Atherton Family Notes

Let me not keep you in suspense any longer than need be… I LOVE ENGLAND!

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up to the beginning of the day. I will not bore you with the small details of the morning. It is the same old stuff. We woke, dressed, packed, and drove to the area to catch the ferry, yadda, yadda, yadda…. We were among the first to arrive and there were not many other cars there. Then again, we were about 2 hours early. We waited, and waited, and waited to board. In the meantime, the parking area began to fill with cars. I was a bit worried and puzzled on how they were going to get all these cars onto that ferry. As one of the last to board (yeah, does not pay to get there early. First to arrive, last to board) we saw just how they were able to fit all those cars on. There were cars parked everywhere in all sorts of fashions. We did realize that we were now situated in the main aisle near the exit ramp. Woo-hoo!!

I am not sure what I was expecting as far as the ferry ride. Maybe some hard plastic chairs, lots of dirt for the kids to play in, bad smells coming from the toilet areas, you get the picture. I was very pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. Ken had enough foresight to book us with club chairs instead of the regular seating. This allowed us to have access to a cloth covered and cushioned, bench seat with a table, free drinks (served by a waiter), and an assortment of free crackers, fruit, and chocolate. Way to go Ken! The dreaded ferry ride I had envisioned had turned out to be quite pleasant and fun.

Now let’s get to the good part. I think Ken had real fear about whether or not he would be able to adjust to driving on the opposite side of the road but he handled it like a pro. It was fairly easy because the first road we found ourselves on was a divided highway. It seemed no different than any other highway in the world.

Not having armed ourselves with a map, we just decided to drive and picked a direction. After a good distance, we thought it might be time to find a UK map. For those of you following our route, this was Salisbury. We found a map however; we never found our way back to the highway. We were now driving along small country roads between the towns. We passed through many areas that were quaint as could be. Who needs to travel on the stinking highway? This was way more interesting! After studying our map, we noticed that our travels off the highway would take us within 10 miles of Stonehenge. WOW! How could you pass that up? So we made the slight detour and headed off track a bit. Like we were not already off the original track!

Along about Tidworth we realized that I was not being a good navigator and was doing way too much sightseeing and not enough sign reading. We were about 5 miles north of our turn. Ken turned around. Dang it, we were this close to Stonehenge; we were going to see it! What we did not count on was paid parking. We had not even one red pence to our name. It was like we just came off a boat or something…oh, wait… We did! We saw Stonehenge from a short distance and were able to get video footage of it. Ken drove by real slow and I aimed the camera. Well, that was good enough to satisfy me. After all, it’s just a bunch of rocks. (GASP! Can you hear the screams of all the historians around the world?)

Back on the road again, we got seriously lost in Swindon. All we wanted was to find a grocery store so we could grab something for dinner. We never did find one and upon seeing a Burger king, we gave up and ate dinner there.

The rest of the route to the hotel was all highway and we checked in at about 8pm. Ken and I sat down, planned out our day trips for the next few days, and hit the sack!

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Caen is the home city of William the Conqueror, and most of the major medieval structures in the city exit because of him. William, of course, was the victor at the battle of Hastings in 1066 and a lot of the historic and tourist sites in the city glorify this period of Norman power.

As a contrast, it is interesting to note that Caen was the site of major fighting during WWII and also the sites of many Nazi atrocities because of a notorious prison in the city. The reign of the conqueror (who was quite cruel in his way) is remembered much differently than the time of the occupation and liberation.

While we saw many of the sites related to William, but we did not have time to explore that WWII part of Caen’s history. I hope to get back there someday to do this: the city has what I understand to be an impressive war memorial and museum.

We did see one place where the two stories met: the church of St. Etienne-le-Vieux. The church was founded by William and ruined during the war in 1944. It stands today as a reminder of the destruction that Caen endured during this time.

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So for this post you will need to grab a pen and a piece of paper. Go ahead, I will wait! You will want to count how many times the words “beautiful, lovely, breathtaking, and quaint” appear in this message. Trust me, you will see them a lot and will probably get sick of them. I would even venture a guess that we will reach double digits.

