We realized we had ordered different BritRail tickets than we intended (8 consecutive days versus all 8 days within a 2 month period), so we needed to reverse our schedule for sightseeing outside of London, and for our our trip to Scotland. We spent about an hour re-figuring our plans after we got home to Kevin's, and we got everything worked out just fine.
We will start using our BritRail tickets on the 11th, doing a couple of day trips and overnight trips around England. Then we will take the train to Edinburgh on the 16th, spend 2 days there, take the train to Inverness on the 18th, and pick up our rental car on the 19th instead of the 14th.
6/11: We headed out to go to Charing Cross Station about 7:30AM and we got our BritRail passes validated with no problem. We took the 9AM train to Cantebury and wandered around there for a while, took a short boat tour along the canal, and then hopped on another train at about 1:30 to go to Dover. We had a great time in Dover. We visited Dover Castle, took a 90 minute tour of the Secret Wartime Tunnels and then we walked out to the White Cliffs of Dover. It was so neat to look across the channel and see France. We then got the 6:20 train back to London and got back to Kevin's about 9:00PM.
6/12: Our destination today was Leed's Castle and we had another adventure on the British railroad. We left Kevin's at 7:45AM to take the tube to Cannon Station to get the 9:08 train to Bearsted. The train was scheduled to arrive at Bearsted about 10:15, and then we would get a bus at 10:30 from Bearsted train station to the castle.
When we got to Bearsted Station we didn't realize we were actually there, because the car we were in wasn't up to the platform, and so we didn't get off the train. It was only when it started up and pulled out of the station that we realized our mistake (we should have walked to a forward car and gotten off). So off we went for another 15 minutes to Ashford Station. We had to get off the train and wait for another train going back towards Bearsted. We only had to wait about 20 minutes and we got back to Bearsted for the 11:30 bus to the castle.
We had a nice tour around the castle for about 3 hours, and then we took the bus, train and tube to get back to Kevin's. Kevin left today to go home to Maine for his father's wedding. He won't be back until Tuesday and we will be leaving for Scotland on Sunday, so we won't see him again until we get back to London on July 10th or 11th.
Kevin told me last night that Nadine Chakar had invited me to a celebration for the ABN-AMRO Mellon new business wins that was being held in Jamie's restaurant/bar this evening. He said that a lot of people I know would be there (Brian Leddy, Don Gould, Jonathan Bowler, John Wade, Amy Briglio, Dan Smith, Mark Baily, Jim Palermo) so I really wanted to go. Shari had suggested we switch the days we planned to visit Leeds and Bath, so I could go to see Nadine, so that's how we ended up at Leeds today versus tomorrow.
We got back to Kevin's about 5PM and I showered and changed and got ready to go out while Shari used my tube pass to go the the grocery store. I put together a pretty reasonable looking outfit - my black pants and shawl from Nepal, the sleeveless purple shirt that was in the box of things we had Susan mail to Kevin's, my Nepal earrings, the bone carving pendant I made in New Zealand, Shari's Teva sandals (which are purple, blue and black) and black socks I had bought to wear with sandals if I ever had an occaision to dress up a bit. Well, this was the occaision. I left about 6:45 to take the tube to the restaurant and got there about 7:15.
It was terrific to see everyone, and have nice wine and great tasting hor's doeuvres. Then, Nadine invited me to go out to dinner with Jim, Don, Dan, Frank, David and her, so I went. We had delicious Italian food and then Nadine arranged for a cab to take me back to Kevin's. I got home about 12:30 AM. It was a great evening. Quite different than my evenings when I am backpacking - eating Ramen noodles and going to sleep by 7:30 or 8PM.
6/13: We were off to the train again by 8AM, but this time we brought our big backpacks (although we left most of our stuff at Kevin's) because we are going to stay in a hostel in Bath.
First, we took a train to Salibury and then a bus out to see Stonehenge. They had an audio guide to listen to as you walked around Stonehenge and it was very interesting. Then we went back on the bus to the train station and took a train to Bath.
We checked out one hostel and then the YMCA and decided we liked the Y better because we could get a triple room there. It's nice to have your own room with a lock where you can leave your stuff versus being in a dormitory room. We left our big packs in the room and just took small bags for the sightseeing around Bath. We toured the Roman Baths for about 2 hours and this also had a very good audio guide that was included in the price of admission.
After the Roman Baths tour, we walked around a bit, checking out places for dinner and we finally decided on Thai food. We walked back to the Y about 8PM and then Richard and I went out to get coffee. Almost everything was closed and there weren't many people on the streets and we also couldn't find anyplace that had decaf coffee.
I was sitting, writing notes about 9:30PM and I looked out the window, thinking it was about 8:30. I'm always amazed by the time at night, because it stays light so late. I always think it is earlier than it is. It stays light until about 10PM and it will be even later when we get up to Edinburgh and Inverness.
6/14: We didn't get up until about 8AM, a real treat because we were not rushing off to get a train. The price of the Y included breakfast there. We stored our big packs at the Y and then went over to a flea market for a while and then down to the Bath Abbey for our 10:30 tour. It was a free tour that lasted 2.5 hours and our tour guide was terrific. She has lived in Bath since the early 70s and was very knowledgable, intertesting and quite funny. We walked all around the town and saw and learned about things we would never have seen on our own.
We had planned to do an afternoon hike in the countryside surrounding the town, but we didn't feel like any more walking after lunch, so we just got a 3PM train back to London. We took showers, did laundry, used the interenet, cooked dinner and packed our big packs for tomorrow. We need to take most everything with us tomorrow because we are doing the Coast-to-Coast walk after we tour around Scotland in our rental car for a week. Boy, is my pack heavy!
We will stay in York tomorrow night, and then Edinburgh for 2 nights and then Inverness for 1 night. We pick up the car on the 19th and it will be so nice to have the car for a week to cart our stuff around in. It will be fun to drive around Scotland and do day hikes and either camp at night or stay in hostels.
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