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July 11, Bath to LaCock, Malmesbury, Gloucester, and Welsh Bicknor
We woke up this morning and no there is rain yet but still cloudy. We went down for breakfast at 8:30 and chatted with a couple of girls from Utah. We packed up and we were soon on our way again. Today's itinerary included 3 driving destinations - to LaCock and Malmesbury to see a couple of Abbeys and Gloucester to see the Cathedral. The B&B was in a residential area with a very thin two lane roadway, cars parked on both sides. A minute down the roadway a car came from the opposite direction so I had to cut back to the left (passenger side) after a parked van. No room to spare, in fact I may have bumped my passenger side mirror against the van but neither Brenna nor I are sure!! No damage done. After about an hour we arrived at the LaCock Abbey which was dedicated in 1232 AD. We started into the abbey and I noticed a closed off section with a spiral stone staircase where the stones were worn down about 2 inches deep where many feet have worn them down over the centuries. We followed the cloisters around viewing different rooms that the Nuns would have used, for prayer, for lavatoriums, for reading, cooking, and eating. Several of these rooms and the cloister halls were used more recently to film portions of the Harry Potter movies. We ventured out into the gardens where we found a sun dial. My phone said it was 11:20 am but the sun dial looked like it was wrong, it must be broken. We wandered away from the dial and Brenna asked me about daylight savings time. Ah ha. Back to the dial and guess what? Yep. It was now cloudy so no shadow. I put my finger where the shadow should be and when the sun came back out it was right. Obviously daylight savings time is a new invention that they didn't have back then. Eventually the abbey was closed and turned into a private residence. At one time the residence was the boyhood home of William Henry Fox Talbot who went on to invent photography. Next we walked through town to see three more locations that were used in filming Harry Potter and a neat churchyard where we read some headstones going back over 250 years. Afterwards we were back on the road up to Malmesbury. The first part of this abbey was started in the year 676 AD a portion of this abbey is in ruins but there is still a functioning church inside. As in the other abbeys and cathedrals, there is plenty of stained glass, high ornate ceilings and stone carvings. On to Gloucester Cathedral. The first religious house was built on this site in 678-679 AD and became a monastery in the early 1000`s. There is lots of history for this cathedral in a walking guide pamphlet that we bought. The bottoms of the pillars in the Nave are pink from when the burning timber roof collapsed 900 years ago. It is now stone. The organ is 450 years old. There are descriptions of what to see or look for in the stained glass windows. There are several tombs within the cathedral with the most ornate being that of King Edward II made of alabaster. The hallways in the cloisters here were also used in the Harry Potter films. Once we were done we went to get some supper and guess what? Yep, more rain. Next we headed for our hostel out in the countryside. We were driving 40 MPH down a two- way traffic road with only one lane for both directions to share, lined on both sides with 10-15 foot tall shrubs and vines, complete with a groove a few feet up where car mirrors knock the leaves off! Finding places here sure is difficult. Wish I had my GPS. I don't have proper road maps but very few roads have street name signs anyways, then going in and out of 5 or 6 traffic circles in 10 minutes gets your internal compass all out of whack and you don`t know which way is north or south because there's no damn sun!!! And don`t bother asking a Brit for directions. A woman gave us wrong directions going the opposite way. After a while I turned around and headed back. We stopped and got directions from a lad, he said he wasn't sure but said "go that way" and pointed up the road. I got back near where I thought I should be, found a petrol station and the guy says yep, bare left up the winding road, go under the tunnel but then bare right because you want to go on top of the tunnel then follow the trees. Yes he said follow the trees (We were in a damn forest, which trees do I follow?) then the road ends, that`s where you are going. Brenna was in the car watching the guy who was very animated, showing me the directions waving his hands this way, that way, and pointing out the gas station windows at the trees up on the hillside. When I told her what he said she was laughing out loud. Despite the directions we made it to our hostel. It was a rather picturesque place, a large stone house along the river and an old church next door. We went for a walk and looked around the church and tried to read the headstones, some going back to the 1700`s and many unreadable because the stone had weathered. As you can see it was a busy day. Tomorrow we will return the car in Oxford, take a train to London, take the tube to a different station and head through The Chunnel to Paris!!!
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