Bath, Bristol, Avebury and Cotswolds!
Trip Start
May 25, 2008
1
30
54
Trip End
May 25, 2009
Chippenham, England, United Kingdom
Friday, August 22, 2008
We decide to meet in Bath around 11am. We wander around this gorgeous sandstone coloured town for a few hours, taking in all the sights. At the moment there are all of these brightly painted fibreglass pigs suspended above shops, hidden in rose bushes, etc, we are not sure what the meaning of them is, but they are very cute! We then drive to Lacock, a gorgeous UNESCO protected old town with narrow winding streets, quaint tea rooms and warm cosy pubs. We have lunch here, I ordered a Ploughman's, and expecting a sandwich (that's what it is back home), get pickles and hunks of cheese, quite a surprise!! We stop to have a look at Lacock Abbey, where some of Harry Potter was filmed. We then drive back to her house, where I am staying for the next 4 nights!
The second day, we catch the train to Bristol. We leave after the morning peak hour, and wander along the river and have a coffee at a riverside pub. We walk along the shopping strip and have Cornish pasties for lunch! It's not a terribly picturesque city but it has a nice feel to it. That evening we call into visit some of Penny's friends and I make Leek & Parmesan risotto for dinner!
The third day, we head to Cotswolds Wildlife Park, where we spend most of the day looking at the various animals and reminiscing about our days working at WFFT. Penny has decided it is imperative that I try a cream tea whilst in the West Country, so we scour the road for signs on the way back... finally we spot somewhere suitable, a little farm cottage on the side of the road!!! It was so cliche but we loved it, a little old lady who ran the place was running around making things and fussing over us, she had a little shop next to the cafe which sold all of her preserves, and if you looked out the window, many chickens, ducks, geese, quails and fowl were running around. Her husband came up with a clutch of speckled eggs and was showing us how to tell the difference between all of them. Tonight, we head out to the local 'nightclub' where I encountered my first chavs!! A memorable experience indeed!
The fourth day, we head to see the White Horse of Cherhill. Hundreds of years ago, they carved a huge horse figure out of the side of a hill with chalk underneath it, so it is just a white horse on the hill which you can see from kilometres away. It was really cool and such an inventive thing to do back then! We also spotted a crop circle!! We stopped at Avebury and wandered amongst the huge stones, which was an amazing experience. I have never seen Stonehenge, but apparently there is a fence and you cannot get anywhere near it. Avebury was different in the sense that the stones are just in paddocks with sheep grazing around them, and you can actually just slip into the paddock and wander around them, and even touch them. They built the village around the stones, so it doesn't feel like you are in any way restricted.
We stopped for a late lunch at the Barge Pub, and then via the beautiful Cotswold village of Castle Combe on the way home, where we had a cream tea.
