The English Countryside: Day 2

June 29th

Today we woke up a little earlier and checked out of St Giles Hotel. I wasn't to sad to leave this hotel. It was small, loud at night and the breakfast was so bad I skipped it most days. I was sad to leave London as there were still several things I wanted to do. We didn't go to any of museums or spend much time in the parks, but for 3 days I think we got a lot done. The most important thing is we didn't wear ourselves out. That isn't vacation. We took our time getting up (most days) and we took our time at each site. I enjoyed our pace, although slow, we were happy with what we accomplished.

We had a car service pick us up and take us to the rental car place. The women at Budget did a really god job of trying to car us into buying thief insurance (we had collision insurance through priceline.) They had us pretty scared that something would happen to the car. Of course nothing did so we were glad we didn't give into the pressure sale of insurances. After we got all settled into the car, the real fun began. We had a GPS to help guide us but it was quite the learning curve for Mike. Since there were lots of roundabouts and we were driving on the left hand side of the road. So when the GPS says turn Left-- you think-- left, left that means cross traffic, but really it is like a right hand turn where you are just turning right into the close lane. Mike was nervous, I was scared of damaging the car, prayers were offered, a lot of them. We had originally planned to go to Bath and Stonehenge today then Dover tomorrow... but after that first little while in the car we nixed the idea of driving anymore than we had too (and that was to the B&B in Salisbury (which was close to stonehenge.) Once we reached the motorway we were able to breath again, conversation resumed and the radio was turned on. That wasn't so bad. After 2 hours on the Motor way we had to get off and take a small country road to Bath. Driving on the "wrong side" of the road was no longer the stress, now it was how tight the roads were. I felt like my side of the car was touching the leaves of the plants on the side of the road and Mike felt like he was to close to the cars on the other side of the road. Every time we passed a tour bus we both kind of held our breath a little and hoped there was enough room for both of us on the road. When we arrived at Bath we had a hard time finding a place to park and the stress level was rising as it was a bigger town with busy traffic and impatient drivers. When we finally found a parking garage we were sure our huge car wasn't going to fit into any of the tiny spots. After driving around a while we finally found something easy enough to get in. I was really happy to be out of the car.

Bath was a lovely area. The main attractions (I felt) were the beautiful Abbey and the Roman Baths. When the Roman Empire extended to Britain the Romans had a big beautiful temple with a bathing house and sacred hot spring. Two hundred years ago they found the ruins of the ancient place underground. Since then they have done an excellent job excavating it all and building a museum around it. They had a great audio guide with lots of information. I thought it was all very well done and informative. My favorite part was the big bathing area. It was pretty, but the water was the same water that was in the bath in ancient times so it was green.... 

(Continues my running theory that there is a statue of Caesar from every town in between Rome and London.)

(The sign about the temple entrance)

(pieces of the alter that we found and put back together)

(Mike had me dying of laughter while he was writing his comments in the guest book. )

After the Roman Bath area we strolled through town and enjoyed a few local pastries before getting in the car again. We were heading for Salisbury to our bed and breakfast. 

The roads were once again narrow, windy and people wanted to drive a lot faster than we did, but we made it there in one piece. We stayed at the Taylor Guest House. The people who ran it, Kay and Steve, were very friendly. They gave us lots of information about the area then she showed us to our room. It was lovely, much larger, and very american. I loved it. The sheets were heavenly and the wifi was free. After watching a little Wimbledon on TV we headed down the street the the city centre. 

It was about 8pm so a lot of the shops were closed for the night. There were lots of pubs and bars but we weren't in the mood for that. We found a mexican place that looked good so we went in. It was packed! There was a Hen Night (Bachorette party) going on inside so we were lucky to get a table. We were seated at a long couch and coffee table in the lounge, it was actually ore comfortable than a regular table. The food was good, but not up to american mexican food standards. After eating there, and talking the Kay, we decided americans know how to do mexicans, the English don't :)

After dinner we walked back, it is weird to have the sun setting at 10pm here, in CT it goes down around 9:15 at the latest. We were both really excited to sleep in such a comfortable bed that night, and to sleep it :)