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

[annegirl]

I have gotten kinda sidetracked and missed getting to hang out for the end of the big build up for your trip. Finally made it back and now you are already home! Can't wait for your pictures to get back and hear all about the amazing trip you had! You can bet I will be taking notes.



P.S.
I gave up on my European trip report after Photobucket made changes and zapped all the picture links I had already worked so hard to load.
Oh well.
As for good news... on Mother's day I got the green light to go ahead and start making plans for our second European family adventure!!! I am beyond excited. We will be mainly in Germany but also planning to visit a few sites in the Czech Republic and Poland. I can't wait!

Nice! So exciting to be able to go back. Hopefully I will get back again someday.
Ugh. So sorry to hear about your photos. That's so annoying.

 

[annegirl]

Hey guys!
Okay so I just changed the title from pre trip report to trip report!
I thought that might be easier than creating an entirely new report.
I will add the links for each update in the same place as the ones for the pre trip report.

Sorry it has taken me so long to start updating! Got home, had to get back into the swing of life again, and then wouldn't you know it... something BIG happened.
We have been renting a tiny basement apartment (about 800 sq feet I think) for two years. It is technically only a one bedroom with a family room, kitchen, one bathroom, hallway, and a front sitting room. We use the front sitting room for mine and Doug's room which is awkward as we have to bring people through our bedroom to come into the house.
Anyway, it's been fine but we have been anxious to get into a house eventually. But Utah can be expensive. And it is a crazy seller's market here right now. We looked at a few houses before my trip but whenever we found one we liked it was either already under contract by the time we were done walking through it or there were so many offers that it would be up way over what we could pay.
When I got back from my trip we casually started looking again. We were looking at houses that were just okay, maybe a bit of work needed to be done or they weren't exactly what we wanted but the price was good. Again, they were going into bidding wars and being sold while we were still walking through them.
This was getting frustrating.
Then one night I was looking at houses online and decided to widen my search to a city right next to the areas we were looking at that I hadn't looked at yet (it is a really nice place and was even voted as one of the best cities to live in in the US but I just hadn't thought about it).
A house popped up that I loved. But it was over our price. Our realtor didn't think it was worth looking at. But I insisted.
We went into it and I fell in love. It is exactly what we wanted and really nice to boot.
We told her to make an offer for what we could do.
She had us write a letter to go with it.
A couple of days later we went under contract!
Not only did they decided to sell it to us for our offer but they picked us over someone that came in afterward with a 2000 more offer.
We have already done the appraisal and inspection and both went awesome.
So it looks like we will be closing in a couple of weeks.
Ahhhh. Definitely meant to be but now I'm trying to get everything packed up!

Anyway, on to the first day of my trip.

​

I have been planning this trip for so long that it seemed almost unbelievable that it was actually time to go.

I really wanted to make sure that I would be ready when my parents picked me up and that I would be able to sleep on the plane... so I woke up at 3am on April 5th.

I hadn't had any caffeine for a few days and I was sure that I would be so tired by the time we were on our way to Iceland that falling asleep on the plane would be easy.

I was wrong. But we will get to that in a few minutes.

So I woke up at 3, got showered and ready, and put all of the last minute items into my bags that were mostly packed already.

I tried really hard not to over pack. I really did.

I read packing lists and blog posts about not over packing. And I was sure I was not going to. Then Monday came and I started loading my suitcase. I realized it wasn't going to all fit into my one piece of luggage without being overweight. Oh no.

I pulled out a small duffel bag (it looks bigger in the picture than it actually is) and transferred the heaviest items into it. It is one that can attach to the handle of a suitcase so I thought that would work just fine.

Future me would be so mad at the me that made this decision rather than just dumping stuff. To be fair, I did take out a lot of things that I had planned on taking. Just not enough.

Also, I was REALLY paranoid about losing my luggage. Because we would be hopping around to so many different hotels and locations I was worried that if my luggage got lost it would not be easy to get it back quickly. So I wanted to have a change of clothes in my carry on. I also thought I needed a million other things in my carry on for such a long flight.

I went to pack Doug's nice backpack style carry on and it wouldn't fit everything.

I panicked and tried a few different ways to make it all fit. Nothing worked.

So I took a late night drive to Target and bought this polka dot duffel bag on sale for $25.

