Beyond London.

We have travelled from London to the Cotswolds then to Wales, Manchester and now we are in the Lakes District.

We spent our first day in the Cotswolds at Bourton on Water, clearly to distinguish it from the Bourton not on water. It was a beautiful day in a picture postcard perfect place.  We wandered up a street and came across this - the village was both quaint and beautiful.

It was Bank Holiday and there was huge crowd in probably most had made the journey for the excitement of the rubber duck races which ran every 15 minutes for the whole afternoon.  Choose your duck (£1) and the winner collected £10.

 While in the Cotswolds we gave Bath the benefit of our presence and also found our way over to the remarkable Stonehenge.

 We have no more idea of how than we do of why and somehow that makes it all the more remarkable,  how anyone had that much time and energy left over after they had finished surviving is unbelievable.

We travelled from Selsley, our base in the Cotswolds to a farm in Criggion in Wales. A B and B where we did indulge in the hot breakfast more often than was necessary. 

Another beautiful place we even took the opportunity to ride the 20 kms around Lake Vrynwy (yes that is the correct spelling) and it was nice to be back in the saddle.

We also visited the ruins below, themselves atop a steep hill.  Built in the thirteenth century the castle was used for 17 years before being abandoned.

The adventure goes on, we arrived today in the home of Lakeland pencils, the pinnacle of the coloured pencil maker's craft when we were kids. There is a museum which we have pencilled in for Friday which is apparently going to be wet.

And finally a photo taken from on our horse drawn boat trip in Llangollen. I write looking out over beautiful gardens from the Hayloft much better appointed than its name might suggest and more importantly it is tea time!

London so far.

We love London. It does not have the soul of Florence or Paris but it does have character.

We dined, more or less out of desperation at Garfunkel's on our first night here but I think we have now found our 'local'.

Roast beef last night, with baked carrots, brocolli, yorkshire pudding and both mashed and roast potatoes. I wanted to order a side of chips to complete the trifecta! Everything you could want in a meal and potatoes two ways.

Yesterday we had a day on buses and river boats and due to my unerring sense of direction I took us home from Windsor Pier via a longcut. We passed by the edge of Hyde Park and there saw a very tame squirrel who anticipated we may have a treat for him.



I understand northern hemisphere dwellers are probably bemused by our fascination with the rodents but there are cute when you see them rarely.

We have sailed on the Thames both yesterday and today, yesterday as far as Tower Bridge today to Greenwich, yesterday was a better day weatherwise but today as we returned the bridge opened for us as we sailed under, that is it opened coincidentally as we sailed under, the opening was necessitated necessitated by the yacht visible in the background. It apparently happens only 5 or so times a week so we were quite fortunate to see it.

The reason for the trip to Greenwich was to see Harrison's clocks and they did not disappoint. H1, H2 & H3 were all still ticking away after several hundred years and what works of art they are.

H4 is almost an anticlimax, it looks like a large fob watch its workings hidden but the others somewhat ironically are functionally beautiful.

I have seen Harrison's clocks, a telescope Gallileo made I can die a happy man!

Speaking of death, Judy has been contemplating career opportunities and a possibility presented itself as we sailed in gentle rain this morning - a window cleaner on the Shard as it is known, the tallest building in Europe. How hard can it be? It looks like they get to sit down all day and they move from top to bottom.



We are entertaining ourselves by laughing on the inside at some of the names. We had to travel in the Elephant and Castle direction on the Tube to get to our hotel the other day.

But we were struck by this establishment on our above mentioned longcut. No doubt purveyors of full bodied wines!

  

Rome

We are just about to leave the eternal city - what did we think of our experience here?

Replete with history and incredible buildings and monuments it has been our least favourite place so far.

Of course we visited the Coloseum,  the Vatican and Sistene Chapel and other places of interest but we both prefer Florence and Venice.

We blundered into a preserved excavation site on one of the days and that was amazing.

We were 10 metres below road level and could plainly see the paving still in tact from centuries ago. For a brief moment I ceased to be Phil Driver and was transformed into Time Team Phil.

On advice from an excited American we met below ground we walked a few kms to a nearby site preserved as a dig.

It was here apparently that Julius Caesar met his grisly end not as Shakespeare suggested in the forum.

Somehow the history sits uncomfortably in the city, it is not beautiful as most of the other places have been beautiful. Those things which need space to be appreciated do not have it and paradoxically (do I sound like a philistine) St Peter's is too big.

Off to London.

Back on terra firma - if that describes Venice.

