England, Day 5
August 27th, 1998 by Jim Clark
On our second day in London, we did some typical tourist sightseeing. The tube subway got us around to everywhere we needed to go.
After breakfast we went to Buckingham Palace just in time to see the changing of the guards. Seemed to be a bunch of marching and lots of crowds and people trampling each other so they could see it.
From there we took the tube to Tower Hill station and saw the Tower of London. The history of the place is quite interesting. It’s been a royal castle, a prison, a zoo, a mint, a treasury, and a place of execution. And now it’s a tourist attraction.
After that, we saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, then we went back to that great Italian joint for some dinner.
We left the hotel and London the following morning, on an express train to Gatwick airport. There we risked our very lives as I rented a Mercedes and started the drive to Leeds.
Driving in England on the left side is, well, interesting. Not as bad as I thought it would be; I was getting stomach cancer just thinking about it beforehand. At least the roads aren’t too bad in southeast England. Lisa keeps cringing in terror as I drive, which makes me more nervous, and then I start swerving, and then she starts to cringe some more, which only irritates me, and the cycle continues.
Radio here in and around London is kind of strange. One minute they’re playing Phil Collins and the next minute on the same station it’s the Backstreet Boys or Keith Sweat, and then it’s a country song, then it’s INXS, then back to more hip-hop crap, then dance mixes, then about 20 minutes of the idiot DJ talking over the one song I actually wanted to listen to. It’s enough to drive me mad.
Leeds castle was pretty cool. It had a neat garden maze, which I thought I had easily solved. See, if you go into a maze and follow your hand along the right wall without ever taking it off, eventually you will find your way out. And that’s what I did, and I ended up going all the way through the maze and back out the entrance, so I thought I had solved it.
However, what they did was they changed it about halfway through so that you have to switch and keep your hand on the LEFT side, then you make your way to the center and down through a little grotto and then out. But I still solved it. Ha!
Then we went on to Sissinghurst Castle gardens and wandered around there for a while. Very impressive grounds, with a big tower right in the middle of the gardens.
On our way to the hotel for that night, we had to drive through Leeds Village and then Cranbrook Village. They’re little tiny towns with small two-lane roads that have no shoulder, so everyone who needs to park does it anywhere they like. They just stop in the middle of the lane, put their car in park, and get out. It was a real challenge to slalom through the streets between all the parked cars. There are a lot of little streets like that throughout the countryside. We knew we were in trouble every time we saw a sign that read “Please drive carefully through our village”. That meant “the roads are narrow with no shoulders and pedestrians are everywhere”.
That night we stayed at the Kennel Holt Hotel, a nice old house with a great garden. Sort of a Fawlty Towers kind of a place, a bed-and-breakfast with a great garden. The dinner was a bit too fancy for me, though. I miss American food.
Today we drove to Silsbury and only got lost once or twice, even with the map. Not that I mind — the countryside here is quite charming — but I don’t want to spend half my life exploring it. We checked in at the Red Lion Hotel in Silsbury.
We took a drive out to Stonehenge today. I’ve always wanted to see it, and it was quite remarkable. I really wanted to touch the stones, but it’s all roped off and you can’t get up to it because too many tourists kept chiseling pieces off of it, so now you can only get about 15 feet away. It was still impressive, though, and I was tempted to just jump over the ropes and run through it. A few people did that while we were there and they were politely escorted off the premises.
The hotel is a short walk to Silsbury Cathedral. We got there too late to see the original Magna Carta or take a tour through the top tower. Bah. The building was being restored, so parts of it were covered in scaffolding. I have yet to see a building in this country that is NOT covered in scaffolding. At least I am enjoying this part of England better than I did London, although the people in Silsbury aren’t nearly as friendly.
I realize a lot of this trip diary sounds rather negative and I sound like a dumb American tourist, which I suppose I am… I guess I end up cranky at the end of the day when I sit down to write, and it colors my writing.
I am having fun, though. Really.
Would you care to comment on this?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
(Go ahead, it's easy to register. I promise I won't spam you.)
