York was 2 nights in a very comfortable and nicely decorated, but very small (VCANDBVS) room at the Water’s Edge. Julie turned out to be a very pretty brown-eyed blond who offered to do our laundry for L5 a bag. Well, we didn’t stuff the bags as full as we should have and apparently British washers and dryers are very small. So that was L20 for the lot — but they were all folded. The B&B was on a river walk and next to the St. Mary’s Abbey/Museum Park and so we thought it would be lovely and quiet. Wrong.…

On the York Train, Sept 13th, 2003 Not long after this (writing the last entry), we arrived at Oxford station and grabbed a cab to our “private hotel,” the Falcon. This was basic accomodation for “only” L70 including breakfast — it was 2 converted townhouses, very mazelike, with a number of inconveniently placed firedoors. The room was largish with a four poster. Once again the shower was a cramped afterthought and the toilet was a gusher. Then after dumping stuff we started to wander around Oxford, (such as stopping for a beer at The Head of the River) but stopped…

Sept. 12, 2003 Stow-on-the-Wold Wow! Just two days in the Cotswolds and we’re already planning a return trip. We arrived by train in Moreton-in-Marsh and immediately saw one of the oldest curfew towers (a bell was rung to warn residents to cover their fires) in the country. We had to drag the rolly-pollies to the bus stop, and very soon the bus dropped us off in the square at Stow-on-the-Wold, and then we were welcomed at the Unicorn Hotel. It was authentically creaky, and appeared to have been built in Tudor times (or soon after) — typical honey-colored stone with…

September 10th, 2003 Today we head out from London and got the Cotswolds for 2 days, then Oxford for a day, then York. Yesterday was spent mostly lazing around (tourism is hard work) and then we sat at the British Tourist Authority and then the Scottish Tourist Board to make B&B/hotel reservations. I hadn’t been able to settle on anything from home, and then I usually couldn’t make reservations via the Web, but we’re sorted now, I hope. David is worried that the hotels/B&Bs won’t be any good — that is, worse than this one, which isn’t that great but…

Right. Well. We’re on vacation. Yesterday was a long day of dedicated tourism, capped off with an enthusiastic consumption of ale and wine. All in all, much fun. It started with our setting out all fresh and peppy for the Tower of London. We had vouchers that needed to be exchanged for the Tube passes (magnetic strips, not Oystercards), and we could do that at nearby Paddington Station. No problem, except that the desk that did that was permanently closed, and we’d have to go to Piccadilly station to do it, with the permission of the Tube dude at the…

Note to self — must find memory card with nude shot of me and delete it because david would not let me take recipocal reciprocal nude picture of him. Second note to self — probably not good idea to drink pint of Fuller’s ESB AND half bottle of molto deliszioso Pinot Grigio in same evening. My handwriting was adversely affected by all the alcohol coursing merrily through my veins that evening. It’s kind of hard to convey this in a post without it looking like it was run through a spammer’s reverse-spellchecker (how many ways can you spell Viagra? Well,…

Departure Day: September 5th 2003, in flight The moon’s reflection slid along the port (left!) wing and we were off on the Big Trip to England. Another trip, another travel journal, and another vague promise to actually keep up with the jotting down of impressions, experiences, fleeting glimpses, and anecdotes. Well, we’ll see. Everything in italic is pretty much as I wrote it in the travel journal I took along. Any glaring boo-boos are corrected in (bold), and be advised that opinions and preconceptions changed in surprising ways!