A Roundabout Trip to the United Kingdom

Xandie in front of our quaint Belgian hotel.  Photo by Pat. Buoys stranded by the outgoing tide on a British beach.  I have no
idea what the buoys mark, or whether they are intended as moorings.  A
T-shirt and sandal are affixed to the "handle" of the closer buoy.
Despite the apparent isolation of the photograph, the beach was
actually populated with quite a few people. The inner part of the Avebury stone circle, seen from a moderate distance. Stonehenge.  Apparently there was an earthquake; it's amazing that
none of the slabs fell down.  Photo by Xandie. The main Roman bath at Bath. Xandie riding her first real horse at Horse World. A church steeple in Monmouth.  Photo by Xandie. Geoff and Xandie in Pat's grandfather's favorite pub.  Photo by Pat. A stained glass window in Lincoln Cathedral.  Photo by Xandie. An umbrella-carrying group of tourists gathers around their guide at
Lincoln Castle.  Photo by Pat. Inside the prisoners' chapel at Lincoln Castle.  Each of the booths
has its own door, constructed so that when someone is in the next
booth, you can't get out.  The corridor door locks.  The booths are
designed so that you can't really sit down, and the preacher can see
whether everyone is paying attention.  Pat and I briefly got locked in
when one of the latches jammed! Geoff, Xandie, and Bob Markham outside the "Arch House" in Lincoln.
The house, which is owned by Bob's sister Norah, is built onto a Roman
arch.  Photo by Pat using Xandie's camera. Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, which is across the Rhine from Koblenz. The confluence of the Rhine (right) and the Mosel (left), viewed from
inside the Monument to German Unity in Koblenz.  Photo by Xandie.
Xandie getting windblown on the ferry ride to Dover.  Photo by Geoff
using Xandie's camera. Pat and Xandie prop up a stone in the Avebury circle. The "Red Lion" in Avebury, where we stopped for a pint after visiting
the stone circle.  Note the traditional thatched roof.  If you look
closely, you can spot Pat at one of the tables on the right.  Photo by
Xandie. The Roman baths at Bath.  The lower parts of the columns were built by
Romans; after the baths were ruined, the Victorians rebuilt them and
joined their columns onto the Roman ones.  Everything above the
juncture is Victorian, including the statues of Romans.  Photo by
Xandie. Xandie riding her first real horse at Horse World. A bridge over the River Usk. Xandie surrounded by her newfound third cousins, Jake and Chloe
Smallwood.  Photo by Pat. Pat enjoying a pint in her grandfather's favorite pub.  Photo by
Xandie. Xandie pretends to be a prisoner in one of the old towers at Lincoln
Castle.  These towers were unheated and without barriers on the
windows; being a prisoner must have been truly horrendous.  Photo by
Pat. Lincoln Cathedral, viewed from the walls of Lincoln Castle.  Photo by
Xandie. Pat inside one of the inmates' booths inside the prisoners' chapel at
Lincoln Castle.  Each of the booths has its own door, constructed so
that when someone is in the next booth, you can't get out.  The
corridor door locks.  The booths are designed so that you can't really
sit down, and the preacher can see whether everyone is paying
attention.  Pat and I briefly got locked in when one of the latches
jammed!  You'll note that in this shot, she is carefully holding the
door open so she doesn't get trapped again. Geoff gets spat upon by the "naughty spitting boy" fountain in
Koblenz, which is a symbol of the city.  Photo by Pat using Xandie's
camera. The Monument to German Unity in Koblenz.  The rider is Kaiser Wilhelm
I, who achieved union by defeating a bunch of bickering tribes.

Long ago, Pat and I started talking about how to use sabbaticals effectively. We both agreed that we should use them to broaden our horizons. I speak German, so I always voted for Germany; Pat was more biased towards places where she could understand what the locals were saying. (Of course that meant not going to New Jersey or Alabama, but neither of us saw that as a drawback.) Since Pat also has relatives in the United Kingdom, that was her first choice.

As you know, I eventually won the, um, discussion. But we compromised by making an extended trip to Britain and Wales as soon as we could.

Getting There

As an engineer, I was of course excited about the idea of traveling via one of the greatest marvels of our time, the Chunnel. So we took a ferry. I don't know where the people who set Chunnel prices live, but it's definitely not on this planet.

But driving to the ferry on the Autobahn (better known as a freeway where going 100 makes you think you've left the car in reverse) was wonderful for this ex-Montanan. I just wish they'd provided earplugs to shut out Pat's screams of terror.

You can get from Karlsruhe to the French coast in a day (heck, on the Autobahn you can get to the Moon in a day), but we wanted to enjoy ourselves, so we drove until we started to wear out and then picked a random freeway exit in Belgium. After meandering a bit, we found a quaint little hotel with plenty of space. There, we re-learned the hard European lesson, Always ask to see the room first. We didn't, and wound up with an attic bed that sagged more than most hammocks. So Pat tried the folding bed, which promptly collapsed and trapped her. Laughing too hard to get up, she called to me for help. I briefly debated leaving her there until I could find my camera, but chivalry (and a reluctance to hire a Belgian divorce lawyer) won out.

Catching the ferry to Dover brought the first of many surprises. Britain is in the European Community, so I hadn't expected border controls. Wrong. They wanted to see our passports (which Pat had cleverly brought) and proof (which I'd left behind) that we weren't going to stay in Britain for the rest of our lives and live off government handouts. I explained that we'd considered welfare as an option, but the Queen seemed to have a lock on that lifestyle, and they let us aboard.

