Movin' on down the road

I'm sure a lot of you are intrigued by the idea of taking a "driving vacation" in England. Probably you feel just the slightest bit intimidated by the thought of driving on the "wrong" side of the road over here in the UK, but I have to tell you that it hasn't been as scary as I anticipated. The thing to keep in mind is that everyone else is doing it right, which makes it easy much of the time to just do what everyone else is doing. In the beginning I had the most trouble if Concetta and I were traveling a little-used road and we were the only ones in sight. Then, when I finally encountered another driver, usually as we came sweeping around a blind curve, my brain would automatically insist that I needed to get to the RIGHT of the oncoming driver. This, of course, would have been disastrous. So, I had to learn to relax and try to "hush" my brain that kept insisting I was wrong. After a week I had pretty much fallen into the routine. However, it still sometimes unnerves me when I encounter that solitary driver at high speed.

The expressways are a piece of cake normally. That's because there are few surprises and the lanes are wider. The biggest problem you will encounter is the narrow country lanes (see pix above right) and the narrow village streets. Both are often only one car width wide. It takes considerable creativity sometimes to thread your way along these narrow tracks while remembering to keep left. Sometimes you're up on the sidewalk. Sometimes you're in the bushes or literally off the road altogether. Sometimes you (or the opposing driver) have to back up to a driveway or other wide spot so one of you can pass.

Aside from clean underwear, our GPS is just about the best thing we brought with us on this trip. It relieves a lot of stress when you don't have to be juggling a map, a magnifying glass, your reading glasses, and a compass as you navigate down these tiny roads, even if you have a navigator.

So far we've only had the GPS send us off on a wild goose chase once and that was tonight as we tried to navigate to a restaurant our B&B host had recommended. This time, the unit "thought" it had taken us to the right place, but no restaurant was visible. So, somehow, and we haven't figured out just how, it decided on a totally different destination for us. Thinking it had corrected its initial erroneous set of instructions, we let it lead us on a fifteen mile road rally that finished up at a tiny cottage down an impossibly narrow road that I suppose only the owner of the cottage ever traveled. It took a couple of re-programmings of the unit to make it come to its senses, but we finally arrived at the appropriate restaurant, considerably more hungry and lower on petrol, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

As you can see by the second photo, Concetta and I visited Stonehenge this morning, something we both have been anxious to do for years. Though TV always makes Stonehenge look a lot larger in the documentaries, the stones are nevertheless very impressive. When you consider the weight of some of those blocks, its like those stone age craftsmen were moving two or three city buses around without the benefit of wheels -- and that's one piled on top of another. They don't let you get close to the stones anymore, but even so Concetta and I were quite moved by the experience and very appreciative of the audio tours that the British Heritage folks provide. By the way, if you're planning a trip to England/Scotland/Wales, be sure and purchase the British Heritage Pass. It gets you into over 800 sites for free.

After our morning admiring the awesome talent of my hard-working Celtic ancestors, Concetta and I next moved on to the village of Tisbury which lay just down the road. Tisbury is where my dad's mother's family were living in the early part of the nineteenth century. At that time the father, great great great grandfather, Joseph Burton was farming about forty acres. Knowing that I probably wouldn't be able to find the actual farm, I still wanted to prowl the streets of the village and maybe visit the cemetery (see pix #3)

Turns out, Concetta and I had a great time talking to the locals at the library, in the street, and at the local pub where we had tea, sandwiches, and "spotted dick" for dessert. The town is absolutely charming, like something out of a story book. Concetta said we ought to buy a cottage and visit more often, but one look at the real estate prices and I think I could get something cheaper in Beverly Hills, or at least San Francisco.

Still, not even in Italy did we see such a wealth of traditional "rose-covered cottages" sitting amidst immaculately-manicured gardens and lawns (note the vintage Mini Cooper in the last photo). Everywhere we went we just instantly fell in love with the beautiful stone cottages, often with thatched roofs, and the wonderful greenery that we in Nevada would definitely kill for.

Well, we actually went on from Tisbury to visit the Salisbury Cathedral area, but I'm too tired now to add any more to the blog so, for tonight, I'll have to say

Ciao, tutti.