Thursday, September 14, 2017
Bath, England
Today we spent the day in Bath. Bath dates back. to the Roman times. the Roman Baths were built in 66AD. The water still comes out of the ground at 124 degrees and provides huge amounts of hot mineral water. During later years, Bath drew thousands of people seeking cures for all sorts of ailments that the mineral water was supposed to remedy. Bath Abbey was built in the 1300's and has about 6000 faithful buried under it. So many are buried there, that scientists worry that the Abbey may eventually be compromised by the unsound ground below due to the huge amount of graves. The River Avon winds through the city and is just beautiful. The town itself is picture perfect, and we all fell in love with the golden sandstone buildings. Tonight we took a Beastly Tour of Bath, and we learned many locations of places mentioned in Jane Austen's novels. All in all, we had a great day!
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
We made it!
We had a great flight from San Francisco to London. Our seats were wonderful, and we really liked the British Airways service. We landed at Heathrow, and then the fun began. The wait to get through customs was 2 1/2 hours long. Every nationality was represented... Finally;, we got through and we hooked up with Brian. He'd already walked 9 miles in downtown London! We went to the car rental and got our car... Oh my gosh. Driving in England is tough!!!! Not only are you driving on the "wrong" side of the car going the "wrong" way, but the roads are incredibly, incredibly narrow! I think we'd been warned about that, but seeing it for ourselves was amazing. We were almost to our place in Bath when we got a flat tire. We parked it and called Avis on Brian's cellphone. While we waited for them, we ate our first British meal in a quaint little place called the Royal Crown, I think. Very good. Rain is on and off. You don't go anywhere without a raincoat or an umbrella. Our place is cute. Bedrooms are upstairs. Very, very old... probably several hundred years old. We're trying to get acclimated to London time. I'll write more when I get back to my routine!
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Three weeks and counting!
We are celebrating our fiftieth anniversary by taking another wonderful trip of a lifetime , this time going to Great Britain. So far, we've made all our lodging reservations, our air bookings, car rental, and some tour and activity reservations. It is all becoming a reality! We plan to leave on Tuesday, September 12th and return on Wednesday, October 4th. Jon and Erin are going to watch over our house for us.
We will stay in seven different areas of the UK. First we'll spend three nights in the southwest area of England and will enjoy a Georgian cottage in Bath, England. There, we'll take in the Jane Austen Festival. Next, we'll land in the Cottswalds, where we'll walk the famed Cottswalds Trail. We'll take in a Shakespearean play in Stratford Upon Avon, and we'll walk the steps of CS Lewis and Tolstein at Oxford. We will visit the famed Chatworth House in the Peak District. All this time, Brian will be accompanying us! We are thrilled that he approached us about coming along on this first part of our trip. He is able to do it because he enjoys free air miles.
We'll visit several castles and the seashore in Wales, where we'll be staying in Conwy. We'll travel to the lands made famous by William Wordsworth and stay in Keswick in the Lake District.
Traveling to Scotland, we'll stay in Edinburgh for a couple of days, and will travel north into the Scottish Highlands. Next we'll head south and land for a bit in York, England.
Our last stay will be in London where we'll spend 5 nights. We are excited about seeing the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and other famous sites. We'll even take in a show in the Queen's Theatre, Les Miserables.
Royal Mile.
Finally we will be staying in the Mayfair District of London at 17 Hertford Street.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)