Monday, June 21 Leave for England.
On a warm summer morning, we're off on
our "holiday" in England! We (Mary
Jane, her twin sister Janet Tucker, Dan, and Scotty) fly from Harrisburg, PA to
Dulles (Washington, D.C.) to Heathrow, London. Scotty's stuffed animals (Teddy, Fetch, Zip, Patches, and
Hi-Tops) travel with us in Scotty's carry-on suitcase. (Little do they know that they will be
joined by many more stuffed animals purchased in England!)
We decided that we should visit our friends in England
again. It's great to have our
"long-distance" English friends!
Our flight, United Airlines Flight 918, scheduled to
leave Dulles at 6:20 p.m., doesn't leave until about 7 p.m. The pilot says "warning lights" came
on, and they "have to fill out a report."
(Whatever that means!)
Tuesday, June 22 London.
The trip to England seems short--maybe
because we sleep part of the time.
(At least Jan, Scotty, and I sleep.) Dan wakes us for breakfast--it's about 6 a.m. "local time" in
England! From the plane, as we
sleepily try to eat breakfast before landing, we see the "hedgerows" of
England--plus some housing that Scotty says looks like where the Dursleys live
in the Harry Potter movies. We land about 7 a.m., local time.
"Go down to Kew in lilac time...It isn't far from
London." (John Masefield.) We do
go down to Kew! After the long
waits for passport control, customs, and car rental, it's refreshing to walk to
quiet little Kew Village, near Kew Gardens, from our B&B (Pro Kew B&B,
Kew) for lunch at the Pagoda Restaurant.
We take an hour's rest at our B&B, then ride the Tube from Kew
Gardens Station into King's Cross Station, London. At King's Cross Station we see where the "Platform 9 3/4"
scenes in Harry Potter were
filmed. Then we walk a short
distance to the British Library to visit the Exhibition Galleries and look at
such famous documents as the Magna Carta, the Lindisfarne Gospels, one of Gutenberg's original Bibles, and some
of Shakespeare's plays and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. We
conclude our day with a 7 p.m. performance of the stage musical version of Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang at the Palladium
Theatre near Oxford Circus. The Palladium is much smaller than I imagined it to
be. I think the seating area is smaller than that in the Weis Center at
Bucknell. Superb performance! The acting, singing, dancing, sets, and
special effects are flawless!
Tonight and tomorrow night, we stay at Pro Kew B &
B, in Kew. Our Saab rental car
remains parked outside our B & B, with a "parking sticker" (purchased from
our B & B) in the window so we won't get a ticket.
Wednesday, June 23 London.
We ride the
Tube in the rain to Westminster station.
From there, we cross the Thames to the "Millennium Eye," the huge revolving
wheel. We made reservations (while
back in the USA) for a 10 a.m. ride on The Eye. The rainy weather seems to have kept many people away. There are no lines waiting to board The
Eye, and we share our "pod" on The Eye with only 4 other people.
We eat lunch in and tour part of the British
Museum. In the few hours from
after lunch to closing time, it's impossible to see everything in this Museum. We do see the Rosetta Stone (used to
solve the riddle of translating Egyptian hieroglyphics); Egyptian, Assyrian,
and Anglo-Saxon artifacts; costumes from the current movie Troy; and the Lewis chess set, which was used as the model
for the chess set in Harry Potter.
A
short Tube ride puts us in Piccadilly Circus. At "Lilywhite's," a sporting goods shop, Scotty buys a red
"England" soccer jersey with "#7 Beckham" on it. Dan buys a large St. George's flag (red cross on white
field) and two smaller St. George's flags (the kind you hang on your car
windows). "Jess" and her friend "Jules" shop at Lilywhite's in the movie Bend
It Like Beckham.
We conclude our day with a leisurely and delicious
dinner at Strada Restaurant.
Thursday, June 24 London. Drive
to Bristol.
A clear and
sunny day. This is a big day in
England--the England National Football (soccer) team plays Portugal at Portugal
in the "Euro 2004" games. More
about this later.
