Winchester, Stonehenge, and Glastonbury Tor- Friday, July 26, 2013

We had to rush somewhat to eat breakfast (identical to what the same chain was serving us in London, but for half the price now), get dressed and get out of the hotel this morning. The car park that they put us in was several blocks away, and started charging at 8:00 AM, and we didn't have a ticket in our window. (Notice that neither parking nor breakfast were included in the hotel.  Blah.)  That put us at our first stop in Winchester about an hour before things opened at 10.  We passed the time by strolling through the town.  It's a very old, medieval town.  Some of the buildings were old stone ones or half timbered ones.  The central street, High Street, was blocked off to traffic and had a market place set up.  It was a pleasant stroll. One man must have recognized we were tourists as we were waiting at a crosswalk.  He said, "It's hard to believe, but that road is 2,500 years old.  And this one (High Street) is 3,500 years old!"   800 years ago, Winchester was the capital of England.  

We came to Winchester to see King Arthur's Round Table.  Scott remembers a picture of this table in his English lit book in high school, when they were studying the legends of Arthur.  The table now hangs in the Great Hall, the only remaining part of the great castle hat once stood here.  The table was painted with the places marked for Arthur and his 24 knights, Mordred to the king's right and Galahad, and Launcelot to his left, and so on.   Like 221B Baker Street, the Round Table is something that you want to be true from the legendary past of England, but this particular artifact has quite a long part in actual history.  The painting on the table was done in the time of Henry VIII.  The table is far older.  It is older than "Le Morte d'Arthur," the book by Thomas Mallory.  So could the table really have been Arthur's?  Many generations have said so, and we want to believe.  

We continued on to our next stop - Stonehenge.  Julie seems to be more comfortable driving on the left and negotiating the round-abouts.  It helps that the GPS is so informative.  We don't know how we would have done it with Scott just reading a map.  We did get into a traffic jam as we approached Amesbury.  We sat in it for 45 to 50 minutes with traffic hardly moving.   There were several reasons why the traffic was backed up, but the biggest reason seems to have been that people wanted to drive by Stonehenge to see it from the road.  We were a little nervous that ALL of these cars were headed to Stonehenge, but only a small portion of them actually pulled in.  It was busy, to be sure, but it didn't feel overcrowded.  A new visitor's center is under construction, and the roads are being redone too.  We ate a picnic lunch with sandwiches that we bought there and fed some little brown birds our crusts.

Stonehenge's prehistoric circle of stones was already ancient when the Roman's got here.  It's true purpose and many of the details that we would like to know about it are forever lost to the mists of time.  It has a mythic power to it.  True, we couldn't quite get lost in our revery here because of the many people that were sharing the space with us, but like the pyramids of Egypt, it's a monument coming to us from out of the distant past, and we're drawn to it.  Anna jokingly said, "They're just rocks.  That's all they'll ever be."  But she remembered how the keystone lines up during the summer solstice. The audio tour takes you slowly around the rings of stones (visitors aren't allowed in to the ring itself).  Stonehenge is run by English Heritage, the same people who run the Battle of Hastings site, and we were similarly pleased with both.  We purchased a nine-day pass to English Heritage sites when we were at Hastings yesterday, so Stonehenge was free.   After a long slow stroll around the ring of Stonehenge, and taking quite a few pictures, it's time to go.

On the route to our next stop, we saw one more hill drawing in chalk.  This time more of us saw it, and we did get a little video of it, though we don't know what it is.

Our next stop was Glastonbury.  The reason why we came was because of how this town is also tied to the legends of England's past.  It is said that Glastonbury is, in fact, the Isle of Avalon (though it is no longer an island), and that it was here that King Arthur's body was brought at the end of his tale-- the once and future king of England.  It is also believed by some that Joseph of Arimathea came here some time after Christ's death and brought with him the Holy Grail.  Today, the town's legendary past seems to attract all sorts of "interesting" people.  The town seems full of hippies and New Agers and free spirits and what Julie calls "crunchy" people.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

We had a bit of a hard time finding parking, but eventually parked near the Chalice Well Garden.  This is the place where Joseph of Arimathea was supposed to have hidden the Grail, and the waters of the well are supposed to have healing properties.  Certainly, there were people who had come to the gardens here to meditate.  The girls got some bottles to fill at the spring (where the water is supposed to be tested to insure that it is safe to drink).   The three girls also took off their shoes and soaked their feet in the water too.  Anna got down far enough to soak her sore knee in the water, and they eventually talked Scott into putting his feet in too.  The water was REALLY cold so it does make your sore feet feel better, but that's probably just because they go numb.

The real attraction at Glastonbury is the Tor.   "Tor" is a Celtic word for hill, and this one rises sharply to a height of 520 feet above the relatively flat plains around it.  Atop it sits the ruins of a church, which is now merely a tower-- like a chess rook left on a sandpile.  This is the hill that is important enough to England to have been featured as the centerpiece of the Opening Ceremonies at the recent London Olympics.  We came to climb the path to the top.  At one point early one, we asked, "Where's Emma?"  When we looked up at the top, a little black haired head popped up, with a giggle and a wave. She was way ahead of us and having a great time.  Anna and Emma could run swiftly up the slope, but Scott and Julie took their time, with many rest breaks along the way.   We saw black birds, crows perhaps, flying around the hill.  When we stopped to look at one small flock, Julie noticed that there were rabbits all in and amongst the birds.  She counted seven rabbits there.  Then two playful dogs scampered nearby, and it seemed that another dozen rabbits that we hadn't noticed yet suddenly leaped up and scurried down their holes.  We laughed as the rabbits heads peeked back out after the dogs left.

Once we were at the top, the view was great.  We lounged for a while, simply staring off across the plains.  We could clearly see sheep (and maybe alpacas?) grazing on the farms below.  Scott listened to "Jerusalem" on his MP3 player.  There were many other people doing things at the summit, but everyone seemed in a quiet mood.  There were some doing yoga (or a similar kind of prayer).  One guy brought a complicated looking little helicopter toy that he flew up higher than the tower.  

After we went back down, Scott wanted to see the ruins of the Abbey, so we moved our car to the carpark in the centre of town.  We paid for parking at the machine and were just returning to put he ticket in the window of he car when the guy behind us backed out and bumped our car not once, but four or five times as he was trying to get turned around.  Anna got his picture with his license plate, but he didn't stop or apologize or anything.   Two kindly Englishwomen saw it happen and offered their names to us as witnesses. They were shocked at what hey had seen, and said that he shouldn't be driving.  There are a few little scratches on our bumper.

After all the dead people in Westminster Abbey, Emma did NOT want to go to this one, even though the ruins were park like and tranquil.  She and Julie waited outside while Scott and Anna went in.  Scott didn't want to miss it because this was supposed to be the site of KIng Arthur's grave.  In 1191, a monk was supposed to have "found" the bodies of two people in a grave that was marked as Arthur and Guinevere.  They were reinterred in a tomb in the large church in the abbey and their tomb was there for a few hundred years for pilgrims to view.  Today both the tomb and the church are gone, but this was where Arthur's legend is said to have ended.  Appropriately, two white doves few into the abbey ruins as Scott turned around.

We had dinner at a real Italian place in Glastonbury with very Italian waiters.  Then we headed on to our hotel in Bristol.  This day has been one of the best of the trip.

Battle of Hastings and Brighton- Thursday, July 25, 2013

Today is our first day with a car of our own and the beginning of our trip in the England that exists beyond London.  We packed up all of our things from the London hotel room, and started our journey out to Heathrow Airport to get our rent-a-car.  Anna had a nasty-looking slip on some wet stairs early on.  She certainly skinned her legs a bit.  The journey to Heathrow was the longest trip that we took using the London subways, and it felt even harder because we were hauling full loads in our backpacks.  

Once we got to Heathrow, we got our car.  It's an Audi, and there are a lot of nice features on it.  It has a built in GPS system, which is fortunate because "Lizzie" has not been cooperating with us at all, in spite of the maps we paid for before we left.  The traffic patterns around Heathrow are probably some of the worst places to adjust to a new car.  Of course, it's often tricky to drive a different car because the controls are not where you expect them, but here we had the whole steering wheel on the "passenger" side, we were trying to figure out how to program and understand the new GPS system, we were trying to decode the new system of signs and road markings, and of course, Julie was trying to figure out how to drive on the left side of the road.  It's probably not surprising that we took several wrong turns before we got away from the airport, but soon we were on our way. 

