10 day tour of England Part 2

Day 6
CHESTER - A wonderful city with a great cathedral, plenty of Tudor buildings and Sunday Morris Dancers in the city square!
Day  7
LIVERPOOL- A surprisingly cool city these days, with a great mix of old and new architecture, good pedestrianized shopping areas and wonderful museums. We only had time for the Beatles Story and the Museum of Slavery; both excellent.
BLACKPOOL - Without a doubt, the worst seaside resort in the world! Ugly beach, run down hotels, trashy casinos, overpriced bars and bad restaurants!
Day 8
LAKE DISTRICT - Windermere and Bowness were overrun by tourists but getting off the beaten track was not too difficult. We headed west towards the coast and spent the night at St. Bees.
Day 9
LAKE DISTRICT - It's a great drive through the Lake District National Park and along the Pennine Way.
SEAHOUSES AND BAMBURGH - Across to the East Coast; pretty fishing village and dramatic coastal castle.
Day 10
FARNE ISLANDS - These islands are a prime bird watching spot. We took a boat trip out and although the Puffins had already left in late June, we did see plenty of birds and seals.

10 day tour of England Part 1

It's good to be mobile and free again. We find that it's a good idea to book each campsite a day in advance.  Campsite facilities and access to public transport are generally very good.
Day 1
CLOVELLY- It's still a pretty seaside village but now the only access is via a visitor centre and a 8GBP entrance charge. (At least no 3D experience, pirate rides or fake pasty shops like at Land's End ) This rampant commercialisation of the countryside is beginning to irritate us.
GLASTONBURY - With the festival over for another year, it's a quiet market town full of hippies and crystal shops
WELLS- Smallest city in the UK, with a gorgeous cathedral.
Day 2
BATH- A must on any UK itinerary. We enjoy the award winning Indian Restaurant lunch and the Roman Baths tour. The Bill Bryson commentary on the hand held guide is fun.
Free Day
WANTAGE A visit to Craig's pub.
Shopping and Laundry
Day 3
BLENHEIM PALACE - One of the most beautiful estates in England, with fabulous gardens. We loved the secret garden.Birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.
OXFORD -A nice City.The usual Costas and All Bar Ones squeezed in between the hallowed halls of learning. A tour of the Bodlian Library is a must.
MORETON-IN-MARSH - The Cotswolds villages are very quaint with lots of gift shops, kitchen shops, restaurants and local delis. A good place to overnight.
Day 4
COTSWOLDS - Pretty scenery and a few more towns like Stow-on-the-Wold and Chipping Norton.
Its hard to enjoy strolling through villages in the rain.
STRATFORD-ON-AVON - Birthplace of the Bard, good examples of  Tudor Architecture, a few good pubs,less rain and a lot more tourists.
Day 5
SHREWSBURY - This is a good little city. Not as touristy as some other places we have been to but busy because of the flower show. It's also the birthplace of Charles Darwin, but they hardly make a thing of that at all, except for a statue outside the public library, which used to be the school he attended.

Cornwall

We spent the first week of August camping in Cornwall with the Fouries. Perranporth is a pretty town near Newquay, with a good swimming beach. Arriving on a Saturday, means hours in bumper to bumper traffic. From our campsite we can take the scooter or a taxi into town. On Sunday we spend the day on the beach, sheltering  behind our wind sheild. Coenraad and Coemy swim with wetsuits on. If the South Africans spending their winter holidays at the beach in Ballito could have seen us, they would just have had puzzled looks on their faces as they twirled their right index fingers slowly around their right ears a few times! We did have a few lekka braais!
The day we went to Newquay was sunny and the beach was very sheltered.
Newquay is actually the surfing capital of the UK! Sandy beaches and a few small waves!
Nick joined us for a few days.We did a rainy day trip to Lands End, Sennan Cove and St. Ives and another trip to The Eden Project, which despite the hefty entrance fee of 25GBP per person, we enjoyed.It is a rehabilitated old quarry; the two massive boidomes, one tropical and one Mediterranean, are filled with exotic plants.
We enjoyed Padstow and had lunch at Rick Stein's Cafe.
It was great spending time with friends but as Mylene said, it's best to visit UK destinations outside of summer, when you are expecting lousy weather anyway!

Both Sides of the Pond

We arrived in Munich on Friday 17th July in the middle of a heat wave. The best way to start summer in Europe was at the beer garden at the Chinese Tower until closing. Thanks Pat for organizing. Homer went in for a service but didn't pass the TUV ( Roadworthy ) so the week pretty much involved us schlepping to the garage daily. Thanks Peggy and Gary for offering us a guest suite with free wi-fi for a few days respite as the heatwave continued. We delayed our departure but we did have a wonderful week of dinners and parties; thanks everyone. Our journey to Calais was quick, with stops in Stuttgart for the Porche Museum and France for a sombre visit to the Somme Battlefields and Delville Wood. After stocking up on French wine and cheese, we made it onto a ferry in Calais, bound for Good Old Blighty. And it's been pretty much raining ever since we first glimpsed the White Cliffs. Well, sorry, we have had a few sunny mornings or afternoons but no heatwave here. Even the guidebooks say you don't come to the UK for the weather and by golly they are right.
From Dover we travelled West along the coast, through Hastings and Brighton and West Sussex; our old neighbourhood. ( It's been 15 years since we arrived in the UK, unpacking our few personal belongings into a huge, fully furnished 16th century barn of a house on 23 acres, not yet realizing how amazing that was for accommodation in the UK and never guessing how that move would have catapulted us into this amazing and continuing journey.) In Chichester it's drizzling, the cream tea is palatable, the waiter indifferent and my seat is right next to the firedoor leading to the loos. On the upside, the assistant in the EE store does seem to know what he's doing and we have phone and data sorted. Traffic anywhere on a Friday afternoon in the Summer Holidays is awful and at Weymouth we give up and peel off into a field with a toilet block( pop-up campsite.)
Things deteriorate further at the Sun Ray Pub when we realize that the only food we are likely to be served in the next hour is the dry, cold carvery; pay in advance at the counter, collect a token, 2 meats only please, not all three, slopped onto the plate by a cook who is probably going to get fired at the end of the evening. I am happy to report that a few weeks in, we are enjoying ourselves despite the weather and everything.