We
ride into London to visit the new Globe Theatre. The late American actor Sam Wanamaker spearheaded research
efforts to locate the site in London of Shakespeare's original Globe Theatre.
Wanamaker then led a fund drive to build a new Globe Theatre on a site as near
the location of Shakespeare's original Globe as possible. (The original site is partly occupied
by existing buildings.) Our tour
of the new Globe Theatre includes watching a "line" rehearsal (actors
practicing their lines in the dialects of Shakespeare's time). Scotty buys a "Plague Rat" puppet in
the gift shop. Jan buys me a
couple magnets. We have lunch in
the restaurant at the Globe.
Hat overboard! To reach the
Globe Theatre, we have to cross the Thames on the new "Millennium" Bridge. Today it's quite windy on this bridge. We stop to photograph the Globe from
the Millennium Bridge on our return.
As we do so, the wind takes Dan's "2002 Winter Olympics" baseball hat
from his jacket pocket and drops it into the Thames.
We conclude our visit to London with a quick stop at
Harrod's, a London destination that Scotty chose. Scotty and Dan visit the "Toy floor." One of Scotty's objectives at Harrod's
is to find and buy a "Hermione" action figure for me. Alas, no Hermione action figures are to be found there, but
Scotty certainly had a good idea.
We drive to Bristol. We stay tonight (and June 25, 26,
and 27) at the Bradford Hotel, Avonmouth, Bristol, where we stayed two years
ago when we visited the Bristol area.
When we reach the Bradford Hotel, the couple who run it, plus four or so
guests, are in the "pub" part of the Hotel watching the England vs. Portugal
soccer game (Euro 2004). We join
them all, and add our cheers for England.
After the two halves and two overtimes, both teams are still scoreless.
England loses on penalty kicks.
Too bad.
Friday, June 25 Bristol.
Today we see our Bristol friends. We visit Liz and Mon at Liz's Flower
Shop, Shirehampton, and enjoy dinner with them at Lamplighter's Pub. We had hoped to visit with Malcolm and
Margaret, but Margaret is too sick at the moment for company. We visit Brian and Eileen after
lunch. We walk on, and photograph,
the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
After our
dinner with Liz and Mon, we hold a parley to decide on our itinerary for June
26 and June 27.
According to our May 22, 2004, itinerary, on June 26
we will drive to Stonehenge (40 mi.) and Bath (30 mi.); and on June 27 we will
drive to Wales to see Chepstow Castle and Tintern Abbey (20 mi.).
We decide that we can't adequately visit Stonehenge
and Bath on the same day, since (1) we also want to visit the town of Salisbury
on the day we visit Stonehenge and (2) both Stonehenge and Bath are not in a
direct line from each other, so we would spend a lot of time driving from
Stonehenge to Bath or vice versa.
Jan suggests that, since Wales (location of Chepstow Castle and Tintern
Abbey) are relatively close to Bath, we should visit Bath for lunch on, say,
June 26, then go to Chepstow Castle and Tintern Abbey in the afternoon. Then we should visit Stonehenge and
Salisbury on the next day, or vice versa.
Jan and I really want to have lunch at Sally Lunn's in Bath! We won't visit the Roman Baths Museum
again, since the four of us visited it in 2002.
Saturday, June 26 Bath;
Chepstow Castle and Tintern Abbey in Wales.
We visit Bath. At Sally Lunn's, a must-visit restaurant, we have lunch,
which includes the famous Sally Lunn buns. We shop at "Paddington and Friends" (I buy a mini-Paddington
Bear dressed as a "Beefeater" Tower of London guard) and Marks & Spencer,
sightsee, and photograph the "Circus" and the Royal Crescent. It's later than we had intended by the
time we leave Bath. This is one of
those cities we can return to again and again, and still find new places to see
and old places that to re-visit.
We cross the Severn Bridge into Wales and tour Chepstow
Castle, where William Marshall lived in the early 1200s.
