Trip details: Bath & vicinity

(This is the fourth and final post about our trip)

Thursday, September 10: We had an early breakfast at the Hen-dy, David backed our car out for us, and we checked out and drove to Llandudno Junction (pronounced Smith) to return the rental car. I told them about my run-in with the wall and they looked at it and then said "don't worry about it". Considering I spent almost $300 for three days, I think they knew they'd already made a profit off of me.

From the car rental place, we walked to the train station and retrieved our tickets for Bath (with changes at Shrewsbury and Newport). Once again, our seats were facing backwards.

We got to Bath (pronounced "bath") and took a cab to our B&B, Chestnuts House. We were warmly greeted by Toni, the owner. He showed us a map of bath, told us all about restaurants and attractions in the vicinity. I mentioned that I'd like to see a Rugby match, so he pulled strings (he's a season ticket holder) and got us two tickets for the Saturday match! He called and got us tickets for an all-day bus tour to Stonehenge and vicinity on Sunday. And he also recommended a nice local pub frequented by rugby fans, the Pultney Arms. Our room was so luxurious! It was on the ground floor, with french doors out to the patio. Everything was so nice!

We walked around Bath for an hour or so, and had dinner in a pub called "The Lamb and Lion" (OK - nothing special), then went up to the Pultney Arms, had a pint (Black Sheep bitter - very good!). After that, it was back to the B&B and an early night.

Friday, September 11: We started with an AMAZING breakfast at the B&B (smoked salmon & scrambled eggs for Carrie and an asparagus and tomato omelet for me) and then walked to the city center to see the sights.

First up: Bath Abbey. Gothic style abbey with soaring walls and large stained glass window. We were also struck by the very large number of memorial plaques memorializing a whole bunch of people who were buried under the abbey. Carrie lit a candle for the 9/11 victims.

Next: The roman bath ruins. Built in the 1st century AD. This was MUCH larger and more extensive than I had been led to believe. We explored for at least three hours. And then we topped it off by having lunch in The Pump Room, a fantastic Georgian room! And I FINALLY got to have Welsh Rarebit, even though we'd left Wales! Our waitress was kinda stand-offish until the bill came and I pointed out that she'd forgotten to charge us for Carrie's lunch. Then she was nice.

After that, we walked up to The Circus, a whole traffic circle enclosed by a series of spectacular Georgian town homes. It was like I was walking through some of my Architecture books from college! from the Circus, we went to the Costume Museum (kinda disappointing considering the glowing reviews we'd heard), and then on to the Jane Austen museum, which lived down to the mediocre reviews we'd heard.

For dinner, we walked to the Pultney Arms and had dinner. We were back in bed and asleep by eight.

Saturday, September 12: Another outstanding breakfast, followed by a stroll around Bath. Then we headed off to the Rugby match. We had great seats - only about 5 rows from the field! And - surprise - the SELL BEER! I'd expected no beer because I knew they don't sell it at soccer venues in the UK. It was a beautiful day; warm and sunny, and we had a great time. Bath lost a close match, but we enjoyed it.

Dinner after the match at Rajpoot. Very, very good, but not quite as good as Hason Raja in London (so good that my mouth is actually watering as I write this).

September 13: up early to get ready for our bus tour. Our landlord Toni had arranged for them to pick us up at the hotel. At 8:30 an unmarked small bus pulled up out front, and we went out and introduced ourselves to Charles, our tour guide and driver.

We picked up the rest of the group (14 in all including us) - mostly Americans, but also two gals from Poland, and a very quiet lady from Japan. Our first stop was Stonehenge.

Stonehenge - how many times have Carrie & I heard that name and wondered what it would be like! We got there after about an hour; we were among the first to arrive that day. It was somewhat cloudy, cool, and quite breezy. We got off the bus, filed through a short tunnel under a roadway, walked up the other side and there it was.