Our first real tourist stop was the most famous battlefield in England- the Battle of Hastings.  The battle, fought in 1066, was actually fought on a hill in what is now called the town of Battle, outside of Hastings itself.  As battlefields go, this is a very small one compared to what we're used to from the CIvil War, and much has changed over the nearly 1000 years that have passed since the battle.  We didn't know what to expect going in, but it was well worth the visit.  The tour starts with an audio guide that take takes you to a small but well done visitors' centre.  There, you watch a short film about the battle, which uses re-enactors, computer generated images, and animated scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry.  The stroll through the battlefield is well narrated and the path takes you through some peaceful woods that circle down, around, and back up the battlefield's hill.  You get to view the perspectives of the Normans under William the Conquerer who fought uphill towards the Anglo Saxons under Harold, at the top of the hill.  Even though, part of the path was being reseeded and was closed, we still felt like the audio guide was providing us with great insights on how the battle unfolded on the ground in front of us.  The tour ended in the ruins of Battle Abbey.  It was ordered to be built by William after the battle, partly as penance for the many who were left dead here.  The abbey's alter is supposed to be on the spot where Harold was killed, probably shot in the eye by a Norman arrow.  The audio guide than takes you through the lives of the Benedictine monks who inhabited the abbey until it was destroyed by Henry VIII.   After this battle, William was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey and had the Tower of London built, both of which we've seen this week.   The Bayeux Tapestry which was sewn after the battle, shows the scenes from the battle in what is essentially a long comic strip, and we saw that in 2009.  It was very satisfying to visit this little battlefield that made such a huge impact on the lives of English speaking peoples everywhere today.

We left the town of Battle and continued to follow the car's GPS over the small country roads of Sussex in the southeast of England.  These roads are nicely paved but quite narrow.  Hedges that are about ten feet high crowd the sides of the road, and oncoming traffic always seem to just miss you as it whizzes by you on the right.  As Julie is still learning to negotiate on British roads, we went weaving through this labyrinthine area.  As we wove towards one picket fence and swerved around it in time, Scott said it felt like we were on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. 

Scott was about to point out the white chalk patches that he could see in one of the steep hills to the south of us, when he caught a glimpse of the mysterious, pre-historic drawing of the "Long Man of Wilmington." Scott saw it once or twice more,  but because of the banks and trees, it was only for a second or two each time and no one else in the car could see it.  They all said he was crazy, but Scott knows it was there.

We went to Brighton, which is known for it's beach and for the amusements on its pier.  We walked down to the shore on some very rocky ground that shifted underneath you as you walked.  (We guess it was put there to slow erosion.)  Naturally, instead of the 90 degree weather with the sun bearing down on us, it was now overcast and almost chilly just because we were at a beach.  That didn't stop Anna from taking a dip in the English Channel, though.  

As we walked down the beach to the Pier, we saw one older guy doing something with a long stick-like contraption.  He'd shove it into the sand, pull a plunger on it to suck up whatever it was that was there. and then empty it onto the beach.  Julie said that it was time for a Rick Steves moment, and talked the girls into finding out more.  Emma was the brave one who asked, "Watcha doin'?" He told us he was looking for worms to be used for fishing.  He told us a little about how his tube worked, and showed us the couple of worms that he had already caught today.  They were enormous-- bigger around than Scott's thumb and longer than his hand.  The guy said that he might get have to try 50 times before he actually finds a worm.

We walked down Brighton Pier, with it's carnival rides and amusements.  The girls put a few coins in some of the machines, and Anna bought a sweatshirt that says, "I *heart* London."  We were hoping to find some carnival food to have for dinner, and Scott got a waffle with chocolate on it, but the "fish and chips and mushy peas" didn't appeal to us because we really don't like fish or mushy peas.  We ate at the Burger King at the start of the pier.

Julie's drive to the hotel tonight continued her sink-or-swim education for how to drive in England with some night-time driving.   She is getting more comfortable on the roundabouts (traffic circles), but there's an awful lot of them.  She said today was the hardest driving she'd ever done.  We're proud of how well she seems to be doing.  Tonight, we're sleeping in Southampton.  (We're not impressed with this hotel chain.  We've got to park at a lot some distance away, and walked through a seedy looking place.  We're only here one night, though.)