Crossing the Channel

On Friday, we got up extra early (5:30a.m.) so that we could get an early start for Canterbury. We walked through the Cathedral with our small groups. It is huge and quite beautiful, there was construction going on that only added to the interest. When we had enough of the vaulted ceilings, flying buttresses and gargoyles, we wandered the city and had lunch.


We got on a bus headed for Dover next. There was a delay of some kind, so the bus was treated to a poor rendition of "The White Cliffs of Dover", sorry Mara. The boat ride was great. A very nice ferry and fun birds that would dive down to eat food out of the hands of the brave. After landing in Calais, we bussed on to Rouen.


After checking in to our hotel and a lovely dinner of savory and sweet crepes, we walked to the Rouen Cathedral, another building with construction and gargoyles a plenty, and painted many times by Monet. We also walked to the site of where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. On the way back to our hotel, we happened by a candy store and everyone got an assortment.

Rainy days in London

'Ello everyone. We are having a lovely time wandering the streets of London. Leaving MN proved to be the most challenging part of the trip so far. We were delayed about 3 hours, so we missed our connecting flight in Chicago. We only had a 45 minute layover, so that wasn't much of a shock. We left Chicago at about 9:30 and got to London at noon on Saturday. We found our hotel easily, checked in and then headed off. We first went to the area Greg and I stayed in on our honeymoon so many moons ago. It was fun to see all the same sights, streets and pubs. We walked along the Thames and saw lots of boats and crew teams. We went to the William Morris house and museum and saw many of his fabrics and designs. It was very small and interesting and I had no idea it was so near where we had been before. From there, we headed to the nearest theater and enjoyed the final Harry Potter movie in 3D. I was afraid we would fall asleep, but the action kept us wide awake!

On Sunday, we did our walking tour of Harry Potter's London. We saw where they filmed Platform 9 3/4, the specific telephone booth they used as the entrance to the Ministry of Magic (in the Prisoner of Azkaban), and a lot of locations for Diagon Alley. We also climbed 311 steps to the top of The Monument and had lovely views of London. My feet were quite sore by the end of the day.

Monday was Museum day and we visited the National Gallery, the Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as a few more Potter sites we had missed the day before. We walked by Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. There was a huge line to get into Westminister Abby, so we went into St. Margaret's Chapel. It had beautiful stained glass windows and these super lovely embroidered kneeling pads in the pews.

Today, we are going to the Globe Theater to see a Shakespeare play and one final Potter site. Tomorrow we will meet up with our tour group and spend the next 9 days with them. It has rained off and on every day. Yesterday we avoided rain until 6pm, but it was only a drizzle, so maybe it's clearing up. We've had interesting English breakfasts each day at our hotel and enjoyed Fish and Chips from a street vendor on Sunday. So far British food is living up to it's reputation. Cheerio!