Bath and Stonehenge, 4/6/14

Rainy and windy today, real English weather. Lots of driving past wet fields and sheep, Prince Charles' Highgrove estate, cute villages and pubs.  Bath lived up to Jane A's novels; we toured the Roman baths and took the waters at the Pump Room, and had Sally Lunn buns at her tea room from 1482. The buns from today of course, with great tea!  I walked with another woman from our tour to the Jane Austen society building where one can buy all manner of Jane-themed souvenirs from staff in period costumes.  Then back in the bus to Stonehenge standing out in the middle of Salisbury plain. It seemed smaller in person than the National Geographic pictures suggest, but still quite mysterious and impressive. How did the Neolithic builders get the stones from hundreds of miles away? We always underestimate the ancients I think; we still don't know how the Incas and the Romans built their walls either. All they could do without Google! And they made terrific mead that I bought at the Stonehenge gift shop. 

So far we're enjoying our group, all of whom outmatch us in years and sometimes stamina. If you met some of them stateside, you wouldn't believe they'd ever venture out of NJ or AZ or Denver, yet here they are talking about their adventure travel to Machu Pichu and the Galapagos and St. Petersburg. Most have toured multiple times with this company. The majority are former teachers, with a few state dept. and business types thrown in. The clear conclusion - Never underestimate the wanderlust of an American retiree with a pension. 

Some photos from Bath

Bath abbey

Roman bath and the abbey

The Pump Room

Stonehenge, obviously!

Stonehenge's guard sheep

Our dinner pub

Nice steak and ale pie

Huge rosemary outside the pub

Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, Broadway and the Cotswolds, Cheltenham 4/5

Yes, dear Reader, I was tempted and I ate.

But who could resist Yorkshire chocolate from the sacred Bodleian?  We left London for a way too brief  stop in Oxford. How could those TV villains in Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis have the heart to create mayhem when surrounded by so much beauty and history?  We easily could have spent a day there, but we only got 2 hours. Fortunately Balliol College was open to visitors so we got to see the quad, chapel, and dining hall set up for a wedding. Then we went thru the Bodleian quads and some of us visited the Turf Tavern where the fictional Morse drank and real Bill Clinton smoked pot but didn't inhale. Unfortunately we didn't have one spare second for the Ashmolean Museum or anything else. Here are some of our photos.

Altar in Balliol chapel

The mighty Bodleian Library

The Bridge of Sighs

The Turf Tavern

All pig parts at Ocford market, heads £5 each

Stratford turned out to be a hellacious tourist trap. The only redeeming features were the River Avon and a nice Marks & Spencer store. 

Shakespeare's birthplace

Trinity church, Shakespeare's gravesite

On the banks of the Avon

After escaping Stratford we drove on thru the Cotswolds (after miles of driving thru them, I now know what English hedgerows are), past numerous adorable and no-doubt taxpayer subsidized sheep, to the almost-too quaint and and picturesque stone village of Broadway. Both Charles I and Oliver Cromwell hung out at the local Lygon Arms. The torrential winter rains have led to unbelievably lush fields and blooms. Still, I'd take a suite in Balliol over a £395K 2 bedroom Cotswold townhouse. From there, on to Cheltenham and a nice dinner at our hotel. Up early tomorrow for Barh and Stonehenge!

Cotswold scenes - sheep!

I assume the Xmas lights came after 1458

London walkabout 4/4/14

We crammed a lot of sights, shopping, and walking into our first full day.  Weather forecasts for sun notwithstanding, we had cloudy skies and cool breezes but no rain. Note to self - always leave a scarf in my coat pocket!

We started with a short bus tour of the major tourist sights.  At Buckingham Palace we lucked out to find a crowd dressed in their finest, including frothy hats, to receive their OBEs and other awards from Prince Charles. Note that most of the ladies' hats are simply headbands with tulle or flowers - very clever.  

General style notes: London women wear lots of black, leggings, and long hairs styles.  If you saw someone with short or dyed hair, she was speaking Italian or American. Everyone wore long draped scarves, which looked nice and deflected the cool breezes.  Men didn't sport continental European long hair or baggy American suits, and therefore looked quite smart overall. 

No hats on the American touristas

After the bus tour Art and I set out to hunt down shopping venues and his old pubs from the 1990s. I had much more success; his pubs had left, but I found some good bargains after walking down Bond St. and its top designers. The Steve McQueen store had handbags to die for in the windows. Duchess Kate must have gone here for her wedding dress!

This place fit my price range better

Cute stuff at Fortnum & Mason, and many terrific teas

My swag, from The Sting and F&M. I really wanted some things from TopShop but the dressing room line was 20 minutes long, so that wasn't to be. And I need to pace myself - I have many more High Streets to see outside London. 

Random photo of a lamp post. The Duke of Westminster, aka the Grosvenor family, still owns the land under much of London. So when you buy a £50 million house in Belgravia Square, you're really leasing it from the Duke! No wonder he's so rich. 

Full English breakfast in a cup

World's only war memorial honoring th animals made to fight and die in battle

Dale Chiluly glass tree sculpture probably worth $1 million on loan to a public park!

St. Paul's cathedral

Skyline near our hotel and the Tower

Our hotel in the background

Tower Bridge

Phone box used for landscape art

Quaint looking, rowdy pub near our hotel 

They made an excellent Pimm's #1 cup!

Delicious veggie Indian dinner

Tower Bridge lit up 

London looks good

Great flight on British Air from Dulles. The curry tasted fine, free wine and beer (I drank water) and the entertainment options were first-rate. I watched Saving Mr Banks, which I enjoyed, and then discovered my latest favorite BBC comedy called The Ambassadors. Set in the fictional country of Tazbekistan it captured perfectly the pressures of diplomacy in remote, corrupt outposts. The video conferences between the ambassador, his #2, and their clueless, rapacious boss in London couldn't have been funnier or more pitch-perfect. He reminded them in every conversation "don't share this with our allies, especially the French!" Apparently that love/hate cross-Channel relationship hasn't changed in 1000 years. I've got to find the show at home - the airline had only 3 episodes. 

Hotel is nice, next to the Tower of London which means it's far from the best shopping and eating areas, but we'll explore. Can't wait to have some tea and biscuits!

View from our window. Everything seems smaller than on our 2003 trip. Maybe because I've visited NYC so much since then?

Weather today is cloudy but warm. Our spring lags London's by at least a week. Their daffodils have peaked and the flowering trees have taken center stage. 

Itinerary: we're really doing this!

This brings the trip to life for me. We're going to need a lot of camera batteries! Thanks to Laura we even have free transport to/from Dulles.  I hope some of my bulbs will have blooms when we get back.

Itinerary:
4/2: Dulles to Heathrow, BA 264. ETD: 8:45pm ETA: 8:55 am 4/5
4/3-4/4 staying in London 
4/5: London-Oxford-Stratford upon Avon-Cheltenham
4/6: Cheltenham, visits to Bath and Stonehenge
4/7: Cheltenham - Caernarfon, Wales  
4/8: Snowdonia, Wales 
4/9: Caernarfon-Chester -York
4/10: York
4/11: Happy Birthday to Lizzie! York - Whitby and Castle Howard
4/12: York - Lake District
4/13: Lake District - Edinburgh
4/14-15: Edinburgh
4/16: Edinburgh to Heathrow, ETD: 10:10 am. ETA: 11:40 am. BA 1441
         Heathrow to Dulles, BA 265. ETD: 2:30 pm. ETA: 5:30 pm