The Gretna Inn

Day nine of our England vacation was a travel day and in consequence we didn’t really see much worth photographing. Although 300 miles (or a little less) isn’t a terribly long day of driving, we had pretty heavy traffic about three quarters of the way. We made pretty good time, stopping only once.

After five nights in our hotel in South Marston, we spent the next four in a Days Inn at a service area on the highway. Again, it isn’t a destination so much as a base from which we’ll take day trips.

We had dinner at The Gretna Inn, a relatively new building made to look old. Usually you can tell by the hight and regularity of the ceilings, which are much lower and never very level in the older buildings. The doors are smaller, as well.

Roman Baths and Bath Abbey

Today we only had one destination but like Blenheim, there was a lot to see there. We took the train from Swindon to Bath since parking was going to be an issue. When we arrived we decided to take the bus tour which is actually two separate but related bus tours. There is one that goes through town and another that goes out of town. Both were useful in terms of giving us some of the history of the city but neither were particularly good in terms of actually seeing things. I think I’d give them a miss if I came again. If the bus that goes out of town stopped in a few places with good views of the city, then I’d recommend it but you only get a few momentary glimpses, which don’t really justify the time it takes.

There are three main sights we wanted to see in Bath and we started with the oldest — the Roman baths. The water isn’t particularly warm, as hot springs go, I guess that if it’s the only hot spring in England, you have to make do with what you have. If you visit, be prepared to spend a good while there, especially if you listen to the audio guides included in the price of admission (which most of our group did).

After our visit to the baths we figured we should get something to eat. We decided that since there wasn’t a long wait, we’d give the Sally Lunn Bun a try in what is claimed to be the oldest house in Bath, Sally Lunn’s House, c. 1482. The food was quite good, although I cannot say I’ve never had better. Topped with butter, cinnamon and clotted cream, it wasn’t the bun that made the difference, in any case. I think it would have tasted good on a hard crust. Still,

The picture shown here includes the baths as well as our second destination, Bath Abbey. It isn’t the biggest church but it felt more like a church than the others we’ve visited. It was, unfortunately, too late for us to climb the tower, which would have been great, so another reason to return.

Our final, dual destination was the Circus and the Royal Crescent, Georgian town houses on a circle and an arc, respectively. They are somewhat hard to photograph, but I did my best. When we had seen those, we walked back to the train station and caught the train back to Swindon. Actually, our train was canceled and they sent us to Bristol, in the opposite direction, where we caught what turned out to be the next train through Bath, so if we had stayed there, we would have been fine, but this gave us something to do.

Uffington White Horse

Salisbury Cathedral

Stonehenge

Avebury Stone Circle

After visiting only one place yesterday, we had a somewhat busier day today. We had four sites to visit today, somewhat spread around the countryside over a round-trip course of a little over a hundred miles.

It was a absolutely lovely day, cool and bright. We started by taking a short drive of about 10 miles to the Uffington White Horse. It is a prehistoric, highly stylized figure of a horse, formed from trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The problem is that as you get closer to it, you don’t see it from the proper angle and it looks less and less like a horse. This is the best picture I could get and you can just make out the horse. I think it needs to be seen from the air to really see it properly. It’s possible that it can be seen well from Dragon Hill, a natural chalk hill with an artificial flat top set below the horse. The hind legs are to the left, forelegs to the right, and the head is not quite visible above them on the far right. There are pictures of it from the air on Wikimedia Commons.

From there we drove south to Salisbury, about 45 miles. We found parking and walked to the cathedral, which is quite lovely (and pretty big). There is a wonderful painting of the cathedral by John Constable from about 1825 and I would have liked to have walked in the Bishop’s Grounds to the south of the cathedral, which is where he painted it from, but we had more to see today and you cannot do everything. The light was a bit tricky today, as it’s been most days, with very bright skies and sometimes shady subjects because of the clouds. This photo is what is known as an high dynamic range (HDR) photograph, made by combining three different exposures of the same image.

Before leaving Salisbury we had a nice lunch in a place called The Boston Tea Party. It is housed in the Old George Inn which apparently dates back to 1314 and in the courtyard of which William Shakespeare is said to have performed one of his plays. In England’s version of “George Washington Slept Here,” Oliver Cromwell slept here on his way to join the army, Samuel Pepys wrote about the Inn in his diary after a stay and both H. G. Wells and Charles Dickens made mentioned of it in their writings.

