Mumsy and Guvna take on Europe: A 2016 Europe Trip Report! updated 5/29/2017

[Denovagirl]

I vote Chatsworth too!! Ya know, if you're keeping a tally...

P&P 2005 is my ALL TIME FAVORITE MOVIE EVER IN THE WORLD!!!! Squeeeeee! Pemberly!!! I'm dying, DYING!!! Seriously, the way so much emotion and passion can be evoked watching a film or reading a book where the characters don't even kiss until the very end is amazing to me. Sigh.......

I'm seriously so stoked that their finally making P&P&Zombies into a movie... Are you? Lol... Seems silly but two of my favorite genres, can't wait!

 

[annegirl]

O.M. GOODNESS! i am flipping out over all these pictures!!! I want to be there!!!

I can't wait to be there! I want to be there now.

Loving your itinerary for this day. I love those type of old estates so a day spent just checking out the houses would be right up my alley too.

I think it will be a nice way to break up all the driving too. And I can't wait to see these houses in person.

I vote Chatsworth too!! Ya know, if you're keeping a tally...

P&P 2005 is my ALL TIME FAVORITE MOVIE EVER IN THE WORLD!!!! Squeeeeee! Pemberly!!! I'm dying, DYING!!! Seriously, the way so much emotion and passion can be evoked watching a film or reading a book where the characters don't even kiss until the very end is amazing to me. Sigh.......

I'm seriously so stoked that their finally making P&P&Zombies into a movie... Are you? Lol... Seems silly but two of my favorite genres, can't wait!

Right!? They are so romantic. I actually have never read P&P and Zombies. I am really creeped out by zombies. They are one of the things I don't handle too well. I tried watching the Walking Dead since everyone I know is into it but I couldn't get past the first episode because it creeped me out so bad with the gory zombies. However I AM interested in that version and since they have got a few actors I like for it my interest is piqued. I don't know if it will be something I can watch though....

 

[annegirl]

We knew that we wanted to rent a cottage of some kind in the Cotswold region for a few days so that we would have a home base for a lot of the other things we wanted to visit.
We knew it would require a lot more driving around than we would have if we just did a bunch of different places and moved around, but I really liked the idea of having a home to come back to at the end of the day.
I looked at TONS of cottages in a lot of different towns in the Cotswolds. There were a few that we loved a lot. We each had a couple favorites. I still hope we picked the right one but in the end we went with this one not only because it had fantastic reviews and looks really nice, but it meant we each got our own room and bathroom plus it was one of the lowest in price. We ended up picking one in Chipping Campden at the northern end. It is a little further away from some of our destinations but we really liked the reviews and the look of it.
It is called Little Campden House.
This is what it looks like on the outside. Made of traditional Cotswold Stone.

The entry..

Family room area:

The Kitchen area:

The upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms:

It will be great to be able to really settle in and have a place we can cook some meals and do laundry.
We will be staying here for 4 nights. ​

 

[Denovagirl]

Oh wow! You get that whole cottage! Amazing

 

[mariezp]

Pretty sure I could make myself feel right at home in that cottage. It is beautiful!

 

[low-key]

I was wondering why nobody's answer made sense excepts mine, then I realized I posted on wrong thread

 

[annegirl]

Oh wow! You get that whole cottage! Amazing

Yep. The whole thing. I am very excited.

Pretty sure I could make myself feel right at home in that cottage. It is beautiful!

Me too! I think it will be a very cozy place to stay.

 

[annegirl]

I have big news.
We booked our flights!!

I've talked to a few people and have been watching them for a long time and we decided to just go ahead and do it. I got them for about $50 cheaper than they have been the past couple of months so we decided that was good enough and we wanted the finality and peace of mind that we had them and didn't have to worry about it anymore.

So now I can say for sure that we will be doing the layover in Iceland. I haven't booked our day trip to the Blue Lagoon yet but we will be doing that.
Then we will be flying to London that evening arriving at about 8pm.
From there we will ride the Heathrow Express to Paddington station where we will get off the train and walk right into our hotel.
That is another of the main reasons I booked the flights when I did.
I found an amazing deal on the Hilton at Paddington station. It is connected by a foot bridge so we can get there quick.
It was a couple hundred dollars off its regular price making it really affordable for us but it was a non refundable hotel.
I didn't want to book the hotel if I didn't know for sure that we would be there that night. So my mom and I talked. My husband and I talked. And everyone agreed that we should jump on it.
I got the flights and then got the hotel.

