Somebody else has visited Darwin’s house and taken a stroll on the sandwalk. I can testify that it is surprisingly difficult to get to the place, unless you have a trusty native guide — but once you get to the village, it really ought to be easier than that to find the place.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I want a R-Evolution-Ary t-shirt…
PZ, sorry to go off topic, but this url will probably get 404 in no time:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_xfsGHTOuiOU/Rn-pJC_wdVI/AAAAAAAAAuw/R8qwGo0mWy8/s1600-h/polvo.jpg
It is a poster of an ad campaign for home wide band ADSL connection, promising to put one’s house a-movin’.
Now, since “polvo” (as in the url above) is Portuguese for “octopus”, I guess you are interested… ;-)
PZ, sorry to go off topic, but this url will probably get 404 in no time:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_xfsGHTOuiOU/Rn-pJC_wdVI/AAAAAAAAAuw/R8qwGo0mWy8/s1600-h/polvo.jpg
It is a poster of an ad campaign for home wide band ADSL connection, promising to put one’s house a-movin’.
Now, since “polvo” (as in the url above) is Portuguese for “octopus”, I guess you are interested… ;-)
“Oh, will you just look at that! Professor Meyyerz’s experiments with cephalopod growth hormones have finally resulted in his monstrous creations running amok.”
“That, or his hideous and profane rituals have finally managed to summon Cthulhu.”
One problem is that making places like Downe easier to find would mean an astonishingly large amount of signage in the UK. Culturally significant events have happened everywhere here. Almost every town and a great many villages have given rise to at least a couple of famous sons and daughters, some have given rise to dozens. There are astonishing historical artifacts which warrant little more than a label on an OS map and a few visitors a year.
It’s probably the thing I like best about living in a place as “crowded” as the UK, the weight of history is astonishing.
Hmmm… Don’t drink and comment. I’ve abused the word “astonishing” and misspelled my own name.
I’ll go to bed now.
It’s OK. I just assumed you were Welsh.
The Darwin exhibit (currently at the Field Museum) has a neat little recreation of the sandwalk. It isn’t video, which would be best, but does cycle through sequential pictures along the walk, projected onto an entire wall, so it *sort of* feels like you’re walking on it. Still would rather do the original, though!
We traveled to Chicago yesterday to see the Dinosaur and Darwin exhibits yesterday…very interesting! We spent more than 2 hours going through the Darwin exhibit. I particularly liked the displays of his notes…including the “evolutionary tree” sketch, examples of his plant collections, and his rock hammer :)
Liked the Sandwalk “recreation”… but also wished I could walk the original.
Down House and the grounds are lovely, well worth a visit. For those who aren’t totally Anglo-averse, Churchill’s home Chartwell, also in Kent, can be visited in the same day. I was rather shamed by Churchill’s legendary writing habits-he would have gotten those manuscripts out efficiently.
I found both Down House and Chartwell with no trouble, even though I’m a dumb Texan. Maybe it’s because we’re used to sparse directional signage.
http://www.amnhshop.com/25-028238.html
Actually Down House can be easily found using Google Earth. There is even a small article on it.
51°19’52.55″N
0° 3’12.15″E
Barn Owl, I’m a dumb Texan too…
Yeehaw! for more dumb Texans! If there’s a dozen of us or so, there’ll be enough IQ points to cobble together and make one Really Smart Person.
How’d you get lost, though, wussypants? The whole of England is, like, about the size of downtown Austin.
Only much tidier and less weird. ;-)
England is much bigger than downtown Austin. It’s at least Dallas and Fort Worth combined.