We drove north to Stonehenge. It hasn’t changed much in the 42 years since I was here last, although the arrangement for seeing it are a bit different. There is a small car park but that is totally inadequate for the number of visitors and a large section of the neighboring field has been turned into an extended parking area. You are not permitted to walk amid the monument itself but are restricted to a circular walk around it. In fact, you get reasonably close on one side and if it were not for the restrictions there is no way you could possibly take a picture like this, with no people showing. This was nine photographs, stitched together to make a single image. They were timed so that I had no people in the background (with a couple exceptions, which were edited out). I think it’s turned out rather well.

Our final historical stop of the day was Avebury Stone Circle, in the small village of Avebury. It was evening by the time we got there and we were not able to spend as much time as I would have liked but I enjoyed it quite a bit. The evening light was lovely. The stones in this photograph are not the largest but they form part of the northwest quadrant of a large circle of stones. We walked around this quadrant and into the northeast. It covers quite a bit more ground than Stonehenge and you can walk right up to the stones.

Rather than eat in the pub at Avebury, which had the wrong vibe for us, we headed towards “home” and stopped at The Barbury Inn in a town called Broad Hinton. We had a very friendly reception there and the food was as good as we had anywhere in the two weeks we were here.

Blenheim Palace

After our country jaunt yesterday, we decided we were up for crowds again. We spent the entire day at Blenheim Palace. This largish house, built between 1705 and 1722 as the home of the Dukes of Marlborough, is the only non-royal, non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. I don’t really see how you could call it anything else.

If you’ve seen Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 production of Hamlet (and if you haven’t, you should), then you may recognize it as Hamlet’s castle. I won’t go on about all we did today because we basically saw the house and the gardens. It’s a big place with a park landscaped by “Capability” Brown starting in 1764. The lake was created by damming the River Glyme and certainly looks natural, although it is not.

Tintern Abbey, Wales

Arlington Row, Bibury, in the Cotswolds

We had spent three nights in London and then moved to our second hotel. The hotel was very nice and it turned out to be ideal for the day trips we would take from it, but whenever we mentioned where we were staying, the person we were talking to would apologize for the town. Actually, there’s nothing wrong with Swindon but it I get that it isn’t exactly a prime tourist destination. Still, it’s conveniently located.

Our first day trip from there started with a visit to the ruins of Tintern Abbey, just across the Wye River into Wales. The abbey was founded in 1131. Most of the existing structure was built in the late 13th century and the abbey was abandoned in 1536 upon the Dissolution of the Monasteries under the orders of King Henry VIII (not our favorite Henry). It’s in a lovely site and well worth the visit, especially if you’ve been in cities for four days beforehand. It was a wonderfully beautiful, cool, English day with bright sunshine competing with cloudy shade off and on. The color of the light in the ruins was ever-changing and lovely.

From Tintern we drove north through the Forest of Dean, over to Gloucester, down to Cirencester, and then east to the little village of Bibury, in the Cotswold hills. The Cotswolds are known for the honey-coloured stone buildings and Bibury is a particularly popular example of a Cotswold village. I was a bit worried about finding parking spaces for our two cars but we were blessed to find two, next to each other, right in the center of town.

We enjoyed walking in the late afternoon along Arlington Row and up Awkward Hill (I’d really love to live somewhere named Awkward Hill). We walked a short way on a public footpath to the edge of town and then back by a different route. We all enjoyed being outdoors and in the country instead of in London or even Oxford. We all agreed that we’d go back and spend more time in the Cotswolds, if we had the chance.

The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford University

After our third night in London we picked up two rental cars and headed out of town. If you’ve never driven in England, it’s a bit hair raising at first (and possibly at second, as well). First and most obvious is that they drive on the left. Second, shifting with your left hand takes some getting used to. Third, many roads are quite narrow. That’s true both in London, where the narrowness is often because of parked cars, and in the countryside, where the roads are between two banks or walls. Anyway, it takes some getting used to. Fortunately, we found English drivers to be much more courteous than American drivers, at least American drivers where we live.

We headed out of London toward Oxford, parked in a Park and Ride lot and took the bus into town. Parking in Oxford might have been possible but this removed the hassle. By the time we got there (including a bit more walking that we expected, because I had us get off the bus too soon) it was time for lunch. The Turf Tavern had been recommended to us and we found it to be a very friendly and comfortable place. We enjoyed a quiet meal out on the terrace. The burgers were cooked “well done” but were otherwise good.

