DAY 23: LONDON ... AGAIN!

FIFTY years on, Beatlemania is alive and well in London. Just don't mention the "B" word to residents, cabbies, motorcyclists and bus drivers in Maida Vale - home of Abbey Road Studios.

We had missed a pilgrimage to Abbey Road on our initial arrival in London. As our sport scientist son has just moved here to pursue his career as a football games analyst, he offered to turn tour guide for the day and take us there with his girlfriend.

They already had visited the famous zebra crossing outside the studios that features on the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover. So we soon found ourselves hopping off the train at Maida Vale station before the short walk through suburban streets.

The crowd that gathers virtually every day and every night at either end of the crossing is a dead giveaway that you're in the right place.

And as the white-walled studio building comes into view behind tall black iron gates, the writing is on the wall ... literally. Fans from all over the world write their name and messages of enduring love for the Lads from Liverpool who changed popular music forever.

A photo here and there of the fence "graffiti" and of the studio sign and we were ready to recreate the photo from the album cover.

Easier said than done.

You see, this is a very busy street. Double-decker buses, cabs, general traffic and pedestrians constantly use this intersection throughout the day. And they don't take too kindly to having fans freeze like statues on the crossing while a friend takes their photo either from one end or another or, worse still, the middle of the road.

Frustrated locals sometimes beep, yell abuse, and shake their heads at the time-wasting. But the fans don't seem to care.

We witnessed an hilarious sight when a young Spanish boy on several occasions rushed out before the crossing to stop the traffic coming down the road - all the while yelling in his native tongue and putting up his hand like a traffic cop - so his friends could get their picture. He was cheered by the crowd.

While we waited (and waited) for the cars, buses and motorbikes to disappear before attempting our crossing photo, we then had to battle the masses with similar ideas - everyone laughing with delight.

In the end, our photo attempt was embarrassingly pathetic as we were more concerned with not getting run over. And then there was the fact we only had three in our "band".

But it made for the funniest moments on our trip to date.

Lesson of the day: Playing chicken with the traffic is never a good idea. I'm sure authorities closed off the street for John, Paul, George and Ringo. Unfirtunately, we're not quite up to that celebrity standard.

DAY 22: YORK

I WOKE to the sound of church bells.

You just don't hear enough of them anymore.

Growing up on the northside of Brisbane, the bells of St Andrew's Anglican Church in Lutwyche would ring out every Sunday and on special days.

When we were married in the church - the same one as my parents - I didn't hesitate to pay the little extra for the bells to ring out the happy news.

Today's bells, I assume, belong to the York Minster.

The massive cathedral is as big on elegance and craftsmanship as it is on size, and it is the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe.

After getting in late to our accommodation at The Gillygate Hotel, we were still able to stroll around the walled city (whose settlement dates back to Roman times) and marvel at the Minster in its twilight glow.

Its square also boasts a statue of Constantine the Great (who was crowned Roman emperor in York in 306AD and was instrumental in establishing the foundations for the western Christian faith) and a partly tiled roman column, found during excavation of the south trancept of the Minster in 1969.

Follow your nose (or a convenient signpost of attractions) just a short walk to The Shambles - a quirky ramshackle 15th century Tudor street of shops, cafes, restaurants and bars that plays tricks on the eyes.

It claims the title of Europe's most visited street.

I was glad to have The Shambles almost all to ourselves to window shop as guitar blues and chatty voices spilled out into the street from crowded bars.

We finally settled on a late dinner at The White Swan Hotel (dating back to the 1400s itself) complete with part of a roman pillar in a glass display in the floor.

York is definitely a happening place on a Saturday night. But it was much nicer being woken up by church bells than the loud shouting from drunken revellers walking past our bedroom window after the bars closed.

Lesson of the day: Try not to become a whinging Aussie about the hidden costs of travel. But I am sick of  putting our hands in our pockets to pay for parking virtually everywhere, for public toilets, for multiple tolls and going in and out of the central traffic zones, for air and water at many service stations, for sim card top-up vouchers that don't transfer between Ireland and the UK for the same phone company. Maybe that's the Scottish blood coming out in us!

DAY 21: EDINBURGH TO YORK

A COLLEAGUE at work had highly recommended we visit Whitby on the east coast of England, near the North Yorkshire Moors.

Have fish and chips at The Magpie, he said.

Take a load off at Scarborough to the south and you can't miss Robin Hood’s Bay, he said.