It was great. In fact, I am SO glad I bought this. It was a pain to carry around sometimes because it was large and I was already pulling so much but it was a lifesaver and I ended up using it to hold all of my souvenirs on the way home. The shoulder strap broke a few days before coming home but I don't fault the bag for that because it was holding so much weight and being carried around so much.

On the floor there you can also see the Baggallini travel purse I bought at TJ Maxx for $20. That thing was amazing. I loved it and I will always recommend it.

So, yes I took all of this with me to Europe.

I do NOT recommend that.

We took a lot of trains. And it was such a pain to carry all of this up and down stairs onto a train. We only had one train the entire trip that had a straight across entry where we could just pull them on.
Also, some of our hotels did not have elevators.
So my biggest piece of packing advice is decide what you want to take and then half it.
I didn't use a lot of the extra things that I took.

However, I did wear every single piece of clothing that I took so you really have to decide what things you know you will use on your trip and just leave behind the "maybe's". It did make it a little harder going this time of year because we had mostly chilly and rainy weather but we also had some warm times and we were in snow.
Back to the actual traveling...
My mom and dad picked me up at around 7:45am. I said my goodbyes to Doug and the girls (which was hard!) and then we drove to the Salt Lake City Airport.
We checked in and then went through security where my mom was frisked.

Then we found our gate and waited.
Time for our first picture.
I don't think a picture of more than one person can really be considered a "selfie" but that's what we called it for lack of a better word. We took a lot of them on this trip. While doing it I always felt silly. But I am so glad we did since I tend to not get in pictures.

Our flight was supposed to leave at 10:30 but didn't end up taking off until around 11:45.
We booked our flights through Icelandair but our flight from Salt Lake City to Seattle was on Alaska airlines. I always get really nervous flying but especially when flying with a company I have never flown with before. But it was actually really nice. We had a lot of leg room and the seats were really comfortable.
When I booked our flights I always booked the window seat and the aisle seat in the hopes that if it was not a full flight no one would pick the middle seat between us. Will it work?
Not on this flight.
I pulled out some adult coloring books and I colored in an owl one and my mom colored in a Harry Potter one. I have never used these coloring books until this trip and I found that they REALLY helped my flight anxiety. I got them to take because I heard that they could be stress relieving and my experience is that they really are.
The flight was relatively short anyway but it went by really fast as we just colored and chatted the entire time.
I was excited to see Washington. I LOVE Washington state. I lived there a few times as a kid and it has always remained one of my favorite places in the world.
Maddy gave me one of her Shopkins, Jennifer Rain, to take with us on the trip. I carried her in my purse and occasionally took photos of her in front of things to text to Maddy. That was a really fun thing to do.
Here she is in the Seattle airport...

We had a long layover in Seattle so we used the time to grab some lunch. My mom had a cheeseburger and fries and I had a chicken sandwich and some fries. Not great but not terrible.
Then we went to our gate and watched an episode of Once Upon a Time on my Ipad.
Our plane ended up being a bit delayed (will this be a pattern?) but eventually we made our way onto our first Icelandair flight.
It left a lot to be desired.
There was no room under our seats for a carry on. Not even my mom's small one. So we had to stash them overhead. All the passengers coming on were really impatient and a few were downright rude as I was trying to get mine up there. As a result of having to put it up there and not wanting to get into it while people were sleeping underneath it (it was not right above us) I ended up not having some of the things I wanted on the flight handy.
We flew up over Canada which was pretty cool (you probably know I love Canada).

We ate dinner on board and watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
That was pretty cool because I had never seen it. I really liked it.
It helped some of the time to go by faster.
I hate to complain so much but the flight was not great. Usually planes seem to be a little on the colder side but this one was really warm. Everyone around us was taking off coats and sweaters and talking about it being warm.
And the no leg room made it hard to stretch much.
I wanted to get up and walk around more but I really didn't want to wake up the sleeping lady next to me. I had the aisle seat in case no one bought the middle seat, but when we saw that someone had purchased them I would always trade them and move over the to middle.
I tried so hard to fall asleep but I couldn't.
After a couple of hours I gave up on it and watched Goonies.
Another mistake I made was that I bought compression socks that I put on about an hour into the flight. They were unisex ones from Target for $10 and worked great for Doug on his much longer flight to and from Hong Kong.
But, because my legs are shorter, the socks did not fit me well and I ended up with bruises on the back of my shin right under my knee. I took them off about two hours away from Iceland and never used them again.
I was SO ready to land.