Southern Britain

Once in England, we explored some nearby beaches and then started looking for a hotel for the night. Pat quickly located a B&B with space, but they wanted £55/night. That's 100 bucks! I exclaimed. We can definitely do better than that.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And in case I haven't mentioned it, wrong.

The mildly embarrassing news is that £55 was the least we paid for a room anywhere. UK prices are apparently set by the same people who built the Chunnel. (I eventually learned to deal with sticker shock by pretending that the prices were in dollars, thus postponing the pain until the credit-card bill arrived a month later.)

The really embarrassing news is that Pat had found the only free room in all of southern England. Apparently the entire national population travels to Surrey in August, booking their rooms approximately three centuries in advance. We drove from town to town, looking for Vacancy signs, occasionally stopping to ask for suggestions. Eventually somebody told us that we'd have to go to the London ring road, a good hour north, to find a room.

Wrong again. The ring road has rest stops to end all rest stops: mini-malls that have gas, restaurants, shopping, playgrounds, groceries, Internet connections, and even hotels—hotels with no room. Our branch at Heathrow has space, they told us. Only Heathrow was another hour around the ring. It was midnight before we finally collapsed into a bed.

That experience established the theme for our UK visit: driving in circles. One of our guidebooks suggests that if you can't figure out which exit to take from a roundabout, you should just go around again. We applied that principle to our entire trip, not just in roundabouts, but in entire cities and counties. Lost outside London? Drive around the ring; it only takes five or six hours. Lost in Britain? Drive around the island; it only takes a few days.

So on we went (after reserving a chain-hotel room!) to Avebury, site of some cool prehistoric ruins, and thence to Stonehenge. Stonehenge is really easy to find—if you're coming from London. If you're coming from nearby Avebury, they're doing construction on every road between you and your destination. Even the detours have detours. But Stonehenge is worth it, even though the sheep have the best view.

After taking a (financial) bath in Bath, we stopped by the much-promoted Horse World, an equine rescue society turned tourist attraction. Xandie's second biggest smiles came on the giant near-vertical slide that ended in a pool of plastic balls, but the highlight of the day was her first ride on a full-sized horse. Watching that made all the prior tribulations worthwhile.

Usk

On we went to Usk. Usk? you ask, Is that a beer?

Sort of. Usk is where Pat's ancestors hail from. It's a lovely little town in Wales with the obligatory castle and only about 800 people. Xandie was delighted to learn that she had (third) cousins her own age. Pat, on the other hand, was determined to see the pub that her grandfather Wise had visited semi-religiously. It's right across the street, explained her cousin Dora. Off we went for a pint.

Only the place seemed awfully brightly lit, not at all the typical Victorian pub that we'd heard about. When we left, Pat spotted another pub on the opposite corner. That must be the culprit. In we went for a second pint. By the time we finished, it certainly seemed like the right place.

But when we got back to Dora's, we learned just how wrong one can go in Usk. There are 13 pubs in Usk, and three of them are at that intersection. So off we went again the next night, third time lucky (by process of elimination). We even walked in circles in the UK, but damn did we have a good time!

Midlands

Our next stop was Lincoln, home of some family friends. Bob Markham, a retired history teacher, took us on a tour of Lincoln Cathedral (immense) and Lincoln Castle, once a prison. Xandie loved the castle, since she is fascinated by the idea of imprisoned princesses (she is always tying her dolls up). One of the lowlights of our visit was the prisoners' chapel, where each inmate had a separate booth that didn't allow sitting and could be checked by the preacher to be sure nobody had fallen asleep. I just had to try the complex door system, where each inmate's presence caused the next to be locked in. Unfortunately, the rather elderly locks malfunctioned, and when it was time to leave they wouldn't open. Pat had become quite unhappy by the time Bob used a classic engineer's technique (brute force) to set us free.

Home Again

With our time growing short, we headed back. After a pleasant night in a French hotel, we stopped to refuel (UK gas prices are very high, so we'd postponed tanking up).

Once again, oops. It was Sunday, and the gas station wasn't staffed. The pumps took credit cards, but not our kind. Desperate, I approached a woman who was filling her own car. I had intended to ask where I could find another station, but my French failed under the pressure. All I could come up with was a helpless look and I don't have a card.

The lady pondered for a long minute, started to give me directions, and then stopped herself. Suivez-moi, she said, and then, seeing my bewildered expression, Follow me.

Away we went onto the freeway. Off again at the next exit, and down the road towards a refinery. Oh, that's why she led us, said Pat. It's cheap because it's by the refinery, but it's away from the freeway. But the woman drove all the way around a roundabout and headed back the way we'd come. Had we missed spotting the station? She must be heading home now, wondering why the heck these idiot tourists were still tailing her. Sure enough, she got onto the freeway in the opposite direction. Man, were we stupid! Here we were wasting our last drops of diesel, going in circles because we couldn't spot a gas station.

But there was method to her madness. Without ever merging, she led us to an on-the-freeway gas station. It was the only way to get there. Sure enough, they took cash. We never even got a chance to thank her. But I'll always remember that Suivez-moi...Follow me, delivered with exactly the same accent and solemnity that Jacques the crab uses in Finding Nemo.

Our final stop was in Koblenz, Germany, where we walked along the Rhine, climbed a huge monument, and celebrated a successful vacation. Then we got back on the Autobahn and missed the exit for Karlsruhe because it was on a fold of the map. (How is it that map designers always manage to put the critical information on a fold? They must take special evil-origami courses.) But it was OK, because we stumbled onto another route that might have even been faster.

And we didn't even have to go in a circle.