Vacation: Old Sarum & Stonehenge

From Salisbury we traveled to Bath. On the way there, we stopped at Old Sarum and Stonehenge.

All that is left of Old Sarum are ruins of the former castle and cathedral. The drive up to the (small) parking lot was a one-way street with a blind turn. Naturally, another car was headed down the drive as we were moving up. Talk about scary!

While the unnecessarily narrow drive irritated us, we were flabbergasted to see families at an English Heritage site playing soccer and croquet. We'd never seen something like that in the U.S. It struck Mom and me as odd.

After Old Sarum, we drove to Stonehenge. It's one of those sites you hear about and read about and see on television and movies, so I couldn't wait to see it. Seeing it from the road, it looked so small!

Once we parked and walked up to the structure – at least as close as you can get – the size seemed more substantial.

But Stonehenge never looked as big as I thought it would!

We now interrupt the vacation updates

I sent a YA novel to a publisher today. This was a publisher from the Editor Day event I went to in Houston back in February.

Fingers crossed!

Vacation: Salisbury, England

After the cruise ship docked in Southampton, we rented a car and drove to Salisbury. I looked forward to this destination as I had just finished reading Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd. That novel is about the history of the Salisbury area from the geological creation of isle of Britain to the 1980s.

Before we went to our hotel, we went to Wilton and toured Wilton House. Belonging to the Earl of Pembroke, Wilton House is filled with works of art by famous painters, including Rembrandt and Reynolds. The house is famous for its Single Cube and Double Cube rooms. 

The grounds of Wilton House were lovely with beautiful trees and the River Nadder flowing nearby. There was even a swan floating in the river!

The town of Wilton itself has a gorgeous Italian-style church that we also visited.

Our hotel, the Legacy Rose and Crown, was on the road between Salisbury and Wilton. After two trips between the towns and one very expensive cell phone call, we finally managed to find the place. Our room was quite nice, and the hotel was in a perfect location. Breakfast was a little strange, however. 

They had a buffet with cereal and fruit and yogurt, which wasn't too bad. You could also order a hot breakfast. Mom and I both got scrambled eggs. They arrived on a large plate in a tower, like they'd been placed in a Jell-O mold. It was the weirdest thing, and I should have taken a picture! When mashed onto the plate, they covered the entire thing. There must have been about six eggs per person! And the taste. Oh, the taste. I could not eat two bites. They smelled awful and were very pale and sickly looking. I didn't even know eggs could look sickly, but these did.

I remained wary of scrambled eggs for the rest of the trip.

We walked to the cathedral, built in 1265. The spire of the cathedral towers over the surrounding countryside, and we enjoyed walking through the nave and cloister.

In the cloister, we saw Wolfie, the cathedral cat. He looked a lot like my own cat but, of course, was much nicer. I enjoyed petting him for a while.

As there was a confirmation or something happening that day, we were unable to go in the chapter house. The chapter house is where an original version of the Magna Carta resides, so we would have to return.

The next day we returned to the cathedral, and I took the Tower Tour while Mom waited below. The tour was fascinating, and I highly recommend it. We even managed to be by the bells when the hour struck noon. Wow, was that loud!

The views from the tower were breathtaking and well worth the climb.

Mom, meanwhile, had an eventful time waiting for me. She ran into some of our table mates from the cruise ship!

Then we went to the chapter house to see the Magna Carta. Amazing to see a document written in 1215 that is the basis for so many governments and legal rights around the world!

Vacation: France Port of Call

Our final port of call was Cherbourg, France. This was the only stop where Mom and I took a tour offered by the cruise line. We traveled by bus through the Normandy countryside from Cherbourg to Bayeux to see the Bayeux Tapestry. 

Nearly 1,000 years old, the tapestry, which is actually an embroidery, looks like it was made only weeks ago. It sits in a glass display case that is U-shaped and carefully lit to show off the entire tapestry. Or what's left of it, anyway.

We walked in front of the tapestry and listened to the audio guide that was included. Normally, I am not a fan of audio guides, but this one was excellent. A British narrator - pictured in my head as someone wearing tweed - with a very dry, witty manner provided a terrific explanation of all the panels in the tapestry.

About two or three blocks from the tapestry stands the Bayeux Cathedral. Originally built in the eleventh century, the church is massive and dominates the town.

We didn't get to spend very much time in Bayeux. Mom and I would love to go back there to explore more and go inside the cathedral.

While we were having a wonderful time seeing the tapestry, some of the people on our tour were angry. They thought the tour was also going to stop at the beaches of Normandy where the liberation of France began in 1944. To appease these angry tourists (as there was not time to go to the beaches), we stopped at Sainte-Mèré-Église. In this village, American paratroopers were dropped on D-Day. One unfortunate soldier's parachute got caught on the steeple of the church. In remembrance of that event, that soldier and the Allied troops, a mannequin of a U.S. paratrooper still hangs from the church steeple.