Chapter Thirty-Seven The British Isles

Chapter Thirty-Seven
The British Isles

Several of the friends that were in our tour group in Poland also took the tour through Great Britain. We got into London too late to do much of anything but go with a few of the friends across the street from the hotel to a nice little family own restaurant. The next morning we had a free day and with Gary and Ruby Hughes, a couple from our tour group, rode the Underground (think subway) to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. A lot of people showed up for the event. It was impressive but didn’t knock my socks off. What we enjoyed more was going a couple of blocks away from Buckingham to some kind of military establishment where they had a group undergoing a morning inspection. It was pretty interesting.

From Buckingham we rode the Underground again to the location of the British Museum. But before going to the museum we went to “The Plough” a pub. To my surprise a pub is not just a bar but serves food as well. So, we had lunch before going to the museum. At the museum we saw several things including the Cyrus Cylinder, the Nabonidus Chronicles and the Rosetta Stone. We really didn’t even scratch the surface of what’s there. You could easily spend days in the museum.

Ann wanted to go to Herrod’s the famous store in London, but we needed to get back to the hotel to see if the concierge was able to get us tickets to see “Cats”. The concierge had left for the day, but he had made arrangements for us and tickets were waiting for us. Unfortunately, being my first time working with a concierge I didn’t think to leave him a tip. (Oh well, next time). The show was great and the seats were first class. The theatre was a ¾ in the round with four or five rows next to the stage before there was an aisle separating the seating. We were in those front row seats by the stage. Some of the actors during the show roam through the audience and at one time Rum Digger (the alley cat) was moving around the aisle in back of us. Much to my surprise from in back of me he leaned over and kissed the top of my bald head. That was quite a memorable day for us.

The next morning we loaded on to the buses and started heading out West from London. We saw many things, more than I want to list here. The first stop on this list was Stratford on Avon. We saw the cottage of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, and several monuments and statues to Shakespeare. As we were walking the streets we saw this lady with a McDonald’s soda. We asked her where she had gotten it. She directed us to the oasis, after all we had been eating European food for two weeks. The McDonald’s in Stratford was interesting. It didn’t have golden arches but it did have a small black iron version of the arches over the door. I guess they had to keep in the style of Stratford. Also, it was located on three floors, but once you were inside, it was typical McDonald’s.

One memorable stop was at Bath in the Southwest of England where we toured the remains of a great Roman bath. Our farthest point West was Llangollen, Wales which was beautiful country but unfortunately I got sick and missed having diner with the friends at the hotel. The hotel staff was nice enough to fix something for me which Ann brought back with her from diner.

From Wales we headed North stopping in Windermere in the Lake District where Beatrix Potter the author of the Peter Rabbit books use to live. A sister which had toured Poland with us was from the Windermere area and her family lived there who we telephoned just to say “hello”.

We continued North to Carlisle which is just South of the border with Scotland. We visited the castle there at Carlisle in which Scottish prisoners were held during the war between Scotland and England. One of several legends has it, that the ballad “Ye Take the High Road” is about two of Bonnie Prince Charlie's men, captured and left behind in Carlisle after the failed rising of 1745. The song appears to be written by one young soldier to his sweetheart. He was to be executed, the other released. The Spirit of the dead soldier traveling by the 'low road' would reach Scotland before his comrade, struggling along the actual road over high, rugged country.


From Carlisle we headed up into Scotland where we stayed over in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. We saw where Robert Louis Stevenson lived and the tavern whose owner being a town official by day and a scoundrel at night is said to be inspiration for Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde”. I think our highlight of the visit to Edinburgh was our tour of the royal castle. Robbie Robertson was our guide who was a Scotsman with his plaids, kilt and the legendary dagger in his calf-length stockings. We had just barely started the tour of the castle and Robbie is telling us about the number of gates we would be passing through on our climb up to the castle grounds and Ann asks, "Are there elevators?” Robbie stops, looks at Ann and says, “Madame, where are you from?” To which Ann replies, “California”. He says, “I might have known!” Ann then got a good deal of attention from Robbie for the rest of the tour.

From Edinburgh we headed back down South into England seeing Hadrian’s Wall, stopping in York which still had its city wall still pretty much in tack. Farther South we stopped in Oxford/Cambridge home of the world famous universities. The city was an interesting mix of ancient and modern architecture. Finally we arrived back in London with very little free time left before flying back to the States the following morning.

It was a beautiful trip and we were glad to be back home. We were fortunate enough in 2003 to be accepted as delegates to an International Convention in Honolulu, Hawaii. That was really nice and we were able to visit Kauai and Maui also on that trip. We were accepted as delegates for the 2009 International Convention in Berlin, Germany, but due to the economic nosedive, we had to cancel.

Next chapter I’ll get into the arrival of the grandkids

Editor's Note: In Chapter Thirty-Five I mentioned having a "Chevie Civic". My wife pointed out to me that Chevrolet did not make "Civic". It was suppose to be "Chevie Citation".