Because of the time change we would be arriving in Iceland on the morning of April 6th.
We finally arrived at about 7am.
We were so happy to be landing and to see our first new country and getting our first stamp in our passports!

Iceland's airport was small but it was pretty confusing for us as we tried to find our way out. The signs weren't great and no one we spoke to knew where we were supposed to go or so it seemed.
I would love to go to Iceland again someday and actually be able to explore it more. I would rent a car so that we were able to get around as much as we pleased and I think we would have a better experience.
I say this because our experience here wasn't as great as I thought it would be with the exception of the Blue Lagoon itself. We met some really nice workers there and had fun but other than that most of the people were really rude to us and we had such a hard time finding out any information.
We used Reykjavik excursions to transport us and the buses were amazingly nice and comfortable but hard to find on our way back! I will get to that again later.
Again, I don't really complain much about this kind of stuff usually. But we were tired and just would have liked things to go a lot smoother. I have heard so many amazing things about Iceland recently and I was kind of bummed that we didn't have that kind of experience as a whole.
Here is my mom on the bus...

Like I said the bus was actually really nice and big.
We drove about 30 minutes to get to the Blue Lagoon.
The scenery was mostly like this...
very cool and unlike anything I had really seen before.

The bus dropped us off in a big parking lot where we saw this sign...

We walked down a trail surrounded by lava rocks to get to the actual building.
They had a place where you could pay to leave your luggage but we only had carry on bags so we were able to take them with us into the main building and stash them in our lockers for free.
They gave us little wristbands to use to open and close our lockers and pay for anything while there (kind of like Magic Bands).
We went to the dressing rooms and picked out lockers. The lockers are pretty big. As you saw in my last post I had a big carry on duffel bag and it fit just fine.
We then used a dressing room to change into our swimsuits, cheesy swim caps that we bought, and flip flops.
Most people just changed right in the dressing room but we weren't really comfortable with doing that and had to use the dressing room.
Then we walked to the shower room and took a quick shower before walking outside where it was very cold and getting into the water which was the PERFECT temperature.
I was afraid that it would be really hot like a hot tub and we wouldn't be able to stay in too long but it was actually so perfect. There were patches of warm, really warm and hot depending on where you were.
We bought a towel for 6 euros and the nice girl gave us two even though we only paid for one.
These we were able to hang up outside the water and we stashed our flip flops there as well.
Now here is my next bit of advice:
Invest in a waterproof phone case if you want to take really good photos.
I didn't want to spend the money for that and instead bought an old school water camera.
We got photos. But they do not do the place justice.
I highly recommend a visit to this place.
After the long flight it felt so good to walk around in the water here.

My mom and I had the exact same swimsuit. Hers was black and white and mine was blue and white.
We both wore these old school swim caps to keep the water from getting in our hair as I had heard that it can make it extremely dry and unmanageable for a while after it gets on your hair.
I kept laughing whenever I thought about what we must look like to everyone else.

I also wish we would have stayed longer.
We got it into our heads a few hours in that if we went and got a bus to Reykjavik we could then catch a bus back to the airport and we would have a few hours in the town of Reykjavik, which we really wanted.
We went back into the dressing room and got dressed and used their great vanity areas to freshen up.

But there were no buses. For at least an hour. And then every bus I went up to was not the right one.
Finally a bus came that we could use and we didn't have enough time so we had to wait for one to take us back to the airport, which also took a while to show up.
This is why I wish we had a rental car.
We had a couple of hours sitting around that we could have been back in the water!
I wish we had done that differently.

I did use that time to get a picture of Jennifer Rain on the lava rock.

