Road Trip - Day 7 - Cheddar Gorge and Lacock Abbey

First stop of the day was Cheddar Gorge. There are several caves in the gorge and a cluster of buildings are built into the bottom of the gorge to provide tourism information and restaurants. I'm usually not into the big tourist traps like that, but sounded like it could be an interesting stop along the journey. I went into the largest cave which was sadly outfitted as Santa's Grotto with plastic snowmen, trees, reindeer, and a couple of different versions of Santa Claus. Thankfully the interesting rock formations could still be seen. I also went into a smaller cave that was outfitted with coloured lights and choral music to provide ambiance - definitely preferred the music to the fake snow. The caves were beautiful and it was a nice place to stop and wander around. I also climbed 274 steps to reach a lookout tower on top of the gorge for a beautiful view.

Decorating a cave like this should be illegal.
Yes, that's Santa flying in the background with his reindeer.

The cave is set up with lots of little reflecting pools;
creates an interesting effect and makes it easy to see the underside of the little openings in the walls of the cave.

Looking up the stairs - only the first couple of flights fit in the shot.

The view of the gorge from the top of the lookout tower.

Looking away from the gorge from the top of the tower.

After I finished at the gorge I drove to Lacock Abbey, a National Trust site. I partly went because I like beautiful historic sites, and I partly went because it's a key site in the development of photography, and I partly went as a big shout-out to Lindsay and any other Harry Potter fans because scenes from two of the movies were filmed there (see the Lacock Abbey link above for info).

William Fox Talbot, the inventor of the negative process, created an image of this window in 1835. It's the oldest negative in existence.

William Talbot created images of this bust and I've seen them in books - crazy to see it in person!