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Bletchley Park

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[Photo: Tyla75]

3. BLETCHLEY PARK
Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, England was the home of the UK's code-breaking operations during World War II. The technological accomplishments here were nothing short of a miracle. The odds against their success were 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1, but their triumph over supposedly unbreakable Nazi codes was one of the greatest intellectual achievements of the twentieth century, helping to shorten WWII by at least two years.

The sprawling estate, formerly part of the Manor of Eaton was also known as Station X,  and held a staff of up to 10,000 including hyper-intelligent mathematicians, cryptanalysts and other uber-geeks, whose purpose it was to break the codes produced by the Enigma and Lorenz machines.

After falling into a state of disrepair after the war, Bletchley Park is now a museum showcasing the amazing early computers and cryptanalysis gear that saved countless lives. Visitors can now see rebuilt versions of clunky, room-filling technology like the Enigma Machine, and the world's first semi-programmable computer, the Colossus Bombe.

One of Bletchley Park's most famous employees was artificial intelligence pioneer Alan Turing, who is often considered to be the father of modern computer science. Rumor also has it that Turing buried a treasure of silver somewhere on the property that has yet to be found. In true modern geek fashion, follow Bletchley Park on Twitter, maybe you'll find hints to the buried treasure.

Jetting There: Folks can fly into London's Luton airport which is about 26 miles from the site. Budget airlines like Ryanair often fly in and out of Luton so you could get an extremely cheap flight ticket. Just watch out for those fees.

Driving There: If you plan on driving out to Bletchley Park, the park recommends putting in "'Sherwood Drive" as the destination address in your satellite navigation system. Parking is £3. Taking a train or a bus to Bletchley is doable as well.

Staying There: Milton Keynes doesn't have any hotels with robots but it does have a bunch of budget hotel chains like Holiday Inn, Novotel, and Ramada. We say hit up one of the Holiday Inns because it has free WiFi, a rarity in UK hotels. Rates start at around £71.50 per night.

What to Pack: If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, download the Enigma Machine application.

In this game, you are an agent at Bletchley Park, the place where the British secret service used to do their code breaking activities, during World War II. You mission is to try and decipher the secret Keyword stored in the Enigma Machine, so that the Nazis can be defeated.

So you can play the game as you stroll through Bletchley Park. That's geek to the nth power.