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We had a great trip to England, drove all the way across the country and didn't hit anything! The steering wheel is on the right hand side of the car, and you drive on the left side of the road so it does take some getting used to, but Norm did a great job of it. We landed in London, from there to Bath where we saw the Roman Baths, the Romans founded the town around the hot springs. The baths were excavated and restored and are much the same as they were in the early times of the Roman Empire. We took a day trip to Amesbury to see the stone circles. This is the largest of the stone circles in England with two inner circles. There is the exact same configuration on the surface of Mars down to the centimeter. There are magnetic fields that you can find with metal rods while walking in the circle. Next, was Stonehenge, the most famous of the circles with the lintels still remaining on some of the megaliths. Much smaller than Amesbury but very interesting. From there we went on to St. Ives, on the Western coast of England. St. Ives is a cross between the rugged coast of Monterey and the clear water and sandy beaches of the Caribbean. We stayed at the wonderful Blue Hayes, a small private hotel where we were treated like family. The food was outstanding and we felt so "at home". We went to St. Michael's Mount, an island off the coast, a challenging hike up about a mile on large cobblestones, but beautiful old structure built by the Monks, now a National Trust site. We huff and puffed our way up the walkway, sat at the first bench we came to only to be passed up by 85 year olds on crutches, 300 pound ladies, etc. The Europeans are much more into hiking than we "softies". I loved the names of some of the little towns, my favorite? Mousehole....old Cornish village, pronounced "Mowsell". We got back home on Sunday night and were still waiting for our brains to arrive on Tuesday. The jet lag coming back was a real issue! |
