and the never-ending blue of the sea on the other, with the occasional flock of seagulls soaring into view. On this stretch of the journey, there is a small village that always strikes me. It borders the sea, and seems from afar to be a quaint little beach town. The buildings I could see from the train were typical British buildings of all different colors – some pink, some yellow, some white, some blue...Very nice looking. I plan to someday take a vacation in that little town and stay in a pink house bordering the sea.