Saturday Sept 7th off to London

The day began looking towards our last train ride in Great Britian. First a light breakfast at a coffee shop owned by a Spanish woman who served up a fresh home made potatoe tortilla, we would have called it a frittata. Then up the stairs came a tray of fresh cinnamon rolls. Totally down for more, and we did. Heck, we were going to walk 1.2 miles to the train station, what trouble is splitting a cinnamon roll, right? We have the walk down having completed it the day before on our trip to The Cotswolds.

The train was 5 coaches, we had reserved seats, it terminated in London Piccadilly station. It was packed, PACKED. A total body crush trying to get to our seats with our light back packs and two small carry-ons. Dennis being rugged and dutiful braced the packed train aisle, manifesting to the surprise of friends (and himself) why he was 2nd team all district offensive lineman. No injuries to self or foe and the objective of an open (and reserved) seat was secured.

London, so far is a lovely city. I can tell from the start that we don't have enough time, desire or discretionary money to do all that would be appealing. Just something left for another day. To cap it off we did our last laundry at a mat staffed with an attendant. Man, was she nice AND helpful. We were both pretty hungry and Dennis was getting grumpy so off to a early dinner which was fantastic. Also close to our lodging. After dinner we took the mile stroll down to The Thames River. On the way back walked around St. Paul's Cathedral, calm disturbed only by a motorcycle club revving it through town. Then Dennis had a hunch of leaving the pub without paying but really wasn't sure. He just can't let it go when not certain, so he poked his head in the pub to find he had NOT paid and the 2 bar tenders had placed a bet whether he would come back to pay. Nice to have a clear conscience.

Now to plan the next 3 days. Hmmmm

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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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