The Kings Arms Hotel Salisbury

... like Jane Austen. Highlights for me were the Jane Austen centre and the Roman Baths, which have a great museum built around them and a very extensive audio guide included in the ticket price. We were also lucky enough to be in Bath during their Christmas market, which was massive and so crowded that they had officials and police controlling the flow of people walking around the stalls!

The Bath Abbey is also worth a look and just wandering around ...

Today several Trussell Trust staff and volunteers have bruised upper arms from loading hundreds of boxes filled with a reocrd breaking 3800+ Christmas Shoeboxes onto a rather large lorry... The bruises were worth it to see the lorry pull away and begin its 2,450km trip to Bulgaria to transform thousands of Christmases.

We have to say a huge thankyou to all those who donated boxes and to all those hardy souls who braved the cold in ...

Booked flight today - Guatemala on Feb 22nd 2010. So to mark the occasion I thought I'd start my travel diary today as well.

Two months to go - and a lot of list-making, planning, shopping, getting vaccinated, freaking out, and bouncing with excitement to do!

... friend’s birthday party, Di and Ash took us on a lovely tour of Bradford-on-Avon, a delightfully quaint and whimsical little town. Our first stop there was The Bridge tea shop – where, finally, I had my huge scones with clotted cream and jam, and a delicious pot of tea! (Murray and Ash had outrageous cups of hot chocolate with mountains of marshmallows and chocolate flake!) The tea shop itself was really neat – housed in a former blacksmith’s ...

First thing this morning, Danny and I went down the cycle path to Salisbury shops and the regular Tuesday market in the “square” (or was that “funny trapezium shape with another bit just through that alleyway”?). Some great produce there – organic cheeses and breads, fish and meat, cheap clothes, second-hand books and music. We had a quick walk down to the cathedral, all covered in scaffolding but didn't have time to go in. We saw OLD buildings all ...

... there. I really wanted to go to the Jane Austen house/museum, but they only offered tours and our schedule didn't work with theirs. Instead, I went to get my picture taken with the Jane Austen statue in front of the museum, but this guy dressed up in period clothing, I guess trying to be Mr. Darcy from Pride & Prejudice, or some other man from one of Jane Austen's books, snatched my arm up and made me take a picture with him. I ...

... to Bristol, it was hard to resist. For anyone wondering, it really does look just like the history books, but being there I could actually start to appreciate the mind-boggling enormous task it must have been to erect those stones. Just the small ones weigh a measly 5 tons. Bah.... Those must have been a piece of cake compared to the more recognizable "sarsen" stones that form the tall outer ring. Those weigh anywhere from 20-50 tons a piece ...

... keen to be homeward bound so it was a quick look and then onward. In Florence we camped near Piazzale Michaelangelo which is right on top of the hill so we had great views of the city and the beautiful Duomo. We had a wander across the Ponte Vecchio ( famous 14th century bridge completely lined with gold and silver jewelley shops) and in to Piazza della Signoria where we had dinner in an Irish pub, played on the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio and admired all the sculptures and ...

... an hour though because that is when the next bus was going to come after we had been dropped off. But, an hour was plenty of time. I didn't buy anything in the gift shop though...that was kind of disappointing. So, we made our way back to the train station because that is where the bus drops you off at. After arriving, some girls went back to London on the next train out, and the rest of us joined Dr. Schlueter for lunch and at the Salisbury ...

After Stonehenge yesterday we drove down to Salisbury to check into our hotel. This is a small country town steeped in history with many museums and the worst road and signage system in the whole of Britain! After driving around for ages we eventually found our hotel which, on the web site looked magnificent but in reality was a washed out dump and the service wasn't much better especially from the ...