We walked around town, stopping at a largish bookstore, going into the courtyard of the Bodleian Library, etc. We walked north to St. John’s College, where my great Uncle Ralph earned a B.A. degree in 1912 and a B.Sc. degree in 1913. My grandfather (Uncle Ralph’s older brother) was there from 1907 until 1910 and I had assumed he went to the same school but it turns out he went to Exeter. Since I didn’t find that out until we were home, we didn’t make a special visit, but I did get a picture of the Exeter Chapel from the tower of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin.

Some of our group went to visit New College, while the rest of us went up the church tower. It gave a good view and was well worth the small fee and tight stairs. Dorothy was a bit put out by the close quarters both getting up and at the top but she was glad she went up.

We took the bus back to where we had parked our cars and then drove the 30 miles or so to our hotel. The hotel was quite nice but I would recommend eating elsewhere if you have the chance.

The Tower of London

On our third and final day in London we got out a bit earlier. We had breakfast at a bakery around the corner from our hotel and then caught a bus to near Harrods department store. We spent about an hour wandering around the store.

From there we took a bus to Victoria Station and then walked past Westminster Cathedral to Westminster Abbey. The line to get in the Abbey was fairly long (did I mention that August isn’t the best time to visit London?) but there was nothing for it but to join the queue and wait.

It was pretty crowded inside, as well. No photography is allowed in the abbey, which is probably just as well, when you consider how slowly people were moving without taking pictures. Most of our group listened to the audio guides but Dorothy and I satisfied ourselves with reading the monuments themselves. While I’m certainly glad we went, I’m not as thrilled with Westminster Abbey as I am with some other churches I’ve visited. It’s more a shrine to fallen men than a place to worship the God whom they ostensibly served.

After lunch in the new Cellarium cafe, which opened last year, we walked across Westminster Bridge and caught a bus to near Tower Bridge. We enjoyed the view of the bridge and the Tower of London across the river from Potter’s Fields Park. We walked across the bridge and then around the Tower, which was closed by this time.

We took a bus back to the west, passing St. Paul’s Cathedral, which we didn’t have time to see on this trip. I’ve been in but I’d love to go there again. I’m a fan of big domes. We had dinner near Covent Garden and the returned to our hotel, again via Trafalgar Square. Buying Oyster cards before leaving home turned out to be a good idea. We certainly got our money’s worth out of them.

Big Ben and Westminster Abbey

We got off to a late start this morning because everyone was so tired. We left the hotel at about 11:30, had breakfast and then caught a bus to near the British Museum. That was high on everyone’s “I really want to go there” list. It was absolutely jammed with people and it would be nice to visit again sometime other than August, but we were all still glad we went. We were there for about four hours (except I left to have a cup of coffee with a friend who was nice enough to meet me for an hour or so).

From the British Museum we took the bus to Westminster. We decided we were hungry enough that we’d like to have dinner. We ate at The Red Lion, opposite Downing Street and enjoyed a relatively quiet meal away from the crowds (somewhat surprisingly, but I guess it was a bit early for dinner for most people). After dinner we walked to Westminster Abbey but by this point is was closed. Considering how long it takes to go through, it was just as well. We had tickets for the London Eye so we walked across Westminster Bridge and got on without spending more than 15 minutes in line. It’s a nice ride providing a great view of the city and I highly recommend it.

We crossed the river again on the Hungerford Bridge, which is actually a pair of walking bridges on either side of the rail bridge that leads into Charing Cross Rail Station. We made our way to Trafalgar Square and took the requisite pictures of the girls climbing on the lions around Nelson’s Column. We took the bus back to our hotel but went to Gelato Mio a few blocks away for a nice dessert before heading to bed.

On-board Miss Sunshine, our Airbus 330-300

As many of you know, we went to England for two weeks this summer. Since I’m posting these after we got back, I can say with some confidence that we had a wonderful time, saw some amazing sights, and are very glad we went. We traveled with another family, Stuart and Donna and their three beautiful daughters, Hannah, Ellen, and Katie.

If it had been possible to go any time other than the month of August that would have been nice but it simply wasn’t going to happen any other time. Still, we had fabulous weather for most of the trip (and the rainy day was pretty awesome, as well). Many places we went were crowded but we managed to squeeze a wide variety of things into a relatively short time and had a good time doing it.

This trip was a long time coming. The idea for it actually came up more than a year ago and we even talked about going last summer but with the Olympics, that didn’t seem like a good idea. Last fall, though, we started talking in earnest and early this year we began making firm plans, buying tickets, booking rooms in hotels, and renting two cars for most of the time (but not London).

The date of departure finally arrived. This is one of only a few pictures I took as we left on Miss Sunshine, a Virgin Atlantic Airbus. Don’t worry, I took a few more pictures once we got there.