Not that it is any big surprise but, I STILL LOVE ENGLAND! Our first goal of the day was to find a bank machine. We thought going into downtown would be an easy task and a sure bet on finding a bank machine. After 20 minutes of driving around, and round, and round, I told Ken just to get going towards Stratford on Avon and surely one would be found along the way. As we sat at a light, Ken realized he was in the wrong lane and switched to the right. The older man in an old, bright red, pickup truck rolled his window down and asked if we knew where we were going. “Kinda sorta“ was Ken’s response. After hearing where we were headed, he informed us that we could in fact get to Stratford via the original way were we facing. He told us that it was a lovely drive and went through some beautiful towns. Not wanting to turn away local advice, we went for it. We had not even reached the outskirts of town when we ran into a small convenience store where they happened to also have a bank machine. YEAH! We now had money. (And milk for Sadie, which made her very happy!)

We drove through some breathtaking scenery and adorable towns. All of them seemed so quaint and lovely due to the fact they were all built from Cotswold stone. Even new construction was built out of this stone and therefore by first glance you could not tell what was new and what was old. The road ran along rolling hills as beautiful as those in Germany. Fields of crops were squared off and resembled a patchwork quilt.

Stratford was as quaint as I could have ever imagined. Flower boxes and gardens were at your every turn, the houses had rose bushes growing underneath windows already covered in flowers from the hanging baskets, and there was even a scattering of half timber houses that gave the town an old rustic feel. Every old building in town tried to clam some bit of fame by associating it’s self with William Shakespeare who was born and lived a good portion of his life here. We saw the house Shakespeare was born and raised in and took a turn through the souvenir shop next to it. The house was rather beautiful and someone took care to plant many flowers in the gardens around it.

One of the first things we saw on our walk was a local craftsman who was crafting picture frames out of wire. He would bend the wire to spell out the name and then added a flower he had made previously. He finished it by bending the kickstand for the whole frame. We bought one for each of our daughters.

We took the walking tour around town which led us to the church that Shakespeare and his family were buried in. We also found a house that was a beautiful shade of pale pink with white gingerbread trim. Now I know some of you are saying to yourself “beautiful shade and pink” do not belong in the same sentence with “house”, but Carissa, Celia and I were quite impressed with the house. We thought it would make a lovely model for a doll house!

As we turned to head on, the other side of the street droned a quaint, old, half timbered house overgrown with ivy and surrounded by flowers. It had the old lead glass pained windows. Simply breathtaking and I could not stop myself from taking pictures of it. This was the house of Shakespeare’s son in law who was also a doctor.

We ended our trip to Stratford by walking along the canal. It was such a sight to see! Hordes of people were relaxing along its banks and rowing boats down it. There were grassy areas with quaint park benches and streetlamps that old and young sat among, talking, laughing, and napping. I wanted to stay and soak it all in but alas; we had other places to visit today.

On the agenda was Oxford with a museum housing a piece by Michelangelo and a search through the many book stores. The hands of fate were not in our midst though. The museum was closed due to a festival that ran that very day through the 7th (the day we leave this area) and the stores were all closing up. Still, armed with 2 strollers and getting our money’s worth on it, we toured around the town. The buildings were old and beautiful, very stately feeling.

Feeling our feet begin to ache we grabbed dinner and went for the car. The drive back was interesting. At several points we pulled of on an exit to explore the sights they claimed existed there. Not sure we ever found one that we were looking for. We did land in a small town that housed a beautiful church and a quaint stream with Cotswold stone bridge running over the top of it. We found the town quite by accident and I think the name of the town was Northleach but I can not be certain. We stopped to peek into the windows of a doll house shop and a music box shop. The lanes were so tight that only one car could pass at a time and we often pulled to the side to let another car pass. The towns in this area reek of charm and age. I simply love it all!

And for those of you counting…. I believe 15 was the magic number of annoying words you read over and over again.

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