In Search of Roots - A Trip Through Great Britian and Ireland Part 4 - Wales: On The Way To Ireland

Having decided to take our car with us on the ferry to Ireland, the next decision was where to stay the night before we boarded the ferry. The ferry route is shown on the map above from Holyhead in Wales to Dun Laoghaire (south of Dublin) in Ireland. We chose Dun Laoghaire to be able to avoid Dublin traffic and get right on our way to our first stop at Brittas Bay in County Wicklow. When we returned, Dun Laoghaire made a convenient locale to see the sights of Dublin, using the DART transit with a station across the street from our hotel.  We found that Conwy in Wales had a better selection of hotels, restaurants, etc. than Holyhead and is only about three-quarters of an hour drive via a high speed motorway. Our visit to Conwy opened our eyes to the uniqueness of Wales.

The Castlebank Hotel

Monday morning, after getting cash to pay our hotel bill at the one local ATM, we left for Conwy on a bright sunny day. The trip is nominally about three and a half hours as most of it is on the M6 and other motorways. In Britain, the standard speed on motorways (four+ lane divided limted access highways) is 70 mph and traffic mainly flows at that speed. Speed cameras, common in Great Britain and Ireland, kept my eye on the speedometer, particularly in the areas posted for cameras. We arrived in Conwy in good time. As our hotel, the Castlebank, was a little off the road that we were directed to by the GPS, we made one circle around the area before we settled in at about 3:30.   The Castlebank, as its name implies is just outside the city walls, near the Castle and only a short walk to town.

As Conwy was one of our three scheduled locations to do laundry, I spoke to the owner and he mentioned the Junction Laundry in LLandudno across the River Conwy. I plugged laundry into my CoPilot GPS app and it suggested the Junction and I was able to use the GPS to take me to the laundry, while Pat rested up from the drive. I reached the Junction about an hour and a half before the 5:30 closing and started the laundry in two machines. A wash and two dry cycles took me slightly past 5:30; the manager on duty was pleasant about letting me finish the second dry cycle, and I packed the clothes, still slightly damp, in a large plastic bag she provided for the purpose.  We were looking for Italian food for dinner and again consulted the GPS, which led us to Alfredo's in Lancaster Square, Conwy.  We each had Minestrone and Spaghetti Bolognese, which arrived hot and delicious. We returned to the hotel to look forward to a day of sightseeing in Conwy, as the laundry was completed.

Plas Mawr Exterior

The Great Room in Plas Mawr 

We started out in the morning to see Plas Mawr, an historic house, built between 1575 and 1586 for the Wynn (or Wynne) family. It has been restored and is managed by Cadw, the Welsh Heritage organization.  The inside has been restored to provide a good idea of the life of a Welsh merchant during the 16th and 17th centuries. While we were there, several groups of school children  came through to receive lessons in Welsh History and Welsh Language.

High Street, Conwy's "Main Street"

Rose Hill Street Goes One Way Through The Old City Wall

After visiting Plas Mawr we walked around Conwy and then returned to the hotel. Pat was setting up the clothes for the next phase of the trip and I went to town to tour Conwy Castle.

Conwy Castle

 Conwy Castle was built between 1283 and 1289 by King Edward I  of England.  More information about Conwy Castle can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conwy_Castle.

Conwy  Castle Tower and Keep

Conwy From Conwy Castle

Boats in the Conwy River Below the Castle

After visiting the Castle, I went for dinner as Pat was not hungry. A restaurant called Bistro Bach had high recommendations; However I found that Bistro Bach had been replaced by a new restaurant called Watson's Bistro. This was just a two block walk from the hotel, so I decided to give it a try. I had a crab soup and a sea bass plate that was on special that night and recommended by the waitress. They were both delicious. It had only been open as Watson's for nine weeks and as it was Tuesday night, it was not very busy. I wrote a favorable review for TripAdvisor, and checking back I see that the preponderance of reviews are very favorable. It's a good choice in Conwy.

Watson's Bistro

Watson's Sea Bass Plate

Days of the Week and Numbers in English and Welsh

The Welsh language is  a co-equal official language with English in Wales. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_language . All the official road and street signs have both languages on them. On my way home from the resturant, I saw a sign which gave English and Welsh equivalents of some common words. I took a picture with my iPhone and it's reproduced below.

Stena Explorer at the Dock in Holyhead

Just before we left Santa Barbara, we were informed that our ferry was leaving at 0855 instead of the 0955 that we had expected. Passengers are required to be at the dock in Holyhead an hour before the scheduled departure. With a forty-five minute drive to go and allowance for problems along the way, we decided to leave around 6:30. The hotel said we could have an early light breakfast, but we decided to eat at the ferry, so we were off at shortly after 6:30, and with one short detour along the way, made it to the ferry well before the appointed time. It's good that we were early as there were a large number of cars already in line. There was a small cafe on the dock, so I bought some coffee,while we waited. The loading was directed by an efficient crew and went smoothly. I had paid a little extra for seats in the Stena Plus Lounge, which was a good idea. Continental breakfast items were included and the seats were comfortable. A more elaborate breakfast could have been purchased from one of the hostesses. The ferries have free wi-fi, and there are desks in the StenaPlus for the commuting business people to take their laptops out a get some work accomplished during the two hour trip. It's a large vessel and the trip was comfortable. We arrived in Dun Laoghaire on time and guided by the efficient crew drove off to adventures in Ireland.
More pictures from Conwy are at http://smu.gs/qUutVQ

