Starting on the next part of our current Grand Adventure…

Portland is a sleepy little town that is the entrance to the larger Weymouth and all we did was laze around the ship for a while, get off and wander about the town, stopping—OF COURSE!—for a pint at a local pub with a couple of friends. An added bonus is that we were first on the shuttle and chose to sit behind the driver to get a feel (OMG!) for the “other” (not the “wrong” side, just the “other” side—although I feel I must point out that there are only three countries in the WORLD where they drive on THAT side of the road) side of the road.

Last everything on the ship was bitter-sweet. Last dinner with our tablemates, last drinks with friends, last decadent breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill (our breakfast home almost every day, skipping it only when we had tours that left earlier than the PG opened), last goodbye to our favorite staff (especially Ryan, our waiter in the Crow’s Nest who froze our gin for us and started pouring as soon as he saw us every evening). But, we’re on to new adventures in England and Istanbul.

Since we had the “You can get off whenever you want” cards for the disenbarkation we had our decadent Pinnacle Grill breakfast and strolled leisurely off the ship about 8ish. Or so. Getting the rental car was interesting; I’ll leave it at: the British are very casual about business transactions. But we were on the road by about 9 with GPS in hand, heading for our next destination, Chipping Campden, touted in one guidebook as the prettiest town in the Cotswolds (true, we think!).

Randy was a bit nervous I think about driving on the left  but he did (does) magnificently. I, on the other hand, am a nervous wreck sitting on the left with no steering wheel in front of me! Seems much harder here than in Australia. Possibly because the roads here are about one yard wide with either stones or hedges on each side and cars parked every which way!

We found Chipping Campden (henceforward to be CC, Chipping Campden is too bloody long to keep writing over and over) and our lovely B&B cum tea house and even found parking in spite of the fact that it is a three-day Bank Holiday. Our hosts are Karen and Paul of Badgershall Tea House and B&B (badgershall.com), right in the middle of town on the main street, High Street. We wandered about the town and made reservations at Huxleys for dinner (lovely Italian place—no we did NOT have pizza, they don’t even offer pizza).

The procedure for getting to our room was unusual at best! We walk in through the tea-room (you can imagine the thoughts of the patrons seeing us traipse through with our luggage!) and up some stairs, past the dog, Bertie (he’s a little schizophrenic: he barks and wags his tail at the same time; if you pet him he barks and wags his tail) and into our room overlooking the garden part of the tea room. At night or late afternoon, the tea-room is closed so we have a key to let ourselves into the tea-room, making sure to lock the door behind us. Karen and Paul are very trusting!

Breakfast is made by Paul who also, I think, bakes all the pastries for the tea-room as when we met him the first morning, he was covered in flour! An excellent “Full English Breakfast” (as it’s stated on the breakfast request forms) was so delicious but also SO MUCH! Two eggs, two slices of English bacon, tomato, small boiled potatoes, a few other veggies, sautéed mushroom, fried bread AND the best toasted bread I’ve ever had. Whew. We skipped lunch.

Our day was the Blenheim Palace (www.blenheimpalace.com). Next to Versailles, it is the grandest “home” I’ve ever seen. We walked through the arch into what we thought was the palace. It was about the size of two football fields side by side. That was pretty impressive until we walked through another archway and whammo! There was another courtyard that the first one could fit in a tiny corner of. Surrounded on three sides by several stories of spectacular palace. It would have taken a small town just to keep it clean! Not to mention cooking meals and cleaning up after the horses and whatnot. According to Paul, the 11^th Duke of Marlborough still lives there and often mingles with the peasants during the various activities he sponsors. Winston Churchill was born there although I don’t think he was Duke of Marlborough since he was elected to the House of Commons. Because of the Bank Holiday there was lots going on, falconry and jousting mainly. Great fun, lots of people picnicking on the seemingly miles of grass surrounding the palace.

An interior panorama

A panorama of the main courtyard.

The inner courtyard

Dinner is served!

The back yard

The back door.

A jousting we shall go!

The view from the jousting area

After wandering the palace and the grounds for several hours we headed off to Moreton-in-Marsh (love those British town names!) to the Cotswold Falconry Centre (http://cotswold-falconry.co.uk/presta/) to watch their hour-long show. The 3pm show included kites, vultures (two kinds), and a Great Horned Owl named Desmond that anybody and everybody was invited to have him fly to their gloved hand. About 10-12 people took up the offer, everybody from small children to Randy! It was great fun to watch (and I have to say it was as good or better than our Desert Museum presentation in conservation message, presentation of the birds, and welfare of the birds).

Cotswold Falconry's Harris Hawk

Feeding owl chicks

A vulture in flight

I love you, too!

So, you want coffee?

A kite about to grab a morsel from the air

On our way back we had an experience that makes Stonehenge pale in comparison. Even though we haven’t seen Stonehenge, it could not be better than what we did see. Because the Rollright Stones (http://www.rollrightstones.co.uk/) are close to on our way back from the falconry centre and we did not want to be immersed in 14 gazillion tourists on Bank Holiday Weekend at Stonehenge, we decided to go to the Rollright Stones instead.

What we got was the annual May Day celebration of the Morris Men (http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/roll_right.htm) and the local witches and warlocks of the wiccan (I think) groups who came to celebrate with music and drumming and fires and costumes and it was all so very exciting and interesting. MUCH better than anything we would have seen at Stonehenge! What a kick! 

The view from the stones across fields of canola.

Back “home” and dinner at the Lygon Arms in the bar. Lots of interesting local characters. Good food, have to order a double to get any drinkable amount of gin, however! 25ml is the normal pour.

On to our stay in the Castle Thornbury tomorrow.