Eventually we got back to the airport but then they didn't have anyone at the gates letting you in.
We had to wait another hour before anyone showed up and let us check back in and go through security.
We were hungry at this point and so tired we didn't feel like walking back over the food court area so we ate a Zone bar. We brought a ton of these on the trip with us and they came in so handy. We used them for breakfast a lot and sometimes for other meals when nothing was available!
When we finally got back to our gate we sat to wait for loading. We met a really nice man from England and spoke to him the entire wait which was very pleasant.
We had to ride this bus out to our plane...
We got on the plane at around 4:10.
But then our pattern kicked in and we were, again, delayed.
We had to sit in the plane for a while.
This plane was also small, smaller than the last one.
There wasn't much room and we did have someone come to sit with us again.
But it did have one cool thing.
There were foot rests under the seat in front of us. I liked that!
We soon took off and headed for England

However, once we got close to Heathrow, we circled for a very long time before they gave us clearance to land. In the end the 2.5 hour flight ended up taking about 3.5 hours.
By the time we landed we were exhausted, hungry, and sore.
But we were there!
It seemed unbelievable to finally be in England.
We went through customs and then got some trolleys and picked up our luggage.
It all arrived!
Heathrow was huge and it took us a long time to get to baggage claim and then even longer to get to the Heathrow Express.
We saw this along the way.

You can take the regular tube for less money but we opted for the quicker Heathrow Express and I am so glad we did.
It was only about $25 each because we bought our tickets a few months in advance (we didn't have to specify a time, just a day) and it only took 15 minutes to get from Heathrow to Paddington Station.
At that time of night after traveling for so long it was worth every penny.
We also splurged to spend the night at the Hilton Paddington so that once we got to the train station we could just exit the train and walk to our hotel without even leaving the station.
Again, worth every penny.
We checked in a little bit after 10 P.M.
By this time we had been up for about 36 hours and we crashed.
The beds were extremely comfortable and we slept so well.
And, it worked out great because we had NO jet lag because of getting on their schedule immediately upon arrival like that.
I will post pictures of the hotel in the next post!
​

 

[missangelalexis]

Congrats on the purchase of your home! Very exciting!

Excited that you've started the TR!

I'm with you on overpacking, I am sure I would have done the same thing. And it's so tough packing for uncertain weather.

Love the first selfie, you both look so excited!

I'm sorry the second flight wasn't so fun and that you weren't able to sleep

Ah what a bummer that Iceland wasn't as great as you hoped. I'm sure the long travelling caught up to you too.

The Blue Lagoon sounds and looks awesome! I'm sorry you didn't end up getting to see Reykjavik. I can't imagine how tough and overwhelming it is to plan these kinds of things in a foreign country.

You finally made it to England! I am sure you guys were beyond exhausted. 36 hours of being awake plus all that travel!! That's awesome that you were able to adjust to the time right off the bat.

 

[annegirl]

Congrats on the purchase of your home! Very exciting!

Excited that you've started the TR!

I'm with you on overpacking, I am sure I would have done the same thing. And it's so tough packing for uncertain weather.

Love the first selfie, you both look so excited!

I'm sorry the second flight wasn't so fun and that you weren't able to sleep

Ah what a bummer that Iceland wasn't as great as you hoped. I'm sure the long travelling caught up to you too.

The Blue Lagoon sounds and looks awesome! I'm sorry you didn't end up getting to see Reykjavik. I can't imagine how tough and overwhelming it is to plan these kinds of things in a foreign country.

You finally made it to England! I am sure you guys were beyond exhausted. 36 hours of being awake plus all that travel!! That's awesome that you were able to adjust to the time right off the bat.

Yeah. Someday I will go back to Iceland and do it the way it is meant to be done so I can have a better picture of what it is like!
Thanks! We are so excited. I will try to be better about updating this report!

 

[annegirl]

Okay, time for another update finally!
We are now in our new house and unpacking. It is pretty hectic but things are coming together nicely.
I am hoping to have us all settled by next week.

I will eventually post some pictures of the house.

Back to the trip!

In my last post I mentioned we were staying at the Hilton at Paddington Station which was pricey but so worth it!
Not only did we have the convenience of it being at Paddington Station on arrival but also we would be catching a train from Paddington to Bath the next morning so it was super convenient for that too.

I have some pictures of the outside of it that I actually took later on in the trip when we were back in London and walked past it.