We visit Tintern Abbey--because of the poem "Lines
written a few miles above Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth. It's late afternoon (after 5 p.m.) by
the time we reach Tintern Abbey, and it's beginning to get dark because of the
overcast sky and storm. In the gift shop, we buy a few things (including a copy
of Wordsworth's "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey." The Abbey is closed at this hour, but
we walk around outside, and take pictures. A plaque on the low stone wall surrounding the Abbey notes
that, at that spot in 1568, copper and tin were first mixed to make brass. (Historically, I think copper and tin
were mixed to make brass earlier than 1568, but this may be the first time it
was made in this area; or maybe the plaque really said "568.") All of the monastery grounds are fenced
in by a low stone wall. Our dinner
is at the Abbey Hotel, across the street from Tintern Abbey, in what might have
been the location of more monastery buildings.
Sunday, June 27 Stonehenge,
Salisbury.
Today we
make our biennial pilgrimage to Stonehenge. For me, visiting Stonehenge is a peaceful, serene, and
mystical experience. As I sit near
the stones, there is truly a spiritual feeling, something indefinably
wonderful. The audio guide, at
spot # 7, states, "Even without the stones and the barrows, this would still be
a special place of serenity." At
one point near the end of the audio tour, the speaker says, "Slowly turn around
and see everything around you."
This enables us to calmly view the total environment of the stones. I don't discount the spiritual force of
such a place as Stonehenge.
We take many
photos of the Standing Stones. The
"audio guides" are vastly improved over the ones in use when we were here in
2002. We have lunch at the
Stonehenge snack bar. In the gift
shop, I buy Scotty a plush Stonehenge sheep.
Earlier, as we drove toward Stonehenge, we discovered
that the A-303 (main highway to Stonehenge and Salisbury) is closed for
construction, and there are detours.
After a circuitous detour, we are finally about a half mile from
Stonehenge. In the front passenger
seat, camera at the ready, I photograph the stones of Stonehenge as we approach
the Salisbury Plain.
After lunch,
we drive to Salisbury. This is Sunday, so many of the shops in Salisbury are
closed. As Jan, Scotty, and I enter Salisbury Cathedral, we notice a black cat
sitting on a counter. Of course,
Scotty the cat lover is drawn to the cat.
He and I take pictures of this cat. We intended to ask someone if the cat is an official "church
cat," but we forgot. We do have a delightful "tea" at the coffee shop in
Salisbury Cathedral.
Monday, June 28 Drive
to Dawlish. Visit with Chris and
Reg.
We shop at Wal-Mart for supplies and
stop in Shirehampton to say our good-byes to Liz and Mon. Liz and Mon promise to try to send us a
video copy of the "Panto" I was in (Humpty Dumpty) when we lived in Shirehampton.
Our drive to
Dawlish (100 mi.) in Devon is broken up by a lunch stop at a "services." (British "services" are similar to the
"service areas" on the New York Thruway and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.)
While Dan rests, Jan, Scotty, and I walk down
Smuggler's Lane to look at the sea.
Reg and Chris stop by and invite us to have
fish-and-chips at their home. Over
fish-and-chips, we have a delightful visit with them!
We stay tonight at The Manor Farm, in Dawlish.
Tuesday, June 29 Dartmoor
and Widecombe; drive to Gloucester.
After a tasty breakfast at the Manor
Farm (bacon, eggs, grilled tomatoes, sausage, homefries, toast, and perked
coffee), we drive toward Dartmoor.
En route, we stop for a couple hours at
Bovey Tracey. Chris and Reg
recommended that we visit the House of Marbles in Bovey Tracey. The House of Marbles is a treasure
trove of marbles, some for sale, some in the little museum. It's hard to resist buying some of all
the different kinds and colors of the glass marbles. Some are flat-sided, some are round, some are shaped like
jello cubes, some are shaped like little stars and moons and butterflies. Sanity prevails, though, and we buy
only a few!
We visit the village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor, where
we have lunch at the Cafe-on-the-Green.