I know this sounds trite, but words can't begin to describe it. My very first impression (after "Holy sh*t! I can't believe we're here!") was that it was a little smaller than I'd imagined it would be. but after thinking about it for a second, I realized that the people who built this 5,000 years ago didn't even have wheeled vehicles or any real way to haul the massive rocks, some of which came from Wales, several hundred miles away.

Carrie & I walked around it. There's a fence to keep people away, which is both bad and good. It's bad because you can't go up and actually touch the rocks, but it's good for exactly the same reason. Because people are kept away from it, none of my pictures had little kids (or big kids) crawling all over.

After about an hour or so, it was time to move on to another henge (our guide told us that a "henge" is a circular mound with a ditch inside it, and stones inside the ditch) called Avebury. Avebury was quite something. It's both older and bigger than Stonehenge. The henge itself is about a mile around - it's so big that there's a village in the middle of it! The only significant differences are that the stones aren't carved into rectangular shapes, and that not stones are placed on top of each other.

From Avebury, we went to Lacock, a historic village in the Cotswolds. On the way, we stopped to see one of the Wiltshire horses. The Salisbury plain, where Stonehenge, Avebury, and the Wiltshire horses are, is mostly comprised of a thin amount of topsoil over several feet of chalk. So if you scrape away the topsoil, you see the white chalk underneath. That's how the Wiltshire horses were made - someone scraped away the topsoil in the shape of a large horse, which appears to be white against the green vegetation surrounding it.

Lacock has buildings dating back to the 14th century. It's quite picturesque, and was used as a set in several films, including being used as "Hogsmeade", the village next to Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies. Charles told us the story of one of the residents who was paid very handsomely by a film company to use his house for a film backdrop. They even paid him an extra amount for the inconvenience of having to park somewhere away from his house. The resident thought this was great, as he hadn't owned a vehicle for several years!

We had lunch at the Red Lion pub in Lacock. It dates back to the 14th century! Amazing. After lunch we walked around town for a while, and then hopped back on the bus for our last stop of the afternoon, Castle Combe (pronounced "castle coomb"), an 18th century village that's been voted England's prettiest one. We could see why! It was gorgeous! The village is really small (one street, about 40-50 buildings). We looked around and took some photos, and then headed back to Bath.

After returning, we decided to walk around and find a place to eat. Carrie saw a sign at a fairly nondescript looking pub (Gascoyne Place) that said "live jazz", so we decided to eat there. What a find! Aside from Hason Raja in London (my mouth is watering again as I think about it), this was the best meal we had on our trip. I had slices of lamb in a port reduction sauce, and Carrie had pollock. The food was amazing! The jazz was good as well. All in all it was a fitting end to our last full day.

The next day, we had several hours to kill before taking the train to London. So we walked around for a while. We ended up at Pultney Bridge, in front of an antique shop that we'd passed every day. And every day we passed it, Carrie stopped and ooohed and ahhhed at a small bronze sculpture of a rabbit. So, this being the last day, I decided to buy it. In spite of Carrie's saying "no no! It's too expensive" I walked into the shop and asked the clerk for the price. She opened the case, took out the rabbit, turned it over, and said in a cockney accent, "one-ninety-nine". I did a quick calculation, came up with about $275, decided we could afford it and that it would look nice on our mantle, and told her I'd take it. She took it (and us) next door to their main shop. As she and the clerk in the other shop were discussing how to ship it to us, the second clerk turned to me and asked how I wanted to pay the "nine-ninety-nine", and I realized that I had misunderstood the original clerk. So we apologized profusely, and backed out of the shop. But not before Carrie got to pet the bunny good-bye.

That afternoon, we took the train from Bath to London, and then took the Heathrow Express to the airport and then on to our hotel for one last night in England. The next day, I woke up at 4AM to get us packed and ready to go home while Carrie slept. We took the shuttle to the airport, and caught our first flight of the day. We got home at 1AM, and got to bed at 2AM. So we were up for 30 hours.

We were both exhausted, but we'd had a great trip.

I've posted a bunch more pictures on Flickr.