I am sure that I took pictures of the room and the walkway to the hotel from the train station but I cannot find them so I grabbed these ones from booking.com:

We stayed in a twin room. So we had twin beds. The room looked exactly like this. The rooms were a good size and very nice.
The beds were fantastic and we had an awesome night of sleep.
Of course, we were completely exhausted to begin with. But it really was so comfortable.
We slept in until about 8:50 so that was amazing.
The next morning we had Zone bars in our room because there was not a free breakfast at the hotel.
I enjoyed looking out the window down to the street below. There were so many people, buses, taxis, and cars speeding by.
We spent some time getting ready and then we went down to Paddington station to explore a little and find Paddington Bear.
I took this photo out of a window in the hallway. You can see the top of the station.

And the grand staircase...

The lobby:

They had a Paddington statue in the lobby. I actually took this photo on our way back in later. I stuck the little bear I bought for Maddy into the photo.

Paddington Station.
It was very cool.

We were going to go shopping in the Paddington shop first, but when we got there it was closed for refurbishment. They had a sign telling us where to find a pop up store in the station- basically a little cart.
We decided to go find the statue first.
We found him!

There were a lot of people hanging around getting photos. Mostly kids with their parents. It was so fun to see how many people love Paddington.

After this we found the pop up store and did a little shopping. I thought I had a picture of the cart but I guess I didn't. They didn't have a huge selection but I was able to get a few things.
I bought a Paddington Bear for Maddy, a Paddington pencil for Abi, and a Paddington bookmark for us to use when we are reading Paddington books.

After shopping we went to a ticket kiosk and bought our train tickets to take us to Bath.
We only had a little bit of time before we would need to catch the train so we went back to our room, grabbed our bags and went to check out.
We were just in time to make our way to our train.
Again, we were kicking ourselves for having so much luggage to drag through the station.
My mom saw some people pulling their luggage along flat on the ground (as opposed to leaning) and she did that as well. I tried it and was surprised at how much easier it was. Then I did something stupid and decided to see if I could do it with the bags in front of me, pushing instead of pulling.
I then proceeded to completely trip over my bags in the middle of the station. Haha.

Next: Train ride and Bath!
​

 

[missangelalexis]

Congrats on moving into the new house!

Sounds like a nice hotel and very convenient!

Love the pictures of the Paddington statue!

 

[GAN]

Next: Train ride and Bath!

Yeah!! I love Bath ...I hope you did as well!

 

[Chicago Mo]

Congrats on your house! YAHOO!
I LOVE paddington!

 

[annegirl]

Congrats on moving into the new house!

Sounds like a nice hotel and very convenient!

Love the pictures of the Paddington statue!

Thank you! It was really nice. I wouldn't put out the money to stay there for an entire trip to London, but definitely helpful when you are coming in/ going out of Paddington!

Yeah!! I love Bath ...I hope you did as well!

I did! I wish we could have spent more time there!

Congrats on your house! YAHOO!
I LOVE paddington!

Thank you! Me too!

 

[annegirl]

After tripping over my luggage, we made it on to the train to Bath. ​

The seats were similar to an airplane but a little more comfortable. ​

We sat toward the back of the train so we were close to our luggage. ​

I realized on this trip I must be a pretty paranoid/ non trusting person. I hated having my luggage out of my sight on trains. ​

We took a picture as we got going through the countryside.

It was so beautiful along the way and we were so excited to be seeing the English countryside for the first time!

We were a bit late getting into Bath as our train had to stop for a while because there had been a fatality somewhere along the route with another train. We never knew all of the details of that. Finally they re-routed us and took us into Bath a different way.
When we got into the station we went around back to wait for Enterprise to pick us up.
They were waiting for us when we were supposed to get there and so they had already left.
It took about a half an hour to come get us this time since they were doing other things at this point.
We went with Enterprise this entire trip because my brother in law works for them and we were able to use his discount. I would highly recommend them even without the discount because we always had nice cars and good service. It wasn't always easy to drop the cars off (as you will see later) but overall we had a really good experience with them.
Here is my mom waiting for them to pick us up. That's the back of the train station in the background.
The river was right by us and there were pretty paths all along next to it. So pretty!

