Trip from London to Bath

Mysterious Stonehenge
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Sunday, June 25, 2006

Bradford – on Avon

Cosmopolitan to Rural settings within 100 miles of London

After four full days in London, we feel ready to pack our bags and go on to our next adventure in England. We’re all ready to leave the intensity and high density of this magnificent but tiring city. Saturday morning after 4^th breakfast of white toast and marmalade we pack our bags while David trots off to find Avis Car rEntals and pick up our [pre-booked car. Karsten, Steph and I finish packing and lug our HEAVY bags down the narrow flights of stairs to wait for David to pick us up. We wait and wait. Finally, approximately 1 ½ hours later he arrives with a nice new Peugeot. A nice, new Peuget with a dented left fender and scrape along the side! Oh no! Getting used to driving on the wrong side of the car and on the wrong side of the street is challenging enough, but when the road is very narrow and lined with parked cars on one side, and a motorcyclist comes roaring at you it is easy to over-react and side-swipe one of those parked cars. Not a good start, but we hope that this is the greatest extent of our driving misfortunes and gamely press on. The faster we get out of this nerve-wracking London traffic, the better. With one map-reader (Barb), two GPS interpreters (Karsten and Stephanie) and one good, but frazzled driver, we soon leave the maddening crowds of London behind and are immediately in beautiful rural England. It is not long at all and we arrive at Stonehenge. The mystery of how these enormous rocks came to be in the middle of this field engages us. Apparently they were somehow brought here from Ireland or Wales. Somehow and for some reason that is still not understood. Another mystery that encases this area is that of the crop circles. We see postcards in Devizes, where we stop for a stretch and bakery visit, of these beautiful huge patterns occasionally found in farm fields nearby. Large hearts and geometric patterns formed overnight in the fields; neatly folded over without damage to the crops. No one has apparently ever been spied making these crop circles and no one has ever admitted to it. The enormity of the patterns would make it seemingly impossible to make them without being noticed. Mysterious!

Beautiful Bradford on Avon
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Finally we arrive in a most beautiful little town called Bradford-on-Avon. It is really unbelievably beautiful and we feel like we have arrived on a movie set or are in some make-believe world. An old stone church tolls its bells loudly and lengthily and we discover a wedding has just occurred. The wedding party is outside in the garden and we join them from afar in watching some traditionally-clad folk dancers who are there to celebrate the marriage. This adds more to the fairy-tale feeling we already have!

Corinthian Roman Columns in Bath
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We find a delightful B & B through the local tourist info. Seventy five pounds is more than we want to spend on accommodation, but it is beautiful, we are promised a real English breakfast, it has it’s own bathroom and 2 adjoining rooms, AND we find wireless connection to the internet! What a bonus! We all ‘queue up’ for computer time; email, Skyping to Mom, the insurance company, etc., and for the kids, catching up on some missed ‘Adventures in Odyssey’ episodes! To finish the day we go for our first pub meal at a pub just a short walk from our B & B. But instead of the reputedly boring English cuisine we expected we are surprised by trendy, delicious food. We end this day feeling over-extended financially but very grateful for all that we have experienced after that initially rough start to the day.

Sunday has been much more relaxing day. We had planned on attending a service at the local Christian Fellowship which has services in a nearby school, but got mixed up with the address and ended up in an old small Baptist church instead. The service is quite traditional compared to what we are used to; hymns written in the 1600 -1700’s accompanied by an organ instead of a worship team with guitars and drums. But the acoustics are great and the singing is hearty and the message from John 8 is clear and very authentic. We feel blessed to have been there.

Bath is our afternoon destination and we are there is less than ½ hour. It is an amazing city designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. We join a terrific 2 hour walking tour and learn a good bit of the history of this city which goes back to the Roman times but is known to most of us more because of Jane Austen’s books. I’ll have to find a second-hand copy of one of her books and read it to the family. Persuasion and Northanger Abbey apparently are the 2 books that are set almost entirely in Bath.

Dinner tonight is a budget-friendly picnic in our room – on that special plastic tablecloth that reminds us that England is historical and beautiful, but Canada is home! It has started to rain but as darkness falls we see a badger snacking on seeds in the backyard. We had heard that they visit nightly, and we are pleased to be witnesses to this little guy’s evening meal.