Back from Across the Pond

Well, I haven't written for a while so it's time to make up for lost time. My excuse is that I was in Britain for 3 weeks (Paris for a few days) and so was so busy having fun and sightseeing I didn't blog...

This was our first trip to Britain (other than an airport stopover at Heathrow some years ago) and it was exciting to explore the beautiful lands of England and Scotland...we didn't make it as far north as we wanted to go in Scotland, up to the Highlands or over to Ireland...that is another trip...linking to the ancestors...

I'm going to tackle this in chunks as it will make for a very long blog posting otherwise...

We landed at Heathrow and picked up the rental car to drive to Salisbury our first stop...Fraser had the joy of figuring out driving on the left side of the road and being on the opposite side of the car but he is amazing and quickly got the hang of things. Luckily we had a GPS - I don't know what people did before them...got lost an awful lot is a great possibility.

Stayed at a lovely B and B called Rokeby House - we had a huge room and lovely English breakfast..I quickly got used to baked beans and veg sausage - that was really yummy with tomatoes and mushrooms. They have a beautiful breakfast room filled with light looking down to their backyard.

That photo above is Salisbury Cathedral - a beautiful Gothic medieval structure - we went on a tour and climbed to the top...I wondered if this was the model for Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth"?

You will notice we climbed up for views at a few points...Fraser does like to seek out the highest point...

I definitely admired our guide who was a little more mature than we were..climbing those steps a few times a day..

 At the top at last..looking down to the town below and beyond..what an amazing feat of engineering that has last some 8 centuries...someone couldn't resist taking a photo of the famous red phone box either...

We quite enjoyed Salisbury - they also had a nice health food store there and we went for dinner in a pub that was almost as old as the church. Next up...Glastonbury..home of the mystical i.e. Chalice Well, King Arthur, the Tor...nearby Stonehenge...

We stayed out in the country at a home called "Box Cottage" ..we did have a little difficulty finding it even with the GPS as we were using a postal code to find it...after asking a couple of locals we did locate it - filled with 8 Golden Labrador Puppies!

We went for dinner in Glastonbury..my kind of New Agey place at Cafe Galatea - where we were serenaded by a harpist...he even played "All Blues" - obviously sensing we were jazz fans...we had an interesting discussion with him about Harpo Marx - apparently Harpo released a jazz recording in the fifties. Learning to play the harp would be on my bucket list..

The next morning we set off to check out the Chalice Well...a source of healing water and for Fraser a delicious chocolate "flapjack" - not a pancake but more of a granola bar but better..

 Here I am displaying my water bottle filled with healing water at the well...unfortunately it didn't work on prevention of my cold which began a couple of days later..still, it didn't put too much of a damper on things..

 The hike up to the Tor...fortunately a lovely day..

Tomorrow on to the Georgian beauty and UNESCO site that is Bath....