Posted by Suzanne McMinn on November 30, 2006 @ 10:36 am
Globetrotting
If you guessed this was the fabulously poetic Durdle Door, you were right! I went to England!!!! Mostly Cornwall and Dorset, and a bit of London. It was the coolest trip ever in the history of cool trips. 
I wanna go again!!
Many, many pics to come in the days ahead, but for now….an overview.
They drive on the wrong side of the road there. I mean, seriously, what is wrong with them?
So, we got in the rental car and I decided that I should drive out of London. After seven hours in a plane. In a car that had the steering wheel on the wrong side. In a country that drives on the wrong side of the road. With a stick shift, which I haven’t driven in several years, and did I mention the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car? So the stick shift is on the wrong side, too. The only thing that could have made it worse is if I’d been drinking.
Thank God it didn’t take long to get out of the city. I hit my first roundabout in, oh, about two minutes and nearly killed myself getting into it in London traffic. Roundabouts. Everywhere. Have these people not heard of stop signs? No intersections with traffic lights or stop signs. Roundabouts, everywhere. I finally figured out after about a day that you could just Stay in the roundabout, keep driving in circles, until you decided which turn to take out of it. They weren’t nearly as scary after that. Then we hit the country. Hedgerowed lanes! Gorgeous!! BUT!! So narrow….. And the villages!!! Buildings (beautiful old stone buildings that I nearly ran into admiring!) right up to the edge of the road!
What was really odd was in the evenings, they just PARK RIGHT IN THE ROAD. AS IF THERE IS ROOM!
But oh–how adorable! Every village was so cute! So tidy! I have no idea what they do with their trash there, but there was no trash. Every village, one after another, so cute, so adorable, so clean! So tiny! All with an ancient church with moss-grown Celtic crosses and stone thatched cottages and a pub!
A pub in every village! We need to take up this trend in America. This photo was taken in a 17th-century pub in Mullion, Cornwall. We drove out of London and headed straight for Cornwall. The drive should have taken maybe four hours but we turned it into about eight what with all those confusing roundabouts and my fear of driving more than 30 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road. I think every driver in England hated me last week. I hereby apologize to the entire United Kingdom for my driving atrocities. But–it was wonderful. All the hedgerowed lanes and fields, the quaint villages, the sea! I loved it all.
For the most part, we drove around in the country. Just drove around. Did nothing. Climbed over stone walls and hedges to get to prehistoric monuments, petted sheep, stopped in pubs, trekked up steep cliffs to medieval castle ruins, and consumed clotted cream at every opportunity. This photo was taken through the crumbling walls of romantic and mysterious Tintagel Castle.
Sheep! Everywhere, sheep! Dotting the countryside in some kind of unspoken agreement not to stand too close to each other while properly dotting. I fell in love with sheep. Though don’t make me choose between them and clotted cream. I’d have to jump off a bridge in despair.
I want some sheep!!! Two. A boy and a girl. They can make little lambs. Wouldn’t that be sweet??
The only day it really rained was the day we went to Stonehenge. Driving, sideways, soaking rain. I was drenched. I changed out of my sopping wet jeans in the front seat of the car heedless of any passersby. It rained every day we were there, but just a little bit then it would stop. The temperatures were great, and the tourists–non-existent at this time of year except for when we got to London. But–it gets dark there at 4 pm! What is THAT about? You’d think I’ve have gotten used to it after a week, but every day I was shocked. It’s 4! How can it be DARK?
In Dorset, we stayed in a lovely bed-and-breakfast with a warm, welcoming hostess who made us kippers and big slabs of bacon every morning and always made sure we knew where to go and how to get there and explained what all those mysterious road signs meant. This photo is of the beautiful, bombed-out Corfe Castle overlooking the Purbeck Hills. I loved Corfe Castle, climbing around the ruins, poking under openings and inside old towers. Not far away was the incredible Durdle Door and the gorgeous Lulworth Cove, just touching on a few of the numerous wonders we found in the West Country English boonies.
It was an amazing trip, and a real dream come true for me. I’ve always wanted to go to England, and now I can’t wait to go again! (This photo was taken in the 200-year-old stone farmhouse bed-and-breakfast in teacup-sized East Lulworth.) What about you? Any dream-come-true trips you’d love to take?
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on November 30, 2006 @ 10:36 am
