Our 2nd Week in England

Exmoor National Park

We really try to maximize our weekends here since Brett works all week, so we are tourists on the weekend. We always try to pack too much into one day, and it gets dark a bit earlier here than it did in Ireland.
Saturday we explored the area along the southeastern coast of England. We drove through Salisbury and saw the giant cathedral with the tallest spire in England (403ft tall). It was built around 1220. There were lots of people out walking around the downtown area, looked like a fun town to spend more time in but we drove on down through Newforest, the largest area of unenclosed land in Britain. We had a picnic lunch in a park with horses. The girls enjoyed petting the horses and feeding it an apple. Our next stop was in Southhampton where the Mayflower and the Titanic sailed from on it’s maiden voyage. Then we drove on to Portsmouth, once a vital navy port. The HMS Victory-an English Flagship restored to its former glory was here in port. We took a little harbor cruise and got to see all the big ships in port and enjoy the beautiful day. From here we went on to Arundel and saw the Arundel Castle. It was a big grey hilltop castle surrounded by castellated walls overlooking the small riverside town. The last stop of the day was Brighton, it reminded me of San Francisco California. We picked a bad time to go to this place, they had a Pride Parade earlier in the day so the city was just crawling with interesting people and the traffic was horrific! So we observed the city from our car and people watched as we sat in traffic. We planned to stop at the Brighton Pier but it was packed with people and didn’t feel like getting all the kids out in that mess! We did see the Royal Pavilion it was Prince Regents fantastic oriental palace. We needed more time we were also planning to see Leeds Castle but time and daylight ran out. It was a fun day.
Sunday after church we headed out for another adventure. We drove about 2.5hrs west to Exmoor National Park. I think this place was one of our favorite places we have been so far. The scenery was amazing! Majestic cliffs plunging into the Atlantic ocean and driving through the lush green forest. Wow! We stopped and took pictures along the way but they definitely don’t do justice to the amazing beauty of this place. Our favorite town was Lynmouth it is a little village down by the ocean with a river running through it to the ocean and green cliffs in the background. Above this village on the tops of the mountain is Lynton, the 2 villages are connected by a cliff railway. It would be cool to have a house here!
Monday after work we drove to the little town of Uffington and saw the vale of the great white chalk horse carved onto the hill top, it is about 350 ft long. It is said to be Britains oldest hillside carvings dating back to 1000 BC! We took a hike up to the top and walked around the chalk horse. From the top of the hill you could see for miles, green fields everywhere! Then we walked over to Uffington Castle, it was only imaginary as it wasn’t really there but you could see where the walls were built and the big moat around it, there was a great flock of sheep grazing where the castle would have been. Brett had some fun and chased the sheep (that was Alana and Addy’s favorite part).

Tuesday the kids and I went to Cotswold Animal Park. We had a great time. We saw all kinds of animals, the girls favorites were the penguins, meekrats, bats, and wolf. The also enjoyed the big playground and the train ride around the park.

Wednesday evening we went to Lacock Village, the entire village is owned by the National Trust so everything is kept the same as it was a long time ago. The River Avon runs through it, we drove by the Lacock Abbey it looked like a big fancy house with big gardens (unfortunately the gates were closed so we couldn’t go see it). Then we drove all the way to the town of Bath, this is one of my favorite city’s I have been too. The city is named after the Roman Baths. They were built in the 1st century, this bathing complex is one of Britain’s greatest memorials to the Roman era. We got there late so all the little shops were closed and the Roman Baths were closed but we’ll have to come back in the day time. We saw the river and the cathedral and walked around and then got some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream a 3 scoop cup of ice cream cost ($8) 4 GBP.