Day 14 - London

We bid a fond farewell to our Phoebe (our Audi Q3) this morning after adding dirt to her paint job and logging 1,476 miles in 12 days. She was a great car and the GPS was a life saver! I'll miss driving on the left, but I'll admit the right side of the road is calling my name.

After taking the courtesy shuttle from Hertz to Heathrow, we jumped on the train into London, and then a taxi to the British Museum. Having limited time, we hit the highlights. We still moved through Ancient Babylon, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Celtic Britain, and had lunch, plus shopping. The British Museum truly is amazing. The items in their collections are simply amazing and it boggles my mind to realize that I can stare at Cleopatra's sarcophagus, an original sculpture of Roman Emperor Hadrian, Nordic chessmen, and items from a Babylonian ziggurat all under one roof. I could honestly spend a week in this museum and still probably not see everything.

We also wanted to see the Tower of London so we bought tickets for the hop on/hop off tour bus, thinking we could see some of the sights along the way. Traffic this afternoon was horrible so we were stuck on the bus quite a while. We did see sights (Trafalgar Square, St. Paul's, the West End) and did arrive at the Tower about an hour before they closed. The ticket agent snootily said that it takes three hours to visit the Tower; I assured her I could do it an hour. She continued to discourage me even though I was waving pounds at her. And as promised, we saw everything we wanted to within one hour...ha! And yes, Donna, the Crown Jewels were still very well protected and I was unable to grab one for you.

We decided to do something different for dinner tonight so we walked by and under the Tower Bridge heading for a Spanish Tapas restaurant. Along the way, we stumbled upon Her Majesty's royal barge! The restaurant was the perfect way to wrap up our journey as each thing we ordered was out of this world! A walk around the block, a taxi to Paddington Station, a train to Slough, another train to Windsor, and a taxi to our B&B brought our evening fun to an end. We leave London about 11:00 am tomorrow and land on US soil about 1:00 pm Central time. This journey has been amazing and I'm so grateful to have done it, but home is calling and I must return!

All my bags are packed; I'm ready to go! Thanks for taking this journey with me virtually!

 

Day 1 - Arrival and Bath

We had a great trans-Atlantic flight on British Airways. Left Chicago on time and gained a little time with a good tailwind, but we are still trying to figure out the dress of this fellow passenger.

Mary Poppins?

I dozed off and on for about 5 hours while my traveling companions scored First Class dinners; not too bad! We flew in over Ireland just as the sun started to rise about the horizon; the Emerald Isle was shrouded in fog. On our final approach to Heathrow, we had to circle once to lose altitude so we passed very near Windsor Castle. I waved, but don't think Queen Liz saw me.

Windsor Castle

After breezing through Passport Control and Customs, we caught the Heathrow Express bound for London Paddington train station. I love this train as it gets you to central London within 20 minutes. We arrived with plenty of time before our next train so we grabbed some much needed coffee and snacks. I loved the fact that all the Brits were bundled up as the temperature was 56 while I was in short sleeves, loving the brisk air! Soon, it was time to board our next train to Bath.

Paddington Station

Mind the Gap

Train to Bath

Opposite side of Bath train station

We checked into our bed and breakfast, grabbed lunch, and headed out to see the Roman Baths and Bath Abbey. The strangest sight today was a street musician playing good old Deep South USA blues music at the footsteps of the nearly 2,000 years old Roman baths

A natural hot springs exists in Bath and the Celts were the first to build a shrine on the site. After the Romans invaded, they began to construct a much larger bathing complex. Between the 2nd and 5th centuries, the baths saw their heyday, but when the Romans left Britain, the baths started to fall into disrepair. Restoration attempts happened every few hundred years, but the site as it mostly is today was reconstructed in the 18th century. The original Roman stone walkways/floors have been excavated and when visiting the baths, you get to walk over them on a catwalk-like structure. It's very hard to wrap your mind around such old stone works. The exhibit was outstanding and I really appreciated the museum putting artifacts, like stone carvings on the walls where they were easily viewed.

Bath Abbey is just across the plaza from the baths, so we popped in to take a look around. In the 1090s, the Normans of the area built a cathedral here, but by 1499, it was in ruins and the original abbey was constructed. This structure only lasted 40 years before being destroyed. It was restored and repaired in 1611 and remained largely intact until WWII when it was severely damaged during the Bath Blitz bombing by the Germans. The east stained glass window was blown out and had to be rebuilt by hand using 80% of the shattered remains. The Abbey is still a functioning parish church now and is working on additional renovations. It's not the largest English church I've been in, but it's still very nice and the staff was super friendly.

Bath is a very busy town full of pedestrian malls and shops. The buildings are gorgeous and old, but quaint. This has been a great first stop on our tour. After dinner at Sally Lunn's, in the oldest house in Bath which dates from 1842, we called it an early evening as we are very tired from our flight. More to come tomorrow as I get behind the wheel on the wrong side!