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(Lori) from Sept 16: Oxford was a lovely town - but time to move on. Now that we have the London tube & Oxford bus system under our belt, we stepped it up a notch: we rented a car to drive the bulk of our remaining days in England! Talk about harrowing!!! Driving on the left side of the road is somewhat unnerving! (Thanks Dad, for all those hours stalling on hills in Victoria while you taught me to drive standard shift - gave us a much cheaper deal on the rental here, so many years later. You did tell me it was a skill I would never regret nor forget & you were right! Bet you didn't think I'd be shifting my way around England in a sleek, black 2010 Corsa!) We left the rental place in south Oxford & made our way towards Blenheim Palace, just outside of Oxford to the west.
I've come to recognize that a 'palace' in Britain looks kind of like a very massive configuration of rectangular buildings - not too palace-like in my imagination. The real grandeur happens once one enters the main gates & steps up through the massive front entrance. The only words that come to mind are ornate & grandiose! Blenheim castle was land, title & money given to the first Duke of Marlborough (an ancestor of Sir Winston Churchill & Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales) after he (being John Churchill) won a battle in Europe. Imagine waiting 28 years for your thank you note to be completed! That is the time it took to design & build Blenheim. It is truly spectacular in size & detail, including water gardens & Italian gardens, all surrounded by acres & acres of wilderness. We spent hours there roaming about - three of my memorable highlights: the temple of Diana (the greek goddess) where Sir Winston proposed to his wife; the rose garden - every rose beautiful & fragrant; and the painted ceiling panels in the dining room whereon the artist, La Guerre, added himself as an onlooker in the corner of the trompe l'oeil masterpiece that wraps around 3 walls peering over the dining hall below.
We left a bit later than we had intended, and in one of very few directional missteps took the wrong turn out of the parking lot towards Bath. We did eventually arrive in Bath, and after many pull outs to the side of the road to figure out our directions (it was dark & rainy), we arrived via a small lane at the University of Bath for our accommodations.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Bath - the Jane Austen festival commenced the day we arrived (friday Sept 16). It was fantastic to tour the city amidst costumed Austen fans (men, women & children!) and I have to say after spending a day observing the finery, taking tea in a shop on Pulteney Bridge (where you don't even know you are on a bridge as the top is rows of shops on both sides - highly unusual), and partaking in a walking tour given by knowledgeable Dickon (our gallant tour guide) who described the sites of Bath from the perspective of Jane herself at the end of the 1700's peppering his oral presentation with passages from "Northanger Abby" and "Mansfield Park," I reahhhly do want to continue speaking with this acquired accent & elevate my vocabulary reflect how particularly divine the day had been - it is truly diverting and adds most greatly to my pleasure on this holiday.
We drove out of Bath this morning (Sunday Sept 18), carving a path towards the Cotswalds. The rolling hills dotted with sheep (and there are many of them!) is truly like any idyllic picture one has ever seen of the area. We wended our way north, stopping in a pretty little town called Tetbury -taking a light lunch with scones & tea, then browsed the Market Fayre of finely crafted goods. We chose not to take the main motorway, but travel via a lesser series of roadways through numerous hamlets & towns coursing over the hills. On route we noticed a sign post indicating a roman villa - we detoured down a very narrow country road for a number of miles, wondering if we were on a bit of a goose chase - but we were not disappointed! We arrived at Chedworth - a National Trust heritage site - which had been something I had hoped to see. The main baths were being restored, so we were not able to see the mosaics in that building. But there were portions of mosaic in one of the other lesser bath houses, and a fantastic remnant of the ingenious Roman heating system - an uncanny precursor to current day in-floor radiant heating. My favourite bit here was the interactive portion where there were actual roman artifacts, dating from about the 3-4 century that one could handle. Holding a piece of clay brick, imprinted with the claymakers unique pattern & baked almost 1900 years ago, was fantastic!
We arrived at our final destination, Stow-in-the-Wold at the end of the afternoon. A very helpful staff person at the local Tourist Info booked us into a guest house about a mile out of town in a small hamlet called Tewkesbury, where I now sit writing this post. The view from the window is pastoral & peaceful - just as restorative to the spirit as the tea the hostess brought for us.
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