During lunch, some chaffinches visit us and get photographed! In one of the gift shops, I buy Scotty
a plush Moor pony. We hike up a
Tor. We see the wild Dartmoor
ponies, plus sheep and cows that roam the unfenced moors. We drive to the Cotswolds (120 mi.) and
stay at Brookthorpe Lodge in Gloucester.
Wednesday, June 30 Gloucester,
Belas Knap; drive to York.
We visit Gloucester. We enjoy looking at and photographing some of the boats
(including the maroon "Sea Otter") in historic Gloucester Harbor.
At Gloucester Cathedral, we hope to see
and photograph many of the venues used in the first two Harry Potter movies.
To our delight, in the cathedral there is a large bulletin board with
"Harry Potter" information, plus a pamphlet for sale listing the film locations
in the Cathedral Cloisters. We photograph lots of "Harry Potter"-related places!
We are
intrigued by and photograph the effigy of Robert Cuthose, Duke of Normandy and
eldest son of William the Conqueror.
The effigy is positioned with the right knee bent and right foot crossed
over the left foot. We're not sure
of the significance of the pose.
(On August 7, Cousin Jim Jackson, at the Jackson Brigade Reunion we
attend in Parkersburg, West Virginia, tells me that the pose of Robert Cuthose
is typical of a "warrior," to show he is ready to do battle.)
In the gift shop, I buy Scotty a mini-bear dressed as
a friar.
We enjoy lunch in the Cathedral
restaurant--Jan's treat!
We make a
slight change in our plans.
Because of the time (it is after 1:00 p.m. by the time we finish lunch),
we eliminate Chedworth Roman Villa from our itinerary and set out instead for
Belas Knap. After a long drive into the Cotswolds, searching for
Belas Knap and retracing our steps, we finally find it! We hike the mostly-uphill 0.75 miles up
to Belas Knap, the best-preserved Long Barrow in Europe. It is worth the hike!
We drive to York (180 mi.). Tonight and tomorrow night, we stay at Avondale Guest House
in York.
Thursday, July 1 York.
It's hard to believe all that we see and do today in
York! After a tasty English
breakfast, we walk to the "medieval city" part of town. We tour the Castle Museum (located in
the old debtors' prison), Clifford's Tower, York Minster, and the Jorvik Viking
Center. At the Castle Museum gift
shop, Scotty buys a little plush bear dressed like a bandit--no doubt supposed
to be Dick Turpin, notorious criminal hanged at York Prison.
In York Minster, we admire the
beautiful rose window, then tour, in the Undercroft, the Foundation Museum,
which shows the historical levels of the Roman Fort Eboracum and the Norman
Cathedral at this spot.
We have a delightful lunch at Betty's Cafe. It's fascinating watching the people
outside the Cafe, especially when it starts raining.
We walk along Shambles and Stonegate Streets. We photograph a mime, costumed to
appear being blown by the wind.
At the Jorvik Viking Center, we ride a "time car" back
to the era of the Viking settlement of York. Even the early smells, some pleasant, some not so pleasant,
are duplicated as we ride through early Jorvik. Costumed craftspersons tell us more about Viking-era York
activities. Scotty buys some
"Viking" Playmobil action figures.
While Jan and I revive with a Starbucks coffee, Dan
and Scott climb the 245 steps to the top of York Minster for the view. They find the climb arduous, but the
view is worth it!
After dinner at a pub, we walk the Medieval City Walls
to Micklegate Bar, the original main gate to York.
On our room TV in our B & B, we watch Greece
defeat Czechoslovakia 1 to 0 in Euro 2004.
Friday, July 2 Drive
to Durham, see Venerable Bede's Tomb; Hadrian's Wall.
Today we drive north to Durham. Jan and I want to see the tomb of St.
Bede--called "St. Bede the Venerable"--in Durham Cathedral. Bede is the author of The
Ecclesiastical History of the English People--the first written English history. We see and photograph his tomb. At the Cathedral gift shop, Jan and I buy beautiful
mauve-and-gold silk rectangular scarves.
