Almost home

We are now into our seventh week of our adventure. I write this at 10 AM in the morning London-time, but sadly two in the morning BC time.now that we are back in Surrey, BC. 

It has been an amazing ride. We have covered six countries, flown on six airplanes, ridden the chunnel under the English channel, rented 2 cars, driven for days on the "wrong" side of the road, and slept in 19 beds. We have hiked through a glacier cave to Jungfrau and stood outside atop of the highest mountain in Europe. Next we savoured the beaches with clear blue warm water, visited a few of the 1,200 islands offshore and learned of tumultuous history of Croatia. A week later we walked the canals of Venice, and enjoyed the art and architecture of Florence.

Tuscany also had its romantic charm. The endless vineyards and walled cidiital cities such as Siena have an alluring attraction that makes one relax in a past cradle of time. The numerous bottles of Italian wine certainly help blend body and time. 

In Rome we found accommodation a few hundred yards from the coliseum and visited the Vatican, enjoying the sights and food of this ancient town.  Before flying to Paris, Vesuvius and Pompeii captured our attention for most of a day. 

Paris, the city of love, also did not let us down. The beautiful wide and tree lined avenues, squares, statues, Louvre, and Versailles are truly sites to remember.  Cruising the river Seine really helped us get a true appreciation of the beauty, romance and history along its tranquil river side. Ade's love was to enjoy walks along either side of the river to soak up miles of of true Parisian atmosphere. 

Finally England delivered the icing on the cake. There were the seaside towns of Brighton and Torquay--the countryside in Southern England and it's numerous small towns focused around a large Cathedral and numerous city pubs. The first division Soccer match where "our" team (Bristol City) scored the winning goal with 30 seconds remaining in "extra time."

Our final stop, London, had everything from nightlife to history, theater and spacious parks.

It has been an amazing ride!

As luck would have it, we experienced our first morning rain in over 7 weeks as Brian picked us up from the Vancouver airport. We did experience a little bit of rain in Britain, but were lucky as it generally took place at night and the day was either cloudy or sunny and easy to enjoy.

On the   ride home from the airport to Surrey, we were all struck by the urban development of the lower mainland compared to Britain. Britain's Greenbelt legislation has caused the cities to become much more densely populated but this has allowed the countryside to remain much as it has for The last 1000 years.  Also the "Heritage legislation" has made homeowners build and renovate in the ancient look of the various villages. 

 England truly is a nation you can travel over "hill and dale" and enjoy very pastoral  scenery along narrow roads lined with hedges as you go from town to town (driving on the wrong side of the road with roundabouts to negotiate very frequently). 

However, home is HOME!  The ease and the speed of the drive to Surrey was truly refreshing. Finally having spacious accommodation of a home and yard such as  Harvey and Wendy's is something we will forever have a much greater appreciation for.

… Back to Kelowna's!!

Day 3 and 4 at London

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The last 2 days have been a blur. London is a fast paced, vibrant, fun -to-be-in city. 

The hundreds of pubs and bars are always full from lunch on but you can always find a spot. Crosswalk lights are almost without purpose as pedestrians dodge between gaps in the densely packed cars and busses that are always in a stop and go mode. 

In additions to the river cruise on the famous river Thames, London has the best shopping in the world. Need anything in the world and Harrods will deliver it in 48 hours (at their price!). 

Even unusual things are found in Harrods, such as the Dianna and Dodi memorial. 

Every car dealership I have ever heard of is on London. It is a car buffs dream, window shopping for Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Lamborgini, McClaren and more. 

The first day when I returned the rental car we had to negotiate parts of the downtown. Thanks to Ade's navigation skills, a map and TWO GPS's we inched to our destination taking 3 times the expected time--driving on the left side of the road did not help matters !

The nice thing about london is their world famous museums are free!  Science, Natural history (from prehistoric time to modern day), culture and Art , V and A museum, and on and on. Although not as extensive in its displays, the 

Museum of Natural History is a scaled down version of Washington's Smithsonian Institute 

Then London has the public squares (like Trafalger), parks (like Hyde park the home of free expression where people stand on a soap box and tell the world of their ideas) and streets like the Beatle's Abbey Road.  The changing of the guard BuckinghamPalace was not high on our priority list.  However I accidentally had one of my walks pass by at the perfect time and it was really a spectacle. 

London has it all including the night life of Soho and the Theatre district. 