 Well we have completed the arduous task we set ourselves of a cruise in the Mediterranean and are now in Florence via Venice.

Perhaps the most interesting thing that happened in Venice was the quest before we sailed for a laundromat. Our infallible guide the Lonely Planet assured us one was to be found just a few hundred metres from our hotel, so off we set dirty clothes at the ready.

If you haven't been to Venice you will probably not appreciate the way unlikely shops are to be found in even more unlikely places down impossibly narrow streets.

We looked and looked and finally asked a local. She was only too happy to help and even seemed pleased someone wanted to make use of the "facility",  and pointed out what you see below. More language problems or is that what the Lonely Planet really meant?

Either way washing on Venice would have been a near criminal waste of time. What a strange, fascinating and wonderful place!

Picture perfect in every direction.

Venice of course punctuated our cruise, we sailed from and returned to Venice. Something we did with some 15 to 18 thousand other people on both days. There were 5 or 6 cruise ships sailing and berthing the days we did, busy is something of an understatement.

Greg, it appears the Strom Troopers have been busy in Corfu, we spied this up a narrow street. Holding out on us?

Now we are in Florence sleeping in a building begun in the 11th century with a more modern addition completed in the 15th century. You have to think about that for a minute or  two for it to sink in. The new bit predates Columbus sailing or Luther nailing his theses. The old part was being built while William was doing his conquering. The owner assures us the roof is original and from inside is a wonder to behold, terra-cotta tiles laid on timbers and cemented from above.

We spent some hours today in the museum which houses among other thing Michelangelo's David. Also among the exhibits are the most exquisitely hand written ledgers for entering and leaving the city. It was illuminated! The fellow either took pride in his work or didn't have any where enough to do.

The buildings, everything has a pride of workmanship and attention to detail which is nothing short of amazing.

France

We have been here just over a week and the memories of the the flight are slowly fading - emphasis on slowly.
The single greatest disaster on the flight over was some turbulence which precluded the service of hot drinks. That, needless to say meant caffeine in its native form was unavailable. Mild headaches ensued but they lifted once life returned to normal.

We had a few lovely days in Paris and saw the usual suspects - none of which disappointed. Here is view from our hotel room, in the distance is the Seine, to the left Notre Dame Cathedral (not visible in this photo) just an 8 of 10 minute walk away.
There seems to be desire to beautify, note our flowerbox - they are everywhere and there is not an air conditioner in sight. I can only conclude you are forbidden to ruin the exterior of these beautiful buildings by installing anything as crass as a split system air conditioner.

I am struck by the chaotic beauty of the place. There seems to be no order, mostly that is probably because the streets have followed tracks centuries old.

This photo of a typical park illustrates what I mean, in Hyde Park 100's of petunias are planted in neat rows; in this park the plants are everywhere and the result is a delight to behold.

From Paris we travelled to Blois by train and took charge of our trusty steeds which we shall miss. They were a couple of nice bikes.

Here I am just 5 or so km from the end of the 200 km odyssey with our bikes. We had rain a couple of days so were reassured when we saw the kit included spray jackets. We were less impressed when we deployed them!

The end of the third day we arrived in Amboise and our accommodation saw us luxuriating in a wonderful place with spacious grounds and a pool.

We were approached in town as we spored over a map yet again, by an Italian couple who asked us for directions. We confessed our total ignorance of the local area and then conversation ensued, seems their son had worked for 3 years in a restaurant in Bateman's Bay of all places. His local knowledge proved right on the money when after asking where we were heading he looked the bikes and told us the hotel was at the top of a 'strong hill'. We can report he was not wrong- the reward the next day was to flaunt the 50 kmh limit in the descent!

Here I am, chain grease and all enjoying the view from our balcony.

Amboise is a delightful place but not a place where English is spoken in abundance. Judy was trying to get us some tap water the first night and settled eventually for Evian. The second night she was sure she had cracked it but all we got was 750 ml of another designer water.  They probably imagine she really knows her bottled water not being satisfied with Evian and demanding something else.

The language barrier had another consequence that night. Something we did not recognise on the menu but which was the only alternative to the beef we had both had the night before turned out to be just warm mackerel. At least we both got our omega 3 fatties!

This is our last night in France so may have to break my "only have fois gras every other night" rule tonight.

We agree this has been one of the best things we have ever done (even though we got hopelessly lost the first day). We have ridden through all kinds of interesting and beautiful places. Past ancient buildings, vineyards, fields of corn, wheat and sunflowers in full bloom.

Exquisitely beautiful and endlessly interesting it has been both a challenge and a delight.