In Durham we get the first of two parking tickets which we have ever received in England. (More about parking tickets in July 5, 2004, entry.). (Parking fine is 30 pounds--pretty steep. We pay it July 3 in East Ollerton.)
We drive still farther north to
Hadrian's Wall. Along Hadrian's
Wall, we stop at Chesters Roman Fort and Housesteads Roman Fort, and visit the
museums there, too.
The Hadrian's Wall area is quite "civilized" since we
saw it in 1985 or 1986 when Dan was on sabbatical at the University of
Bristol. It's raining, so we dodge
raindrops as we have Jan take a possible "Christmas picture" of the three of us
on Hadrian's wall.
Or so we think at first. We realize that the "Hadrian's Wall" open to the public is
really the ruins of part of Houseteads Roman Fort that once occupied this
area. All the people are
photographing each other on the ruins of Housesteads, which they mistakenly
think is Hadrian's Wall.
Dan and I remember walking on part of the REAL
Hadrian's Wall in this area on a path that was in between some trees. That section is still there, but it is
beyond the fenced-in "Housesteads" area in a sheep pasture that is not
accessible--actually off limits--from the Housesteads compound. We walk around the fenced-in area and
reach the REAL Hadrian's Wall. Jan
obligingly takes a photo of us on the section of the REAL Hadrian's Wall, then
all four of us walk a short distance on it.
Our supper is sandwiches (eaten on the way, in our
car), purchased at the snack bar at Hadrian's Wall gift shop.
We drive southward to the Nottingham area (160
mi). We stay at Brecks Cottage,
MoorHouse, near Nottingham -- a 350-year-old cottage with doorways only 5 and a
half feet high. (The doorways pose
a major challenge for Dan, who is 6 feet, 2 inches tall!)
Saturday, July 3 Nottingham, Edwinstowe, Sherwood
Forest.
We (Jan and I) get up about 6:10 a.m. We have a yummy breakfast, most of the
while also chatting with our landlady.
We pack up, and first drive to East Ollerton to pay
our parking fine. We buy a
business envelope and stamp. We get
a money order, put it and the parking ticket in the envelope, and send
everything registered mail to the parking authority.
Also at East Ollerton, I call the landlord at the
Westham Guest House in Warwick to tell him that it will be after 7 p.m. when we
get to Warwick. (I get to use one
of those cool red phone booths!)
He tells me he will leave the key out for us. He directs me to lift up the milk bottle tray. The key will be there. Our room is number 4 on the second
floor.
At our Brecks Cottage B & B, I read up on Robin
Hood in the book our landlady has, Guide to Rural England.
Here are some notes I took from that book:
"Undeterred by the vague foundations upon which the
legend [of Robin Hood] is built, visitors still flock to see the great hollow
tree which the outlaws purportedly used as a meeting place and as a cache for
their supplies. The Major Oak is
located about ten minutes walk along the main track in the heart of the forest
and presents a rather forlorn appearance.
Its thirty-foot girth and branches 260 feet in circumference are now
supported by massive wooden crutches and iron corsets. There is no denying that the tree is at
least 500 years old, and some sources claim its age to be nearer to 1,000
years. Despite its decayed
appearance the tree is still alive thanks to careful preservation.
Robin Hood Country near Nottingham. We drive to Edwinstowe. A little way up
the road leading northward out of Edwinstowe is Sherwood Forest Visitor Center. We visit Sherwood Forest Country Park
and hike to the Major Oak. As
mentioned above, Robin Hood and his band of thieves supposedly used this tree
as a meeting place and a place to store things. Sherwood forest is not very extensive, at least not the
present-day Sherwood Forest.
We eat lunch at the restaurant in Sherwood
Forest. Dan and I split a Cottage
Pie. We substitute a salad for
chips (fries). I have delicious
lemon meringue pie and coffee. Jan
and Scotty split a pasty, a salad, and a piece of lemon meringue pie and a
chocolate cupcake.
