When
looking at my blog entries for Goodwood for the umpteenth time, I realized that
I never actually wrote about the rest of the trip to England from this past
summer. So here is the story of the rest of the trip!
After
an uneventful flight to London, we made our way to the neighbourhood of our
Airbnb host, Kushal. His apartment was in a Bayswater, a neighbourhood to the
north west of central London. We did not want to spend the money to rent a
whole apartment to ourselves, so we decided to rent a room in an apartment
where the owner was present. We were not disappointed, as the owner was
extremely pleasant and helpful. The apartment was quiet and clean and we often
had the place to ourselves. When we first arrived, we were exhausted and all
three of us had a long nap, so that we would be able to stay up late enough to
counter the effects of jet lag. Over the next three days, we explored the parks
and neighbourhoods of London, on foot, by bus and by Underground. Jules was
with us the whole time and usually in a good mood. We had bought a folding
stroller which tilted back so that he could nap comfortably in it and,
thankfully, he did manage to sleep in it every afternoon. We also tried to
integrate a few stops at parks and playgrounds for him. Still, we managed to
see most of the major attractions. We even went to a kids’ event at the
National Gallery, which we all enjoyed. We usually managed to find affordable
restaurants (relatively speaking) that were really quite good.
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| Alex and Jules enjoying one of London's many parks |
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| Obligatory photo in the City |
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| Modern buildings and a lot of pipes! |
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| Jules was mostly awake as we toured London |
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| Medieval building in the City |
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| Jules quite enjoyed the double-decker buses |
We
visited the City and ate at a “Prêt-à-Manger” restaurant, part of what seems
like an extremely successful franchise.
On
our fourth day, after a stroll though Covent Gardens, we met up with my friend
Roberto, who would be joining us for the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the
second part of the trip. We ate at an inexpensive (but quite decent) Italian restaurant together and agreed to
meet at the car rental office the next morning.
When
Rob and I picked up the rental car (a Fiat 500L), he told me that it would take
a while to get used to driving on the wrong side. He was right. I made my way
back to the apartment to pick up Alex and Jules without incident, but on my way
out of the city, I hit a curb with the front wheel of the car. Thankfully, there
was no damage. We drove to the Portsmouth area where we would be staying in a
small apartment in Southsea. The parking situation was not ideal, as we had to
look for parking on small and narrow side streets, but it all worked out. The
apartment itself was nothing special, and happened to be across the street from
a pretty loud bar. Still, we were close to a supermarket and cooked many of our
meals at the small apartment. Really, we had just been looking for a place to
crash not too far from Chichester, where the Festival of Speed would be held.
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| Alex, Jules and Rob near the coast in Southsea |
We
had bought 4-day passes to the Festival and it was immensely enjoyable. A
detailed account of our time at the festival can be found
HERE.
One
evening after the Festival, Rob proposed that we head to Brighton. I said “Ok,
but you drive”, and he accepted. Even though we were only in the town for a
couple of hours, we had a good impression of the place and a nice meal
together. We got home a bit late, but it was worth it.
The morning after the Festival, we dropped Rob off at the train station and began the next part of our journey. Our plan was to stay in the historic city of Bath and use our rental car
to explore the surrounding areas, including the Cotswolds.
On the way from Southsea to Bath, we stopped in Salisbury, where we had lunch
in a green space near the cathedral. It was a lovely stop.
When
we arrived in Bath, we were greeted by our hosts Robin and Carol. They had
rented us the small flat above their house, and it was a perfect spot for us:
it was about a 15-minute walk into the city centre, but the walk took us along
a lovely canal, and there was a Tesco’s Express store 5 minutes away. The flat
did not have a bath tub for Jules, but we used the kitchen sink to give him his
baths, which we all found quite funny.
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| A bath, in a sink, in Bath |
The
town of Bath is lovely. It is filled with classical architecture and some of
its buildings go back to Roman times. It is a beautiful city and almost any
point of interest can be reached on foot in a reasonable amount of time. Every
day we would take in some of the sites and attractions. We accidentally hiked up to the university,
and ended up having a nice quiet lunch by a small lake on the campus, complete
with ducks.
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| Bath had its own covered bridge |
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| This was the view as we walked along the canal |
We started out at Stow-on-the-Wold, where
we had a quiet lunch, and made our way around the circuit at a leisurely pace,
enjoying the countryside, stopping at a playground, and spotting sheep. It was
a lovely day, although not entirely stress-free for a driver who is used to
wider roads and left-hand-drive.
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| There are some very old buildings in the Cotswolds |
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| J. and me |
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| This barn was hundreds of years old |
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| There was also an automotive museum, complete with a Mini-shaped hedge |
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| ... as was this house |
My inexperience with British driving led to
an embarrassing mishap when I drove into our hosts’ garage door, mistaking
first gear in our Fiat with reverse. Our hosts were very understanding about
the whole thing and our insurance paid for the repair to their garage door.
Oops. Our Fiat had a few scratches on its nose, but was still fully drivable,
and we continued our exploration of the area.
Our day in Oxford was slightly marred by
rain, but we still got around quite a bit and probably went into a couple of
buildings that we would have bypassed in better weather, like the museum of
modern art. We were not actually able to visit any of the “colleges”, due to
most of them being closed to visitors during our short time in the city.
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| Modern art in Oxford |
On another day, we visited Castle Combe and
Lacock, two of the more quaint towns in the area. The towns themselves are
small, and we could easily visit several in one day. Castle Combe has a nice
little auto racing track, and we stopped by. There was a track day in progress,
so I was pretty happy to walk around the paddock with J. as Alex napped in the
Fiat. I posted about this short visit to the track
HERE.
On our final full day of the trip, we visited
Bristol. The town was not very active, as it was the weekend, but we still had
a nice time, picnicking in a park and visiting a historic house (Alex loves
these types of visits).
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| Jules tries out a lever of unknown purpose in a historc house in Bristol |
On our final evening in Bath, we headed
uphill and walked a short section of the Skyline walk, a beautiful path that
runs in the hills high above the city. We had walked short sections of the path on previous days, as it was only a few minutes away from our apartment. Unfortunately, it was not practical to
hike any kind of long distance with the gear we had. I would recommend a stroll along this path to anyone, as it is really lovely.
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| Alex and Jules on the Skyline walk |
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| Idyllic British countryside views |
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| It's a cemetery, but Jules still enjoyed himself |
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| Fantastic views if you don't mind a few hills |
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A kindly stranger took this photo of us on the Skyline walk
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We
were up early on the final morning to drive to the airport and drop off our
Fiat before settling in for the long flight home. The trip was a memorable and
enjoyable one, but I was glad to be home in my own bed!
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