10^th June : Goodbye to England.

The weather throughout England has been cool and at times rainy, this hasn't stopped us from doing anything though.

We left Bath and arrived at Gloucester to meet Dennis(our neighbour's friend from Mt. Clear)who drove us around (yea stress free driving) and showed us the sites, in particular the Gloucester Cathedral where they filmed parts of Harry Potter. Later we walked around their mushroom factory and then had tea

in their typical “English” garden. Sue and Dennis were wonderful hosts and we were most grateful to them for giving us their time. Their friendliness was much appreciated in a country where we didn't know anyone.

We managed to get to a laundrette and dragged our backpack in, stripped off the top layer of clothes we were wearing and threw it all in to get washed, someone kindly left their washing powder behind and we put it to good use with the help of some locals. Many English we have spoken to have been fascinated that we have come all this way and have exclaimed “but that's the other side of the world, what are you doing here. “They also love the accent, just like we love listening to them

We drove to Bourton-on-the-Water which was just like a postcard and then onto the Slaughters, we were unable to find a park so we continued on after a few laps of the town to Stow -on - the -Wold. We wandered around and had lunch there. Next stop was Stratford -Upon – Avon where we stayed for the night and took ourselves on a walking tour of all the Shakespeare sites (the town's focus is on Shakespeare)In between the towns we were traveling to it was not uncommon for us to become lost and visit another couple of towns on the way.

After walking around Stratford we decided to go to Warwick Castle-impressive, as this was our first castle we had seen. Blenheim Palace was even better and Windsor Castle was just as grand.

Oxford was incredible with all its colleges and we did a walking tour where we were able to go into the grounds of a couple of them. Oxford was also our first experience of Park n Ride where a friendly local gave us the heads up on how it worked , all we had to remember was where to catch the bus from and what Park n Ride we were to go to-lucky that was written on the ticket. (we had to run to catch the bus and so I left my camera behind that day ) We also got to go into a small part of the Bodleian Library.

Our last day was spent at Windsor(+ castle)and Eton. We were also lucky enough to go to Windsor Castle for Evensong(choir singing) where we sat by Henry VIII 's tomb for an hour listening to the most beautiful voices singing the Psalms.

All I can say now is, we have had another unbelievable 10 days in England and I'm glad we got the hire car back in one piece.( there were quite a number of times I thought we were going to end up with a dent)

Hope this reads okay as I'm typing  on the plane to Rome after a two hour delay.

Delay due to plane being struck by lightning in Oslo earlier in the day and grounded for check up.....great!!!

Regards

C & J