The next morning we can wake up and take some time getting ready, we will go poke around Paddington station a bit, and then catch the train to Bath where the trip will go on from what I have already written.
So excited.
Having EVERY hotel and the flights booked now makes it seem SO real.

We still have a little over 8 months to go but I know it is going to FLY by. ​

 

[missangelalexis]

Omgosh the cottage looks beautiful! I like your idea of wanting to go "home" at the end of each day!

Congrats on booking your flights, that's awesome news!

 

[Denovagirl]

So exciting! That deserves some dancing bananas!!

Please do tell us about the Blue Lagoon, not sure what that is...

 

[annegirl]

Omgosh the cottage looks beautiful! I like your idea of wanting to go "home" at the end of each day!

Congrats on booking your flights, that's awesome news!

It really will be nice to have a home base and not have to change hotels for a few days!
Thanks! It makes it seem even more real now to have our tickets booked.

So exciting! That deserves some dancing bananas!!

Please do tell us about the Blue Lagoon, not sure what that is...

You are right! It deserves a lot of dancing bananas!
I think I mentioned it at the beginning but I will do another update about it soon!

 

[mariezp]

Congratulations on booking your flight!
It is so wonderful when you get to the point that you have everything in place! Yay for saving some money too. 8 months WILL pass before you know it.

 

[annegirl]

Congratulations on booking your flight!
It is so wonderful when you get to the point that you have everything in place! Yay for saving some money too. 8 months WILL pass before you know it.

It really is so nice to have it done and not have to be checking for that anymore! Now we have our flights booked and every hotel booked so that is so exciting!

 

[annegirl]

I'm going to step back to day one for a minute now that we have it all booked.
We will be leaving from our local airport in Salt Lake City on day one at 10:45. We will be flying into Seattle where we will have almost a five hour layover.
We will probably pick up some lunch and check out their shops while in that airport. We won't be leaving it so we want to do anything to make the time go faster and have fun.

Then our flight will be leaving from Seattle at, I believe (I don't have the ticket in front of me) around 4:30 pm. It will be our international flight to Iceland.
We will arrive in Iceland at 6:45am. It will feel like the middle of the night however, because of the time change. We are going to try to get some sleep on the plane but I'm not sure how easy it will be... so we shall see. If we can at least get a few hours we will be good.

When we arrive at the Iceland airport we will have a couple of hours before our tour bus will leave the airport to go to the Blue Lagoon. So we are planning on just browsing shops and picking up some breakfast.
Mostly enjoying being out of the plane for a day!

Then we will take a tour bus to the Blue Lagoon at 9:30am.

The Blue lagoon is a geothermal spa.
We are going to take advantage of the fact that we can get a shower here!
We will spend a lot of time relaxing in the warm water.
We will eat lunch here as well.
They also do spa treatments so we are debating getting full body massages in the water. The price is a little steep but not that much more than I would pay at a local spa here so I think it is pretty reasonable.
I have read that while the water is good for your skin it can wreak havoc on your hair. So we decided to buy some cute vintage style swim caps to put our hair in while we are soaking. We might look silly but it will be really fun.

As soon as I got them in the mail, Maddy wanted to try them on.

The blue one is mine and the black one is my mom's.

Our bus will take us back to the airport around 2-3pm and then we will get ready for our 4:30 flight to England.
We will land in Heathrow at 8:10.

We will go through customs and immigration for however long that takes and then take the train to Paddington Station.
We know that immigration could go fast or it could take hours so we are assuming we will arrive anywhere between 9:30-11pm.
That is why we decided to jump on the sale with the Hilton at paddington Station so that we can just take one train and be there!

The hotel looks amazing.

It is fancy.
We are glad we will be somewhere so nice because guaranteed by the time we get there we will be exhausted! Plus we will let ourselves sleep in a bit and really enjoy it before heading out the next day to Bath!​

 

[Denovagirl]

Oh my. I want to be in that lagoon NOW!! Oh yes, I hope you're able to do the massage, but do you get them regularly? If you don't I would skip it. I know a massage has a tendency to almost have a detox effect, I rarely get them and it never fails, anytime I do I get sick the next day! It's like it works all the yuck lingering inside to the surface or something! So you definitely don't want to get sick!! Also, drink SO MUCH WATER the day before!! You need to stay super hydrated for massage and for lounging in warm water for an afternoon! Can't be too careful about taking precautions to avoid getting sick on such a long trip!

