- Monday June 18 Departed Harrisburg, PA for London, England
by way of Dulles International.
- Tuesday June 19 We arrived at London Heathrow 7:30
AM. After going through customs and renting a car, we drove to Kew for
our Bed and Breakfast. After unloading our luggage, we hit the London
Tube (subway) to see the big city. An avid soccer fan Scott wanted to
see Arsenal's new Emirates Stadium.
After the official tour of Emirates Stadium and a visit to the gift shop,
we took a walk around area of Tower Bridge.
- Wednesday June 20 Early in the morning we hop on the Tube
to Westminster Station, wave at Big Ben and walk across the
Westminster Bridge to ride
the London Eye. After our half-hour
ride through London's sky, we visit "Star Wars: The Exhibition"
which is next door at the County Hall. After we have a snack, we take
the Tube to London's Theatre District. At Jan's request, we visit the
home office of
Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group at 22 Tower
Street. We walk to Piccadilly Circus for Scott to shop at
Lillywhites, a famous sports store. We discover
a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. At 7:30 PM we have tickets for
the stage play Mary
Poppins at Prince Edward Theatre. The play was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
- Thursday June 21 Again we enter the Tube near our B & B in
Kew. We exit it at St. James Park Station. From St. James
Park Station we walk to Buckingham Palace via St. James Park. Our plan is to
watch the "Changing of the Palace Guard" at 11:30 AM. Unfortunately
several thousand other people have the same idea! When we arrive, the people
are at least six deep all along the fence around Buckingham Palace.
The tallest of us (namely Dan) aims his camera above the crowd and hopes. After
lunch, we take the Tube back to Kew to pick up our car and drive to Bristol (120 miles).
- Friday June 22 During the academic year 1985-1986, Mary Jane and Dan
lived in the village of Shirehampton while Dan was on sabbatical leave
doing research at the University of Bristol. We drive to Bristol to
see old friends. We had arranged to visit Malcolm Henderson who had
been our next door neighbor and, along with his wife Margaret, were a
great help to us when we lived in England. It was a great shock to
learn he had died that morning! He was 88. We did get to attend his
funeral.
The year we lived in Shirehampton,
Mary Jane joined "The Shire
Players," the local community theatre group. One word describes this
lot -- "Zany!" She had great fun being in a sing along and a panto.
We track down two of the former Shire Player members
Liz and Mon, who now direct "The Granger Players," and invite them for
dinner at a pub. We had a fantastic
time reminiscing and solving the world's problems. One of the big
topics was that all of England was going smoke free in a little over a
week (July 1st). And from the looks in the pub, many were trying to
light up as many cigs as they could while they could.
- Saturday June 23 We visit one of our favorite places --
Stonehenge. Unfortunately, it was
pouring rain when we were there but we still enjoyed it.
Even though the summer solstice was two days before, a group of
"Druids" processed to the stones and held a ceremony complete with
colorful umbrellas. After visiting
Stonehenge we drove to Salisbury to see
its wonderful cathedral.
- Sunday June 24 When we lived in Shirehampton back in
1985-86, Chris and Reg lived acrossed the street. We soon became
great friends. Chris and Reg now live in Dawlish in
Devonshire. From Bristol we drive to Dawlish to visit them.
- Monday June 25 Since we were already most of the way down
the Devonshire coast when we were in Dawlish, we decided to continue
on down the coast and explore
Cornwall. On the way we drove through Bodmin Moor and stopped at the
famous Jamaica Inn in the center of Bodmin
Moor. About a mile and a half from Jamaica one can travel
one-lane roads to Dozmary Pool of King Arthur fame.
While in the area we also saw the old Bodmin County Jail. After
touring a depressing early 1800s jail, we drove to St. Michael's Mount
which is on an island near Penzance.
- Tuesday June 26 From our B & B in Penzance, we explore
Land's End which is the western most point
of England.
Land's End was
made famous for Americans by the clothing store of the same name. We
drive up the western coast of Cornwall and visit Cape
Cornwall, the delightful artist town of St. Ives and the legendary
birthplace of King Arthur, Tintagel. We
drive to our B & B in
the Bristol area.
- Wednesday June 27 From our B & B in Bristol area, we drive
west into south Wales towards St. David's. Our first stop is
Laugharne to visit the Boathouse where the famous Welsh
poet Dylan Thomas wrote many of his poems and his play Under Milk Wood.
After the Boathouse, we drive to Pembroke to tour Pembroke Castle. We stay
at a neat B & B -- Pedwar Gwynt -- near St. David's.
- Thursday June 28 From Pedwar Gwynt, our B & B, we drive to
Fishguard where the ferry leaves the west
coast of Wales for Rosslare, Ireland. At Fishguard we visit Fishguard
Fort. Then we drive back roads to Pentre Ifan
Cromlech, the best example of an ancient burial chamber in the British
Isles. After the burial chamber, we retrace the back roads to St. David's Cathedral. After St. David's, we drive to
Chepstow for our B & B.
- Friday June 29 From Chepstow, we drive north to explore the
Wye Valley along the English-Welsh Border. We first visit
Tintern Abbey, then Monmouth and Hereford. After lunch in Hereford, we
backtrack a few miles to the small village of Kilpeck
which has the best example of a Norman Romanesque style church in
England. After touring the neat but small 12th century church, we drive to Ludlow and have dinner at the Feathers Hotel
(pictured above). We stay at a neat B & B about three miles
northeast of Ludlow that is in a 350 year old cottage.
- Saturday June 30 We drive from our B & B in Ludlow to
Chipping Campden and its beautiful
golden Cotswold
stone. After tea and scones in Chipping Campden, we drive to Cotswold
Wildlife Park to see animals.
After lions, tiger and bears, we drive 120 miles on a jungle of motorways to
our B & B in Maidstone (southeast of London).
- Sunday July 1 We stay in Maidstone because it is very
close to Leeds Castle. We tour Leeds
Castle in the morning. On our way to Canterbury, we cross the Pilgrims Way. After a walk on the
Pilgrims Way, we drive to
Canterbury to see the Canterbury
Cathedral. After Canterbury, we drive to
our B & B in Windsor to be near Heathrow Airport.
Lots of driving on this trip! Dan put over 1600 miles on the
rental car (Saab
station wagon). Petrol was about one pound Sterling/liter or about
$7.64/US gallon. And we yell if gasoline is over $3.00 a gallon
in the States.
- Monday July 2 Departed London Heathrow Airport 11:50
AM. Because of the recent terrorist events in UK, we decided to skip
breakfast at B & B and leave for Heathrow Airport very early. We are glad
we did because it took us almost four hours to get through all the
checkpoints at security. Heathrow was a madhouse! But we made our
flight.
And luckily, we missed the attempted car bombs at the night clubs in
Piccadilly Circus, London (we were in London about a week before this
incident). We missed the Glasgow Airport car bomb attempt (we didn't
go to Glasgow). We missed the July 3 evacuation of the international
terminal at Heathrow Airport (We left England the day before!).
And we missed all the flooding which was mostly in around Gloucester
in the West Country. Parts of England had the worst flooding in 50 years.