In Search of Roots – A Trip through Ireland and Great Britain Part 3 – Finally on the Road – Blenheim Palace and the Cotswolds

On the morning of June 18th, we pulled out of the garage under the Southgate Shopping Center headed for Blenheim Palace and our next B&B, Bramley House in Chipping Campden in England’s Cotswold region. The 118 mile trip is shown in the map above. By coincidence, Blenheim Palace is marked with a B, and Chipping Campden with a C.
Our normal routine was that Pat was holding the GPS and the Google directions. We found the GPS much easier to use as it told us what to do. The Google directions required looking at the directions and then finding the road or street that was indicated. This procedure was not too hard when a numbered highway was involved as they were usually indicated with posted signs. However, street signs were often either non-existent, placed in a difficult location, or too small to read until it was too late to act on them. One day, I had two sets of Google directions and gave Pat the wrong page, and before we knew it we were driving in a development. Once we got off the track with Google directions, it was not always easy to return to the route. With the GPS, if you missed a turn or took the wrong exit at a roundabout, the GPS recovered very rapidly and was able to re-route us with very little lost driving.
I did find that I had programmed the GPS incorrectly for one or two destinations, but I was even able to correct that with real time reprogramming. As a result as the trip progressed, we relied more on the GPS and referred less and less to the Google directions.
Our first success with the GPS came when we were in front of the entrance to Blenheim Palace and the GPS announced “You have reached your destination.” The Palace is situated on over 2,000 acres of land. There is a large area for parking for the large number of visitors, which is some distance from the actual entrance. I was able to allow my car to take Pat close to the entrance and leave her off to minimize the walking before I parked it.

 

                Blenheim Palace Front

We purchased two “Concession” (Senior) tickets for £15 each. Practically every place we visited, had a reduced price for seniors, usually labeled “concession,” which saved some money as these attraction prices were a lot higher than I would have expected in the States for equivalent attractions. £15 was the equivalent of $24 at the time. For this price one can see the State Rooms, a story about the Palace, an exhibition about Winston Churchill (Blenheim is the Churchill family home), and the Park and Gardens (See www.blenheimpalace.com/thepalace/whattosee.html for more information). No photography is allowed inside, so I am unable to share images of the rooms, but the outside and gardens are a treat, so I’ll show them here.

Blenheim Palace From the Garden

River View from the Garden

 After leaving Blenheim we went toward Chipping Campden to spend the two nights Bramley House (www.bramleyhouse.co.uk/ ). We had a little problem finding the location after arriving in Chipping Campden, but eventually found it and were warmly welcomed, by Jane, one of the owners.

Bramley House

After a while, we were ready for dinner and Jane recommended the Lygon Arms on High Street. After the day’s drive and the experience finding the place, we really didn’t want to drive and asked if there were a taxi. Jane after calling to make reservations for us took us the short distance to the center of town and told us to have the restaurant call her to pick us up to take us back. The Lygon Arms is a delightful pub in the hotel of the same name. After a pint each to celebrate our day, I had the lamb chops (see picture) while Pat had sole. After dinner and we were ready to return, we asked the waitress to call Jane to pick us up. Instead of calling, the owner appeared and took us back. This was one of the many kindnesses that we encountered on our trip.

Lamb Chops at Lygon Arms

The next morning we had breakfast with the two other couples then staying at Bramley. In the normal “where are you from?” conversation we discovered that one of the couples had a summer home a short distance from the small upstate New York town that Pat is from. There was quite a spirited discussion of people and places known to both. That was the first of several coincidences that occurred on our trip.
After breakfast, we asked Jane about places to visit in the area. She lent us some local maps and pointed out the places to see. We spent most of the day (Sunday) driving in the Cotswolds.
We started just outside Chipping Campden with the lavender field and farm shown below.

Cotswold Farm with Lavender Field

Broadway Tower ( www.broadwaytower.co.uk/ )

From the Broadway Tower, we went on to Stanway, a small village, which is dominated by a Jacobean manor house owned by the Earl of Weryness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanway,_Gloucestershire )

Stanway Gate House

Cotswold House in Stanway

After Stanway, we visited Broadway in Worcestershire, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadway,_Worcestershire ), where we stopped for lunch. We walked around and I took pictures on High Street. In many English towns, the main street is named High Street.

High Street Broadway

We then went to Blockley, a very small village, but with interesting architecture. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockley). An outstanding building is the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Blockley

Houses in Blockley

A distinctive element of the Cotswolds' architecture is the thatched roof. The construction of these roofs is a dying art, but we managed to capture some fine examples, as shown in this house in Chipping Campden, below.  After our tour, we returned to the Lygon Arms (driving ourselves) and had another fine dinner.