I LOOOOOOOOOVE the swim caps!! You are gonna be so cute!! EEEEE!! The black is my fave, and Maddy is so cute modeling them for us! Such a cute idea!!

 

[annegirl]

Oh my. I want to be in that lagoon NOW!! Oh yes, I hope you're able to do the massage, but do you get them regularly? If you don't I would skip it. I know a massage has a tendency to almost have a detox effect, I rarely get them and it never fails, anytime I do I get sick the next day! It's like it works all the yuck lingering inside to the surface or something! So you definitely don't want to get sick!! Also, drink SO MUCH WATER the day before!! You need to stay super hydrated for massage and for lounging in warm water for an afternoon! Can't be too careful about taking precautions to avoid getting sick on such a long trip!

I LOOOOOOOOOVE the swim caps!! You are gonna be so cute!! EEEEE!! The black is my fave, and Maddy is so cute modeling them for us! Such a cute idea!!

I don't get massages regularly but I do get them occasionally and I have never been sick from one. It's a good point though. I do drink a ton of water after one and actually drink a lot of water every day. My mom doesn't tend to drink as much water as I do so I will have to keep on top of that and make sure she is getting hydrated enough. We are pretty sure that if we do the massage we will do the 30 minute not the 60 minute and it is a relaxing massage not a deep tissue one so that will probably make a difference. Hydration is going to be so important with such a long flight, lots of time at airports, and the blue lagoon so we will have to come up with a hydration plan!
I like the black one best too. When I ordered them I liked the blue one better which is why I got it but once I saw them in person I kind of wish I would have got the same one as my mom!

 

[Denovagirl]

I don't get massages regularly but I do get them occasionally and I have never been sick from one. It's a good point though. I do drink a ton of water after one and actually drink a lot of water every day. My mom doesn't tend to drink as much water as I do so I will have to keep on top of that and make sure she is getting hydrated enough. We are pretty sure that if we do the massage we will do the 30 minute not the 60 minute and it is a relaxing massage not a deep tissue one so that will probably make a difference. Hydration is going to be so important with such a long flight, lots of time at airports, and the blue lagoon so we will have to come up with a hydration plan!
I like the black one best too. When I ordered them I liked the blue one better which is why I got it but once I saw them in person I kind of wish I would have got the same one as my mom!

Should have known you'd be on top of this!

You've got a good plan!

 

[missangelalexis]

The Blue Lagoon looks/sounds amazing!! What a fun excursion that will be! Love the swim caps you bought. And I agree, staying hydrated will be important, especially with so much travel!

 

[annegirl]

Should have known you'd be on top of this!

You've got a good plan!

Haha. Thanks!

The Blue Lagoon looks/sounds amazing!! What a fun excursion that will be! Love the swim caps you bought. And I agree, staying hydrated will be important, especially with so much travel!

Yeah I think it will be a cool way to relax after the longest of the flights!

 

[annegirl]

On with the show...

So, the cottage I posted in the last post will be our home for four nights. So excited about that.
During that time I have an outline of what we want to do but don't have the exact days for each thing nailed down yet as I have to wait to find out the dates for tickets to Highclere Castle until November and I have to keep it pretty open for that. Once I have those, if I can get them, then we will be able to say for sure which days we will be doing things.
But for the sake of this pre trip report I will report on some of the things we hope to do these days.

The first day is the day that I am hoping we can get tickets for Highclere. It would be smack in the middle of the week and I hope that might make it easier to get in, less crowded, etc. But really I have no idea what to expect. They might not even be open that day. We shall see.
But assuming we are able to get tickets....

We are hoping to first drive to Leavesden to go to the WB Harry Potter Studio Tour.

We are beyond excited to go here and see the sets, props, costume, and all the fun things from the movies.
We will probably eat lunch here. We plan on staying about 3-4 hours based on what I have heard from other people.

At this point, when we have seen it all and had a bite of lunch we would head about 2 hours to the west to arrive at Highclere in time for afternoon tea and a tour of the house and grounds.
Again, this might not be what happens at all. They may be done on different days from each other or in a different order... it is all up in the air.

We cannot wait to see Highclere in person.
It is well known as being Downton Abbey.

And as you know, we love Downton Abbey.
But there is also a lot of history here as well. It should be such a cool experience.

If this is how the day ends up... we would then head back to our cottage an hour and a half to the north in time to relax for the evening and make some dinner in our kitchen. ​