From London to Barnstaple in the West Country,and Stonehenge on the way.
Today was long. I really over-estimated our readiness to leave early today as we got back from Paris so late last night, and I had planned to pick up our rental at 10 am, near Kings Cross station. NO WAY!
I called to let the car rental know we wouldn’t be there until early afternoon, walked up to meet Tom, who’d had breakfast by then at Vibe, his now favorite place for breakfast, and after getting back to Hilary and Claudio, and then got myself ready to leave for the next ten days, not arriving back in London until August 13. By the time we actually left, it was getting to be late morning, and we missed the train from New Barnet to Kings Cross by about 30 seconds, then had to wait another 30 minutes, and from Kings Cross had to walkabout 15 minutes. Anyway, all that worked out and we got the car with no problem… except then I had to re-orient myself to not only driving on the left hand side of the road with a right hand drive, but also a stick shift, which I haven’t driven for several years. Plus, the transmission shifter was set up differently, so it took a bit of time and effort to get used to the whole thing, although we go back to Hilary’s no problem, where we picked up Tom’s (large) suitcase and my backpack. But then, we hung around for a short while before actually hitting the road, so didn’t leave until probably 2:30 or maybe a little later.
The trip today took us first to Stonehenge in Wiltshire, on our way to Barnstaple, Devon, where we’ll stay two nights to visit Devon and Cornwall, before heading up to the Bristol and Bath area, where we’ll stay another two nights. From Bath/Bristol through South Wales to Aberystwyth on the Cardigan Bay, and then to North Wales and Llanberis (pronounced Chlanberis). Then to Lake Windermere in the Lake District by way of Liverpool (and maybe Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and the Cavern, all tourist traps, I’m sure), and from the Lake District to the beautiful city of York, and then back down to London via either Cambridge or Oxford. Tom’s going to see a lot of England, and Wales too.
The first time I visited Stonehenge was unintentional. I was driving to Cornwall when I spotted something just a little off the road to the right, and thought what is that, that looks like Stonehenge – and it was! I was also surprised to find that the stones forming the henge (circle) were large, but nowhere near as large as I had imagined them to be. We had the same reaction today. You’re driving along the A303, minding your own business, and there it is, in a field just off the main road.
Stonehenge isn’t that far, actually(England is not a large country), maybe two hours under good conditions, but because we left so late and we hit pockets of heavy traffic along the way, we didn’t get there until right around 5:30, just after the ticket office closed (years ago, there was no ticket office, but that was long ago), but we were able to simply walk through, although I had forgotten it’s then a little over a mile walk to the stones. We got there and were easily able to see the stone circle, but we couldn’t get through the gates, which would have allowed us to walk right up to the stones. Still, we – and especially Tom (I’ve been here a number of times), got a good view of Stonehenge, and had a nice walk doing so. I was actually quite amazed that we were able to simply walk in, past the now closed ticket office.
Then, back on the road to Barnstaple, in North Devon, our final destination for the evening, where we’ll be staying for two nights, and from where we’ll visit coastal Devon and Cornwall tomorrow, but as we running pretty late and it was two hours further west, we took a detour and headed into Salisbury for dinner. I wish we could have spent a little more time in Salisbury, but our goals was dinner and then onto the Park Hotel in Barnstaple.
Salisbury is a medieval town with roots dating back 2,000 years, and developing as a norman town after the conquest of England by William the First in 1066, becoming a major market town dealing primarily in wool and cloth, and in which Salisbury Cathedral, was built between 1220 and 1258. It’s an old town.
We ate dinner at the Ox Row Inn, in a building dating back to the around 1594 and which sits in Market Place, itself the central marketplace dating back to 1227. Like I said, it’s an old city.
Dinner (and a pint for Tom), and then off we went, with a now 2 ½ hour drive to Barnstaple ahead of us, as the evening darkened. Except, we couldn’t find the bloody car. We knew it was within a few blocks, but which few blocks? We walked in circles at least a couple of times, until we finally found the car after maybe 30 or 40 minutes, and had actually walked by the car at one point (which was on the other side of the street, so we didn’t notice it and hadn’t realized we were on the street where we’d parked it). At any rate, in we got and off we went, arriving At the Park Hotel in Barnstaple around 11:30 pm, pretty tired.
The hotel was very nice, and quite large, and the night manager, Christian, was super nice and super helpful .We got to our very nice room, which turned out to not have two beds, so got moved to another room (with two beds) and got complimentary free breakfast the next day.
And then, after a long day, and much driving – I was pretty good at it by now – we said good night to one another and hit the sack. ZZZZ!