The guy got there to pick us up and was driving the car that would soon be mine!
He was really friendly and fun to chat with.
The entire crew at the Enterprise was helpful and nice and soon we were on our way in our car.
We were given a Toyota Auris hybrid. Pictures to come later.
As I began to drive it I wasn't as freaked out about being on the "wrong" side as I was by how sensitive the brakes were. Every time I would touch the brakes the car would lurch to a stop so fast we would about die.
When I came to a light and this happened, the car behind us almost hit us and I received a well deserved beep from behind.
This would later become one of the funniest and most embarrassing stories of the trip.
More on that in a later post.
We drove to a nearby Park and Ride car park.
I am so glad we did this so I didn't have to worry about parking in the middle of Bath.
But, I wish we had paid more attention to where it dropped us off.
Tip: When you ride the park and ride, make sure you ask the driver where to catch the bus going back!
We used a map that I had printed out and brought along with us to find the Bath Abbey.
We were getting into Bath a little later in the afternoon than originally planned so we knew we wouldn't be able to see everything on our list and needed to prioritize.
Our first priority was Bath Abbey.

As we walked up to the Abbey we were amazed at how much bigger it looked in person.
This was our first European cathedral experience and it was mind blowing.
Everything is so big.

Then we walked in and were overwhelmed.
We sat down on a pew and just stared around us for a few minutes.
There was a dad with his child that sat down next to me while I was sitting there and I couldn't help eavesdropping as he said to his son, "The first thing you want to do when you come into a cathedral is sit down here and then..." he took hold of both sides of his head and moved it so he was looking up, "look up!"
He was so right.
Looking up was breathtaking.

I tried to take a little video inside because pictures just don't do it justice at all.

However, the video doesn't really do it justice either.
It was so beautiful in there.
I had to get a picture of all of the markers on the floor as well.

I thought the man below in black was the Reverend so I looked up their clergy on their website to remember his name. But I couldn't find him anywhere. So I am not quite sure what his role is there.
But while we were there he was walking around and talking to everyone that was visiting.
He was very funny and friendly.

The details in the cathedrals are awesome. I loved looking at all of the carvings.

It was so beautiful.
When we came out of the abbey we got a few more pictures of the outside

Next up: The Roman Baths
​

 

[annegirl]

After visiting the Abbey we walked across the street to visit the Roman Baths.

First you go into the lobby to buy tickets. You have to look up. The ceiling is beautiful!

After getting tickets you can pick up a free audio guide and then you go out onto the terrace.

The terrace looks down onto the Great Bath.
There are a bunch of Victorian statues of different people going all around the terrace. The statues were carved in 1894 for the opening of the Roman Baths in 1897.

There's the Abbey across the way!

From there we went into the building and explored some of the displays. They had a lot of models, artifacts, and ruins of the original Roman architecture.
It was very cool.
Then we went out to the Great Bath.

Our shoes and the bath.

The Great Bath is a little over 5 feet deep and has steps leading down to it on all four sides. It is lined with 45 sheets of lead and filled with hot water.
We were told that it used to be covered.
The Roman Baths were in use for over four hundred years!

It was so cool to be here. When you have seen a place in pictures for so long it really does feel surreal to visit it in person!
We then went back in to see even more.
Inside there were heating and sauna type rooms and this circular cold plunge bath.

After seeing all of the tour we went to the Pump room to "take the water".
But unfortunately there was no one in there doing it at that time.
There was a water spout in the museum where you could taste it but since I thought we would be able to do it in the Pump room, we didn't do it at that point.
So, we didn't get to taste the water. But that's okay. I've heard it is pretty horrible.
The Pump Room was really pretty.

After we left I got a few pictures of the outside.

After we were done visiting the Baths, we walked to Sally Lunn's.
I was really hoping to be able to have lunch here on our visit.
It was a late lunch but we were able to!

Sally Lunn was a refugee from France that began working for a baker in Bath in 1680. She introduced the baker to the French brioche bread. The bread that she would make was served at the breakfasts and teas. They became so successful that the baker was able to upgrade the kitchen oven. It became the famous "bun" of Bath.
In the 1930's the recipe was discovered in a secret cupboard over the fireplace.
The kitchen is no longer in the basement but the old kitchen is a museum that you can enter for free if you eat there.
The bun has now become the famous "Sally Lunn Bun".
This building is also the oldest house in Bath, built in 1482.
Sally lived there in 1680.

We both ordered the Split Pea Soup with the half bun.
My mom had hot chocolate with it and I had water.
Both the soup and the bun were delicious.