On hiatus while we're traveling

We're traveling to New England, Olde Englande, and Wales. This blog is on hiatus until we get back. I've posted this before, but here's our itinerary.

August 29th: Fly from Seattle (leaving at 5:30AM - I'm not looking forward to that!) to Denver to Boston to visit Carrie's sister Michelle and her husband Joe. I've never met Joe, but everyone tells me that he's a hoot. I'm looking forward to meeting him! We're spending the night before we leave in a hotel near Sea-Tac.

August 30: Visiting Joe and Michelle. There's a slim possibility that Carrie & I will be going to Rhode Island to see a very old house that was owned by my ancestors.

August 31: Visiting Joe & Michelle. The Boston Red Sox are out of town this day, so we might be able to tour historic Fenway Park - I've always wanted to see (and touch) the Green Monster.

September 1: Visiting Joe & Michelle. We'll need to hit the sack early, because we have a 9AM flight the next morning. Joe & Michelle have told us that they'll take us to the airport, even though it's a long drive (each way!) for them. Bless 'em for that.

September 2: Fly from Boston to London. Leave Boston at 9AM. Due to a 5-hour time difference, arrive at Heathrow airport at 8:45PM. We're staying at the Park Inn Russell Square, recommended to us by some good friends. It's near the British Museum, and just a few blocks from two different tube stops.

September 3: The plan is to take it a little easy this day, to recover from jet lag. Carrie found a rubber stamp store a few block from our hotel, so we might go there. There are several walking tours in the area, and I think we may do one of those this evening, if we're up to it. We also want to see the location of the great book "84 Charing Cross Road". If you have any good suggestions for recovering from jet lag, let me know.

September 4: Hampton Court Palace. Carrie is setting the agenda for our stay in London, and this is high up on her list. Since Hampton Court is quite a way west of London, I think we'll take a train to get there, and take a three hour river tour to get back. A three-hour tour?

September 5: The Portobello Road Saturday market. This sounds really cool. Antiques, flea market. A massive shopping opportunity for Carrie! Saturday evening, we'd like to go see a play (Carrie is leaning towards a comedic version of Hitchock's "The 39 Steps". Sounds good to me!

September 6: Take the 8:15 AM train from London (Euston Station, about 10 blocks from our hotel) to Llandudno, in northern Wales. Llandudno (pronounced "Smith") is a Victorian seaside resort town on the north coast of Wales. It's a good base for exploring the area. We should arrive about noon, and spend the rest of the afternoon checking into our hotel and exploring the town.

September 7: Pick up a rental car (already reserved) at Llandudno Junction (a suburb of Llandudno, if there is such a thing), and head south to Portmerion, a small Italianate village where that great 60's TV show "The Prisoner" was filmed, and Harlech Castle.

September 8: More castles: This time Caernarfon and Conwy. We love castles!

September 9: Do laundry. Find a small pub, sit there and talk to the locals. We'll also try to ride a narrow-gauge railway.

September 10: Check out of the hotel, turn in the rental car, and take the train from Llandudno to Bath, in England. Carrie loves Jane Austen, so this is a natural. Arrive in Bath mid-afternoon. Check into the B&B and then go look at the famous Roman baths and the abbey.

September 11: All day bus tour to Stonehenge, Avebury, Lacock village (which was the Hogwarts village Hogsmeade in the Harry Potter movies), and Castle Combe village in the Cotswolds. Should be a good way to see a number of sites. The tour company ("Mad Max Tours") has been highly recommended to us.

September 12: Touring Bath. Start off with the Roman ruins and the abbey. There are also some great Georgian buildings, and a Jane Austen museum to see, as well as a highly-recommended costume museum.

September 13: Take the train to Salisbury to see the cathedral.

September 14: A day of rest and packing, followed by an evening train to London. We'll spend the night at the Sheraton Skyline, near Heathrow.

September 15: We fly from Heathrow to Boston, from Boston to Chicago, and from Chicago to Seattle. Then from the airport to home, after more than 20 hours traveling.

September 16: A day off to recuperate. We'll need it!