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Ships, Planes, Trains and River boats taking us through Asia, Middle East, Africa, Baltic, England, Paris and Amsterdam through to Budapest...

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

73 England - Stanton

Our last visit for the day was at Stanton... another village that we drove through and could not resist to stop for a stroll around the streets... as you walked up the street there was another beautiful cottage that you just had to take a photo of.

We stopped at the local church... as you do.... and ran into another group of Australian Travellers.... they sent us scurrying up the hill on the promise there was a lovely pub with a great view... and all we could think was LUNCH and yes I know it was about 4pm in the afternoon so it was wishful thinking.

There was the pub ... there was the view .... but there was no lunch.... it was closed till 6pm grrrr..... bet you this never would have happened to Henry VIII and his entourage if they passed through.

We decided a combined lunch and dinner was going to have to do as we still had quite a ways to get to Bath.  We finally stopped at a little pub called Royal William, where you can see I had a different take of Sausages, Mash and Yorkshire pudding!!

 

72 England - Snowshill Village

Snowshill village sits on the top of the escarpment above the villages of Broadway, Buckland, and Laverton. It is a secluded village where ancient pretty cottages and a 19th century church cluster around a small green.
Snowshill is renowned for its manor house which you can visit, but we opted to visit another popular landmark the Snowshill Arms pub.
This was another OMG moments when you just want to pick up this cute village and give it a hug... these villages are such a contrast to those we visited in Cornwall by the sea.
 

71 England - Stow on the Wold

After being blown away by cute little Bourton, Stow seemed  like a big town.... we quickly walked up and down the street calling into the local church, then headed off on our way.  One thing I have been noticing with a lot of the churches, they must have a very active ladies group as their cushions they use to kneel on are all hand sewn Tapestries.  Some churches had a theme other churches cushions were random

 

70 England - Bourton on the water.

This was the first little town we visited and the weather was not playing nice... Now that we have left the area of the pasty fame we turned our attentions to Cream Teas!!  The river flowed down the middle of the town and on its banks were many small speciality shops.

 

69 England - The Cotswolds

For the next part of our trip we hired a car over night to take a drive around The Cotswold.  Garry had a rough plan he found on the internet, we stayed a night at Bath and then returned back to Amesbury.  The car had us worried after we picked it up and started to drive off... when we got to our first intersection we stopped to give way to the cars.  Then after a few sections we stalled... eeek what happened, we booked an automatic to avoid this...... then just Garry took his foot off the brake to restart the car... the car magically restarted all on its own... Ahhh Garry said.... this is one of those cars...  Well this fuel saving system really works as our diesel bill was very cheap for 2 days of driving.

Directing became a bit of a challenge.  Along with our trusty map we only managed a few wrong turns.... once you learnt where to look for the direction signs, especially on the roundabouts, finding our way became easier...

 

Monday, June 23, 2014

68 and a half ... England - Pendennis Castle.

On our way home from Cornwall we visited Pendennis Castle at Falmouth. Perched high up on the hill this is one of the finest of the mighty fortresses built by Henry VIII to defend the country against invasion. The castle has seen action in many conflicts and was one of the last royalist strongholds to fall during the English Civil War.
Now you can wander around the castle looking at the many displays and have a guided tour through the fortress.  We were there on 6th June as the world celebrated the anniversary of D – Day, so at 12 noon one small cannon and one much larger cannon were fired.