Daily Archives: July 5, 2007

[Two posts for the price of one today as we didn’t have internet last night.]

We left the wonderful hospitality of our hosts at the George Hotel in Weymouth (we highly recommend staying with Adrian and Carol – see our review page which will be up soon) and headed north toward Bath to see what those Romans did. As it has done *every* day since we got here – rained…. again… But we are used to it now so after arriving at our hotel, we walked into the old town…. in the rain… and wandered around the shops (to get out of the rain) and the cafes (to get out of the rain) before spending the rest of the afternoon at the famous baths for which the town is named (which coincidently, got us out of the rain!)

Wow! Pretty impressive. I wasn’t sure whether I was more impressed by the structure and engineering that was thousands of years old or by the fact that I was wandering around the same places once haunted by Jane Austen! (I know – spot the geek). The carvings were wonderful and the engineering fantastic. The water in the baths themselves is pretty gross (green and ooey but we could see the steam coming off them…. in the rain). In addition, there was audiocommentary available by another favorite author of mine: Bill Bryson. That was also kinda cool.

After a while we decided to dry off for good so we headed back to the hotel to get some dinner at a local pub that was recommended. That’s when things *really* got interesting. Just as the food arrived, a bar fight broke out! It seems that one of the local lads was slagging off his girlfriend (look it up!) and she tried to tear lumps out of him! Given that she had about 50 pounds on him, it could have gotten interesting. However, things were broken up quite quickly and she was ushered out a side door. (Note: we saw the two of them walking down the street together several hours later…. go figure!) Unfortunately, Frank missed all the excitement as he was outside taking an urgent phone call from his brother. It turns out his dad is very ill and we need to head to Scotland first thing tomorrow morning. No Grand Prix for us! (Know anyone that wants tickets?) We’ve made all the arrangements we can and will hit the road early in the A.M. Say a prayer for the old man – if you are so inclined.

/san/

[Pedometer: 17,833 steps or about 8.5 miles in the rain… although it seems pretty meaningless considering]

I started the day early than the rest of the family getting in a real run outside in Salisbury! No treadmills here – just me, the cobblestones, cathedral and churches (I have never seen so many churches in one place!) I also passed a school where William Golding used to be headmaster – a tidbit most likely not found in the guidebooks. Then we had a lovely breakfast (Frank’s inability to properly operate a french press notwithstanding) and then packed up to be on the move again. We decided against a return trip to Stonehenge even though we knew when it opened (9 a.m.) but mostly because it was going to cost us more than 15 pounds to “get in” – which in this case means that we could get closer to the big rocks. Not that I’m cheap but $30 to move 10 feet closer to large rocks didn’t seem like a good investment so we decided to pass.

A short hour or so later finds us in Weymouth on the Dorset coast in southern England. We find the B&B no problem this time thanks to the detailed map we bought in Salisbury! We checked in and parked the car before doing what all red-blooded Americans do on the 4th of
July – go to the beach! Except this beach is on the English Channel, has more rocks than sand and is bloody cold with temperatures in the mid-60’s and 30 mph winds! But the English will take their seaside holidays so there was an assortment of people “enjoying” the fresh air: from the young couples with babies and small children who were “playing” on the beach to the determined couples wandering around in shorts and tank tops even though their lips were blue to the little old ladies with their anoracks and walking sticks. Quite the assortment! There was even a large bunch of crazy teenage-types swimming in the sea! (Duncan was particularly uninterested in joining them.)

Regardless, we found Weymouth to be a lovely little town. (Although there seems to be an anstounding number of old folks homes. Do they come here on holiday and never leave?) There is a cute harbor where ships come in from the Channel Islands and France and lots of interesting shops and cafes. We wandered around for quite a while before having lunch in a little tea shop with a Winnie-the-Pooh theme (gotta love ham, cheese and pineapple toasties!) then wandered across the harbor bridge to explore the point where there’s an old Army fort. The views were unbelievable – the water was a brilliant aqua similar to what we have seen in the Carribean (but under much better climate conditions) and the Dorset coat is startling. It’s called the Jurassic coast because some of the rock faces are exposing rocks from the Jurassic and Cretaceous period. After much wandering, shopping and sight seeing, we headed out in the car to explore the coast and headed west along a windy two lane road toward Lyme Regis (where Jane Austen used to go on holiday, BTW) to see what we could see. This is apparently Thomas Hardy country as we passed a sign pointing us toward his monument and I saw at least one pub called the “Durbeyfields”. We wound up on the coast beneath soaring cliffs with more spectacular views which we enjoyed in 40-50 mph wind gusts (not kidding!). This made us very hungry so we headed back along the coast to the King’s Arms where we had a lovely bar supper with wonderful real ale and cask cider. Back to the B&B to see what else was new in the world of terrorism before heading to bed.

/san/

[Pedometer: 20,900 steps or about 10 miles. We should get extra credit though for spending most of the time walking into the wind!]