It was a great, warming lunch and we were so glad we were able to eat there.
We went down to the little museum kitchen after eating.
It was small and interesting.

Next up: The rest of our time in Bath
​

 

[annegirl]

After we left Sally Lunn's, we walked over to the River Avon to walk to Pulteney bridge. ​

The scenery was just so pretty.

If you have seen the film version of Les Miserables, you may remember this bridge and part of the River Avon from a very important Javert (Russell Crowe) scene.

At this point there were still so many things we wanted to see but we knew we needed to get going to our hotel to check in. We walked back over near the Abbey and began to look for a bus back to the car park. We couldn't find one. We walked around for SO long trying to find the bus. Finally we saw one that looked the same and asked the driver. He gave us directions to where we needed to get the bus going back to the car park.
We finally found it and rode back to our car.
I was so nervous to start driving it again.
I decided that it would be a good idea to drive around the car park for awhile so I could get used to the brakes before getting out on the real road with other drivers. I was circling over and over again and it wasn't getting any better.
Then my mom said, "Is there a reason you are using your left foot on the brake?"
WHAT!?!
I looked down and realized that I really had been using my left foot on the brake and my right foot on the gas.
I started driving the correct way and suddenly.... the brakes were totally normal.
Oh my gosh.
I put the car in park and we both just sat there laughing for a few minutes. It still makes me laugh when I think about it.
I have no idea why I did that. Something in my brain must have malfunctioned as soon as I started driving on the right side of the car. Who knows. But yeah, that was hilarious.
I was so happy to realize that my car was not going to be lurching to a stop the entire time and I got back out on those roads.
I was really nervous as I drove around but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

We had really wanted to see the Crescent and the Circus but didn't have time... and then on our way to the hotel we just happened to end up in the Circus roundabout!
I told my mom to just start taking pictures with my phone as I drove around it.

When we got out on the smaller road taking us out of the city I was even more nervous. The roads here are SO small. Every time a car came at me from the opposite direction I was sure we were going to run into each other. Well, I had no idea what I was going to be facing later. These roads were huge compared to some that I would later drive.
I wasn't sure about the speed limit either. I wasn't seeing any signs with it posted. I later looked it up and found the speeds for different kinds of roads (not that I always drove according to them as I will talk about later).
Soon we were turning up a VERY steep hill. So glad I didn't have a stick shift. And then pulling into the driveway of our hotel for the night.
This was the view.

We stayed at the Best Western Limpley Stoke Hotel



It was a beautiful hotel in a beautiful setting.

Soon after checking in it began to get dark outside.
This was the view from our window...

I had to get a picture of Jennifer Rain on the window sill.

There was a cute cat on the ground below our window that I made the mistake of talking to. It kept returning to the space under our window all night meowing at me. We were on the top floor so it couldn't get to us but it sure wanted to. I even dreamed that it had somehow got up there and climbed in during the night.
When we were ready for dinner we went down the restaurant at our hotel.
My mom had soup again. I can't remember what kind but I think it was a potato vegetable. Mom, do you remember? She also had a sandwich with it.
I ordered the BLT sandwich. It came with salad and chips (crisps) but I didn't know that so I ordered fries (chips) as well.
I think my mom enjoyed hers. I can't remember.
My sandwich and salad were great. I didn't like the chips much so I only ate a couple of those and then had a couple of the fries that were pretty basic.

After dinner we went outside to take a little walk around the place but ended up only staying out there for a few minutes. It was very cold and very dark.
I got this picture looking into the dining room from outside.

Then we went back up to our room to get ready for bed.
The room was pretty small but it was very comfortable.

I only bought one souvenir in Bath.
Abi loves chocolate coins so I thought it would be funny to bring her this one from the Roman Baths. It is real chocolate and looks like a Roman coin. It was bigger than my hand.
She was so excited!

Next up: Day Four, Stonehenge!
​

 

[missangelalexis]

So many beautiful pictures! I totally laughed at your story about driving with both feet! Glad you cleared that up early on!

 

[Chicago Mo]

HELLO my comedic friend!

I am in awe over all your pictures.. And me and being an immature moron laughing about how the BATH is green.. Ick. those people must have been really dirt of the water is still green!

OK i am taking my moronic brain elsewhere now.. LOL!

It's been a long weekend and a longer day.

 

[annegirl]

So many beautiful pictures! I totally laughed at your story about driving with both feet! Glad you cleared that up early on!

Right? I am such a dork.

HELLO my comedic friend!

I am in awe over all your pictures.. And me and being an immature moron laughing about how the BATH is green.. Ick. those people must have been really dirt of the water is still green!

OK i am taking my moronic brain elsewhere now.. LOL!

It's been a long weekend and a longer day.

Haha. Those dirty Romans!

 

[annegirl]

When I was doing my trip research I read on trip advisor about a couple that was able to go on a semi private tour of Stonehenge before opening hours. It was called a Special Access tour.
I went to the Stonehenge website and looked it up. I couldn't find anything about these special access tours except through private touring companies that charged a ton and always had it added on to a tour from London visiting a bunch of other places as well. We didn't need that and we didn't want to pay that much.

So I emailed them. I asked if Special Access tours were still available.

I received a response saying that yes, they did do them. They were limited to a small amount of people and certain days but I could fill out an application for the day and time we wanted and see if it was available. I did that and they said yes to one of the days I listed.

We had to pay about twice as much as a Stonehenge ticket normally is (around $50 each as opposed to around $25 each) but it was worth it to us for many reasons.

First, we had a lot of things to do this day and it was really nice to be able to get into Stonehenge so early that we could be to the next place at opening.

Second, when you go to Stonehenge you normally don't get very close to the stones. You are kept back past a little fence on a path. In the pictures below you can see the path and that is as close as you can get. We got to walk right in and around the stones.

And Third, the crowds. We had hardly anyone there with us. It was so peaceful.

We did have to leave our hotel really early in the morning. We checked out the night before and then dropped our key in a drop box at the desk. I got ready and then took the luggage down while my mom got ready. It was really quiet and dark still and quite cold.

Then we drove for about an hour to Stonehenge.

When we got there we had to show our tickets to some security men who then let us into the parking lot.

From there we had to walk over to the shuttle bus and it drove us down the road to a spot close to Stonehenge.

Then we got out and walked the rest of the way.

The sun was just rising and it was absolutely beautiful.

(Warning: LOTS of pictures. It was too hard to decide between them!)

There was a security guard there to watch over us and he opened the gate to let us in.
It was unbelievably cool to be walking amongst these large stones.

They were all big, but some were massive.

​

 

[annegirl]

Stone close up.

Looking up while I am standing under a stone archway....

There were a few stones scattered about, some laying down, that were not part of the big group.

It was freezing cold. We had about an hour to walk around the stones but my mom's toes were completely frozen by about the 45 minute mark so we walked back over to the shuttle bus at that point. The others soon followed and then the bus took us back over to the visitor's center.

This was an incredible experience and I wouldn't hesitate to pay the extra money for it.

It is so worth it.

Next up: Jane Austen​

 

[GAN]

HELLO my comedic friend!

I am in awe over all your pictures.. And me and being an immature moron laughing about how the BATH is green.. Ick. those people must have been really dirt of the water is still green!

OK i am taking my moronic brain elsewhere now.. LOL!

It's been a long weekend and a longer day.

The water would have been clear(or more clear) during the Roman times -at that point the pools would have been covered, reducing the issues caused by the algae that now make it green because of the exposure to the sun. In case anyone was curious!!

 

[tabby1881]

Your pictures are wonderful, and your Stonehenge pictures are absolutely amazing! Beautiful pictures. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Chicago Mo]

Warning: LOTS of pictures. It was too hard to decide between them!)

Honestly i don't think there were ENOUGH pictures! This is amazing.. Simply amazing and i would give my left arm to be there!!!

This was an incredible experience and I wouldn't hesitate to pay the extra money for it.

I cannot agree more. I would have paid double for the tour! the ropes were by the walk way? So you were about 20 yards from the stones?
Nope. Nope. I would want front and center. Your pictures are stunning!!!

The water would have been clear(or more clear) during the Roman times -at that point the pools would have been covered, reducing the issues caused by the algae that now make it green because of the exposure to the sun. In case anyone was curious!!

I do hope you know i was kidding and i'm not that much of a moron. My 14 year old mind took over for a few minutes.