I already knew that Whitby's main claim to fame in Australian history was that Captain James Cook began his seafaring career there and it remains one of the UK’s main fishing ports.

Its other claim to fame is that the writer Bram Stoker first had the idea for his legendary novel Dracula there, inspired by the 7th century Whitby Abbey and the steps built into the cliff face leading to the churchyard.

But at the last minute, we took a detour, deciding that while we were in the neighbourhood, we should learn more about our heritage.

So we planned two new stops south of Edinburgh: Rosslyn Chapel, of Da Vinci Code fame, and a little-known town called Galashiels.

Intrigue surrounding ancestors on both sides of our family made the decision easy for us in the end.

The Sinclair name will forever be associated with the town of Rosslyn's most famous place of worship, which the First Earl of Caithness Sir William Sinclair built in the 1400s for his brood.

The chapel was previously the Catholic Collegiate Chapel of St Matthew, and was built on a small hill above Roslin Glen.

From floor to ceiling, every surface is covered with carvings of figures, objects, faces and scenes (unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside)

With a family motto on our crest that reads: "Commit thy work to God", it remains uncertain whether Sir William was spending the kids' inheritance with a Christian masterpiece or trying to buy his place in heaven.

The result, however, is as beautiful as it is undeniably thought-provoking and mysterious

We joined a guided tour and sat in on a lecture identifying various images in the stonework, their meanings, as well as myths and legends including the murder of an apprentice mason by his jealous master over the completion of the most celebrated column in the chapel.

Thanks to Hollywood  annual visitor numbers jumped from about 33,000 to more than five-fold the year after The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks hit the big screen.

Stories surrounding the ancient Knights Templar order, secrets buried deep in the chapel, and the intricate stonework and its supposed messages weren't the only reasons for our detour just south of Edinburgh, however.

My husband's grandfather was only two when his family migrated to Australia from Galashiels in Scotland - first settling in South Australia before moving to Queensland.

He wondered what had prompted the Lowrie family to move across to the other side of the world in 1891.

The neat and tidy little town seems to love its pubs as much as its parks and gardens, and it was in one of the pubs that we learnt the 1890s was a boom time for the area with plenty of work in the mills and good farming returns. The mystery deepened.

One of the locals steered us in the direction of Old Gala House up the road where a blushing young bride and her proud kilted father were walking up the stairs for her traditional Scottish wedding.

While the photos on the walls of the teahouse and reception rooms held no joy for us, hubbie now has some homework of his own to do in contacting the local Scottish Borders Historical Society and researching more of his family tree.

Lesson of the day: The time you gain with the European twilight in summer is directly proportional to the amount of time you need to sleep in or use as siesta time, given all the running around you are likely to do as a tourist.

I

DAY 20: EDINBURGH

EDINBURGH is a right royal Scottish wonder.

My neck is sore from turning around, looking up and straining to see yet another magnificent building, monument, statue, memorial, church, old pub, not to mention the castle from every angle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

While hubbie watched the British Open at Muirfield, I got up close and personal with Edinburgh Castle before delving deeper into the shops of Royal Mile, discovering the pubs and al fresco dining of Grassmarket, relaxing in the mid meadows of Quarter Mile, having a coffee in The Hub (a former church that plays host to Edinburgh International Festival events), and Greyfriars Kirk and its legendary  Bobby the dog (the Skye terrier became legendary in 19th-century Edinburgh for spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner until he died himself in 1872).

Then there's the closes and wynds, or little alleys, that reveal cool and shady gardens and cafes, centuries of history in homes and courtyards, as well as hidden gems like the Writers Museum (in Lady Stair's Close) where I learnt more about Robert Louis Stevenon and his home, Vailima, that I visited in Samoa.

After a stroll down to the Palace of Holyroodhouse (the Queen's official residence in Scotland but also the 16th century home of the ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots) and a gaze at the spectacular Arthur's Seat backdrop in Holyrood Park, I was seriously suffering from tourist overload and heatstroke

We completed a great Scotland day with a walk through town and a drink in Deacon Brodie Tavern, named after the infamous respected councillor of the same name who was found to be a cunning burglar by night.

Nice to see Edinburgh has played host to scallywags as well as royalty.

Lesson of the day: Top up your Irish-bought SIM card in Ireland before buying a useless top-up voucher in Scotland that leaves you without credit to call your wife to find her in Edinburgh when, after a long day in the sun walking the Old Course at St Andrews, all you want to do is get back to your hotel for a rest before a well-earned drink.