We took a train to Letchworth where we picked up our small motorhome and started driving on the left side of the road! The first stop was Avebury (click for link), a small village with ancient stone formations, sort of like Stonehenge without the tourists. No one really knows why the ancient people tipped up and arranged these stones, probably religion.
Then we drove on to Bath, parked outside town and took a bus into Bath. We had downloaded Jane Austen MP3 tour of the town, which was very informative. Bath has hot springs, originally used by Romans, and in Victorian times was thought to have healing powers, but it's just that people never took baths, and it was so refreshing to have a hot bath they just felt better, and some diseases were actually cured. While most of the residents were rich, there was a hospital for poor sick people to come to Bath and try to be cured, but they had to have 1 pound for transport of the body back home if they died, 2 pounds if from Scotland.
Thankfully, our GPS with ebay Europe chip worked, and we got around pretty good. The roads across Great Britain are a spider web, with a roundabout every couple miles, with three to six exits each. I like roundabouts better than stoplights, because you rarely have to come to a complete stop, but you have to concentrate on your driving much more than in the States, figuring out who has the right of way. Having just praised the GPS, it did get us into trouble on several occasions. Trying to get to the campground outside Bath, the GPS took us up a very small lane with rock walls on both sides, and cars were parked in this tiny lane further up the hill, so I had to stop and back all the way down the hill onto a busy street. There was a guy in his yard where we stopped, so I rolled down my window and explained that my GPS had directed me here, to which he said "happens all the time." I suspect that every motorhome and caravan (trailer) following GPS directions to that campground ends up stuck in the same lane. There was a wider main street about 20 meters on.
Then we drove on to Bath, parked outside town and took a bus into Bath. We had downloaded Jane Austen MP3 tour of the town, which was very informative. Bath has hot springs, originally used by Romans, and in Victorian times was thought to have healing powers, but it's just that people never took baths, and it was so refreshing to have a hot bath they just felt better, and some diseases were actually cured. While most of the residents were rich, there was a hospital for poor sick people to come to Bath and try to be cured, but they had to have 1 pound for transport of the body back home if they died, 2 pounds if from Scotland.Thankfully, our GPS with ebay Europe chip worked, and we got around pretty good. The roads across Great Britain are a spider web, with a roundabout every couple miles, with three to six exits each. I like roundabouts better than stoplights, because you rarely have to come to a complete stop, but you have to concentrate on your driving much more than in the States, figuring out who has the right of way. Having just praised the GPS, it did get us into trouble on several occasions. Trying to get to the campground outside Bath, the GPS took us up a very small lane with rock walls on both sides, and cars were parked in this tiny lane further up the hill, so I had to stop and back all the way down the hill onto a busy street. There was a guy in his yard where we stopped, so I rolled down my window and explained that my GPS had directed me here, to which he said "happens all the time." I suspect that every motorhome and caravan (trailer) following GPS directions to that campground ends up stuck in the same lane. There was a wider main street about 20 meters on.
The next day we went the St Fagans open air museum (click for link) just over the border in Wales where some people only speak welsh, then headed towards Orcop, a town Debbies relatives about 5 generations back were from. Orcop is a very small village, and the roads got smaller and smaller as we got closer, with hedges very close on both sides of the road. There are virtually no shoulders on roads, so getting past an oncoming truck is a stressful maneuver. You basically find the left edge of the road by feeling with the steering, and even then you'll only have a couple inches clearance between mirrors. It's quite stressful. Occasionally, one vehicle has to back up to a wide spot to allow passage. I suppose a car would be easier to drive, but you wouldn't see as much over the hedges and walls which pretty much line every road.Our GPS called the town Orcop-Holley (Debbie's grandfathers name), but there doesn't seem to be any trace of Holleys there now. According to one of Debbie's aunts who attended a family reunion in Orcop, there are two versions of who lost the family farm and fortune, either the American immigrants or those who stayed behind.
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