We watch a video about Robin Hood. We visit the museum and gift shop and
buy several things, including a little plush bear dressed as Robin Hood.
In Edwinstowe, we visit the twelfth-century Church of
St. Mary where Robin Hood and Maid Marion were married. We visit "Robin's Den," a gift
shop. I buy Scotty a "fox" plush
toy like the one Jan bought for herself at the Museum gift shop at Sherwood
Forest. There is a beautiful bronze
sculpture of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, which we all photograph.
We drive to Warwick (60 mi). We stay at Westham Guest House in Warwick. All four of us share the same room
here.
En route to Warwick, we stop at a "Moto" Services
(restaurant and gas station). Jan,
Scotty, and I split a pizza and have some "Ben & Jerry's" ice cream. Dan has a burger from Burger King.
Comment:
During this visit to England especially, we've noticed a depressing
uniformity in food at the B & B's we've stayed at. Of course, part of this may be our
choice of B & B's. In 2002, at
the B & B in Cheddar ("Cheddar Rose") for example, the hostess served
delicious homemade breads and muffins, lots of fresh strawberries, and the food
was cooked on her special stove.
We learn that most of the B & B proprietors now get their food and
other supplies from a central supply house.
Sunday, July 4 Warwick
Castle and Oxford.
We have a pleasant breakfast at Westham Guest House. Jan and I go down to breakfast first,
and are about finished when Dan and Scotty come down to eat.
We tour Warwick Castle. This is one place Scotty especially
wished to visit again. Our plan is
to spend half a day here, then go to Oxford. Highlights of today's visit include the Ghost Tower and the
Jester. At the Ghost Tower, we
watch, participate in, react to, and scream to (Jan and I do the screaming!) Warwick
Ghosts Alive, a dramatized
presentation of the story of Sir Guy's murder. Later, we enjoy the show put on by the Jester (wearing a
yellow-and-green jester's costume), who jumps over two kids and a man. We have a pleasant lunch in "The
Undercroft Restaurant," the Castle cafeteria. Jan, Scotty, and I have lemon meringue pie for dessert. After lunch, we split up (Dan and
Scotty, Jan and I) to tour parts of the Castle. We meet about 2:45 on the Castle grounds
We leave about 3:00 p.m. and drive to Oxford (50
mi). We walk around Oxford and see
some venues where scenes in the first two Harry Potter were filmed: Bodleian Library (Hogwarts Infirmary);
Christ's Church (Hogwarts Great Hall); Magdalen College (I think the Broom Lesson
scene). We also see other
places: Radcliffe Camera,
Sheldonian Theatre, and several Colleges that were established in 1200s. There is minimal rain during our walk
around Oxford.
We have pizza at the Pizza Express in Oxford. Jan, Scotty, and I have chocolate cake
for dessert.
We stay at Nanford Guest House in Oxford. (Both the rooms are on the first
floor.) On the TV in Dan and
Scotty's room, we watch Greece defeat Portugal 1-0 to win Euro 2004.
Monday, July 5 Return to
USA.
Jan and I
are up about 6 a.m. We eat
breakfast about 7 a.m., as Dan and Scotty arrive at the dining room, then
return to our room to finish packing.
We get our
bags out in the hall while Dan gets our car and parks in front of our B &
B. Alas, the Parking Police give
us a ticket before we finish loading up our things in the car. We've reached the conclusion that there
are "parking spotters" in buildings near no-parking zones, and that the
"spotters" get a commission for every ticket they give. (We pay the ticket from the
USA.)
Our drive back to London Airport (40 mi.) takes longer
than we anticipated because of rush hour and lanes tied up with truck
breakdowns. We reach Alamo about 10:30 a.m. We leave our rented Saab and take the shuttle to
Heathrow. Our plane starts
boarding at 11:35 a.m, so we go through security with no time to browse through
the gift shops.
Our return flight leaves London for Dulles about 12:20
p.m. We arrive in Harrisburg about
6:18 p.m. after a super vacation.