Thursday August 29th Keswick

Good morning. Nice breakfast at our B & B. Then headed out for a 3 mile hike to the Castlerigg Stone circle. A bit of a hike but beautiful views. Made it there and back while encountering only a few rain drops. On our way down we saw the cute "tea hut".

Sheep on the way up the path.

Back into town to pick up our suitcases and then meandered around town. We had planned to walk and boat around the lake, but due to the unseasonably wet and rainy weather the trails and docks were flooded. So we walked around their Thursday market, had some coffee and cake and grabbed some lunch items in the market. Dennis got some locally produced cheese that he paired with a fresh roll from the local bakery. Denise found a pastelis de nata from Portugal. They were the real deal. Oh yum. As we walked, Dennis kept getting distracted by the slate on the houses and the variety of dogs. Keswick was dog city. Dogs in tow everywhere . Many eateries welcoming dogs inside and one providing a doggie menu. (We chose not to visit the pencil museum.)

Then once again traveling to our next stop, which was Shrewsbury on the border between Wales and England. Caught the bus back to Penrith and then the train to Shrewsbury (72,000). This train had only one transfer which went very smoothly. The second leg was on the Wales train line. Everything was spoken in two languages, Welsh and English. Found some Thai food and are settled into a small city hotel one block from the train station (and by a castle) Up 3 flights in a suite. Quite nice.

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Pretrip practice

Hello my friends and family. This is just a practice "run" of posting on our Britain blog. I always have to relearn the steps. So.... we leave on Monday Aug 19th mid morning flying thru Seattle and then straight to London. We arrive Tues morning around 9:50 am London time (which is 8 hrs ahead -or about 1AM our time) A rough itinerary London Edinburgh Inverness Edinburgh York Keswick ( Lake district of England) Shrewsbury Swansea ( Wales) and on to Cardiff Bath Wareham ("Jurassic Coast - south west coast) Oxford Cotswold Oxford London If you only see this page, there should be links somewhere on the page to get you to the other postings

Sunday Sept 8th London

We decided to visit the Churchill War rooms today. We figured out the tube (the underground) and traveled to the Westminster area. Met some folks from Ohio while standing in line waiting for our entry time. One of the gentlemen served at Kodiak in the navy. He and Dennis had a great "military in Alaska" chat. The War rooms and museum were great. The war museum was almost overwhelming with the amount of information displayed Clementine Churchill's room underground Afterwards we walked around the Parliment square garden adding photos of Big Bend, Westminster Cathedral,Westminster Bridge, the Parliment building and ALL the tourists. The clouds had cleared and it was beautiful. (Last nights forecast for today had been up to 75% chance of rain!) We sat at the park and then strolled up Whitehall street up to Trafalgar square...

Friday September 6th. The Cotswolds

Today we booked a tour of the Cotswolds. Cot inferring small and wolds connected to the sheep trade. The area is full of rolling green hills with villages and small towns nestled among the hills. The entire area is home to only about 170,000 people. Thats about one person per 2 sheep in the region. The first village we visited, Snowshill, had a population of 184. It had a church, a pub and a telephone. (Joke from our driver Steve). In order not to bore you with little details here is an overview. Several of the other towns would have more like 3000 to 5000 population. We visited Chipping Campden, Bourton on the Water, Stow on the Wold, Bibury and started at Moreton in Marsh. We drove through Dover's hill, Broadway, Great Barrington, Ablington, Winson Village and Coln St. Dennis. Old original market in Chipping Campden A majority of villages hav...

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