Traditional Cotswold Thatched Roof in Chipping Campden

More images of Blenheim Palace and The Cotswolds are at http://smu.gs/ngPXmP

In Search of Roots – A trip Through Ireland and Great Britain Part 2 – Getting There, Bath, and Driving on the Left

We arrived at Heathrow Terminal 1 about 1:00 PM, 45 minutes late, after our overnight trans-Atlantic flight. By the time we had walked the distance to passport control and had our passports stamped we moved to the baggage claim area, where the baggage from our flight was coming along the belt. We rolled our suitcases through the tunnel to the adjoining Central Bus Terminal; where we sat down to wait for our 3:15 bus to Bath.
Shortly after three, the bus was announced and we boarded. Leaving Heathrow, the bus had a lot of passengers, however many left at the first stop, and I was able to sit by the window for the rest of the ride. We arrived on schedule at 5:50 in a drizzling rain with about a seven minute walk to our B&B at Three Abbey Green, as shown on the map.

Sue checked us in to the Lady Hamilton Room (see the room at www.threeabbeygreen.com ) which I had specifically reserved the previous August. By this time we had been on the road for 20 hours. Pat was ready for bed; I wanted a meal, and Sue mentioned that Tilley’s Restaurant, mentioned in Rick Steves’ book was just around the corner. I went there to find that I was still in time for the £12.50 two course early bird dinner special. The Cornish Brown Crab soup and sautéed chicken breast were just perfect. Even with the rain it was still quite light at 8:00 PM and I returned to the room to get my camera to come out and take a few pictures.

After a sound night’s sleep we awoke and went down to the treat of our first English (Irish) breakfast. The “Typical English Breakfast” served at most B&B’s is one egg, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, and beans, and toast. (Some references double the first three items). I opted out of the beans and with toast and juice had much more than I usually have at home.
With that fuel we went out to see the sights of Bath. First was a trip to the Roman baths which give the city its name. These and the Bath Abbey are only a short walk from our hotel. We spent almost two hours touring the baths from top to bottom. After a light lunch at Sally Lunn’s we then toured the Bath Abbey. The Bath Abbey is a still active 15th century church, built on the site of a previous Norman Cathedral and the original 8th century Abbey Church. After we both toured the main level, Pat went back to the room and I took the tour to the tower. This tour provides a close look at the clock, the bells and a 360° view of the city. It requires climbing 212 steps on two spiral staircases.

We then felt the need for a some liquid refreshment so we adjourned to The Huntsman, a nice pub at the end of North Parade Passage. The Huntsman offers free wi-fi, so we had a couple of pints of beer and some pub grub for dinner and walked the block back to our lodging.

Friday the 17th was our big day. After another healthy English breakfast we called a taxi to take us to the local Hertz office to pick up our car. Instead of the F Class Vauxhall (or equivalent) that we had requested our car turned out to be an M Class Ford S-Max (semi SUV). This was a much more expensive car at the original price, but it was much larger than we wanted. However, it was the only automatic on the lot, so we had to take it. The rental premium for automatic is only about 20% in England; well worth it as we had planned for Pat to drive.

Our initial trip was to take the car to Stonehenge and return to Bath for the night before pushing on to Chipping Campden. As mentioned earlier, I had both programmed the GPS and printed Google directions for Stonehenge. It is about a 35 mile trip that takes about an hour. We arrived safely at about 11:45 and spent about an hour walking around the site and taking pictures. The site is impressive and there is a constant stream of traffic on the entry road. However an hour allowed me to take pictures from every conceivable angle, plus the cows in an adjacent field plus a picture of the entry road with continuous lines of traffic. We then returned to Bath for necessary libation and one of Tilley’s three course dinners.
We had one slight mishap on our first day; the only one of the trip. English streets and roads are much narrower than we are used to here in California and when people park, they sometimes leave only one traffic lane on what is nominally a two way road. As I found out, if there is oncoming traffic in this situation, one driver has to find a place to pull over while the other one passes. In one town, I attempted to keep moving under this situation and brushed our left mirror against a parked car. This knocked a turn signal lamp of the mirror housing and left it dangling by its power cord. I pulled over to a parking spot and found that it could be snapped back into the housing as good as new. I learned my lesson right away and whenever that situation happened again, I always pulled over to let the oncoming car pass or pull over himself before proceeding.
Another problem I had to get used to is making wide right turns. In California, at least, right turns need to be made as close as possible and left turns can be made to any open lane in the cross street. After many years of driving, this is a hard habit to break. I really continued to say to myself “Left is the new Right” and had to consciously think when making right turns not to take the inviting close (oncoming traffic) lane, but to swing wide, usually around some kind of traffic island in towns. Pat did her part by keeping me away from the left margin of the road, which apparently is another automatic response of right-handed drivers in a left-handed world.
One other realization in England and Ireland is that if you are not on the motorways it takes about twice as long to go a given distance as it would in the U.S. The roads are narrower and it seems that little towns are closer together. In planning the trip, I had differing time estimates from Google and my GPS about how long the trip would take. Somehow, also because driving was more tiring, we didn’t make some of the more ambitious goals that I had set out in planning the trip.

To see more pictures of Bath and Stonehenge, point your browser to http://smu.gs/o3Geiu