Our final afternoon saw us meet a friend of Harv and Wendy. We enjoyed a matinee theatre production--THOSE DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRALS. it was a comic musical and even though it lasted 2.5 hours, the music was fantastic and the storyline histerically funny. 

After another great London restaurant meal, it was a short taxi ride to St Pancras station and our final subway train to Gatwick airport. 

9.5 hours breathing Air Transit air and we are approaching the Vancouver airport. 

Bye bye adventure. 

Corfu castle

One of the most ancient cities in south England is Corfe  

The homes range from one to two thousand years in age!  They are still lived in today. Building regulation prevent construction of any new home that does not look one thousand years old!!!

Every home is rock!  The village is set in the backdrop of castle rules that date back over two thousand years!

The scenery is very pastoral as it is in much of south west england. Many small farms on green rolling hay fields separated by large hedges. Zoning regulations make it difficult to subdivide and heritage regulations prevent changing the ancient look of existing homes. 

Torquay and Taunton

Torquay is a beautiful seaside town in south west england  

Mom spent her war years there teaching young students who were relocated there for several years while Bristol was been a target of GermN bombs during the war. It must have been a tough job teaching kids who never got to see their parents for many months ar a time; and be responsible for seeing the into fallout shelters from time to time. 

Next was Taunton, home of my Gramps. 

He was born here in 1882. They were the Cider makers of the town. Much to my surprise they drink as much cider on this town as beer!

It is truly a beautiful old town with a very ornate cathedral. It was a little disappointed Ing that we were unable to locate the proper people to allow us a more thorough family search.

This area was the home a a large British insurrection agInst the king in the Middle Ages. After a fierce battle , hundreds of revolutionaries were executed but the area must have temained in the kings favour as it is the homes a many estates and beautiful architecture. 

It is one of the nicest places we have visited and a "must-see" on some future visit. 

London day two

O   We bought a London bus pass and rode around town from Trafalgar Square through the inner-city which included St. Paul's Cathedral Westminster Abbey Dan prominent buildings London Bridge Tower of London.

888,000 copies surround the Tower of London.  Each copy represents a slain British soldier from world war one. This display will run until November 11, remembrance Day.

We stopped at the Tower of London and spent most of the day they're taking in and enjoyable history lesson

BuckinghamPalace 

Ended the day with another bus tour, a short one, and then s walk from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham palace.

Another great meal in downtown London and then off to book a theater show for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be our last full day in downtown London.

London day one

Found pur place in downtown London in the heart of the theater district only one block away from Trafalgar Square.

It was a tad tricky driving for about a half an hour in downtown London. The traffic was extremely dense and it's always a little interesting when you're driving on the left-hand side of the road. However we returned the car to the car rental agency without incident.

We have finally encounter to rain on our holiday. It rained for most of the day while we were driving to London and now that we have drop the car off it is still raining but we were still able to do the small walk throughout the center of London and found the store to buy a little wine and beer. Find Thai restaurant wrapped up how most enjoyable evening.

Burford, and Oxford

I Out trip to London was interrupted by a very enjoyable stop at the medieval town called Burford. It is one of those places that you kind of accidentally bump into en route to somewhere else.

It was truly a find. All the houses  where constructed of stone. The streets were extremely narrow. Also there was a very beautiful and stream running through the town adjacent to an ancient church That was built in the 1200s. The cemetery was very unusual having many burial caskets placed above ground and made out of the granitelike rock. Some of the graves were nearly 1,000 years old. 

A late lunch at Burford saw us eating a traditional British meal with roast beef potatoes Yorkshire pudding vegetables horse radish and gravy. Was it ever good!!

from here it was onto Oxford university campus. However we did arrive a little late in the afternoon. It was extremely busy with traffic and parking was impossible. Oxford will have to wait for another trip.

We did stop for a few minutes on the River Thames that runs through the heart of the University. On it we met a gentleman who lives in a river boat – houseboat. He has spent 19 years drifting along back-and-forth between London and just beyond london. a river  license fee of 1100 pounds a year and a lot of boat maintenance make for a rather interesting lifestyle.

One of graces on this trip has been latebooking.com. Once again we use their services and ended up at the

The New Inn, in Readong county. It was another great find with great food and find accommodation. And a real good thing about the location was its price -- only $55 pounds for a couple. This included breakfast!!