England 2003

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In September/October of 2003, Chris and I took a 2-week trip to England.  This was my second visit.  On our last visit, we visited more of northern England and part of Scotland.  This time we travelled more in the southwest.

We started out in London where we had lunch with our friends Raffa and Fiona.  We visited the newly-opened Cabinet War Rooms and saw where Churchill spent much of his time during World War II.  We crashed near Heathrow for the night, and the next morning headed to Clevedon on the west coast to meet up for lunch with Chris's family.  Chris's mom organized a wonderful Sunday lunch at the Walton Park Hotel and  I met many of his relatives for the first time.

That night we headed to Bath where we stayed the next three nights.  We had one full day in Bath, and took one day to go to Longleat Safari Park and Stonehenge.  

Leaving Bath, we went to Cheddar Gorge , where Cheddar cheese is from.  We drove down to Cornwall, stopping at Teignmouth, where Chris's family spent many summer holidays.  Our home for the next two nights was at Polhormon Farm , in Mullion, close to mainland England's southernmost point.   Polhormon Farm is a working dairy farm that's also a B&B.  It was a very pleasant place to stay, though we did wake up with the cows at 5 AM.  

We spent a day going around Cornwall, to Land's End (very touristy), Lizard's Point, the Minack Theater , and St. Ive's.  The next day we stopped at the amazing Eden Project , which was an old clay pit, and is now home to two huge biomes housing tropical plants.

We arrived at our next destination, a small inn in Stanley-Cum-Horton, to find no lights on in the village.  Apparently they'd had a power outage.  They were still able to serve us a delicious dinner (cooking with gas) and we took candles upstairs to our room.  Power came on sometime in the middle of the night.

We spent most of a day at Blenheim Palace , where Winston Churchill was born.  We also took a double-decker bus tour of Oxford.

The next day we headed up towards Birmingham via the Cotswolds, where we took a nice walk from the charmingly-named Upper Slaughter to the just as charming Lower Slaughter.  We had dinner in Birmingham with Chris's brother Peter, his wife Rachel, and our new nephew Henry James, who is as cute as can be.  We stayed there overnight, and spent the next day at nearby Warwick Castle , an excellently preserved castle.

Then we headed up to Nottingham, where Chris's parents live.  We stayed there several days, and took some day trips to the nearby Peak District, went to the annual Goose Fair, and saw some local scenery and historical buildings.  Finally we headed back to London and home.


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Places we stayed: