Our Grand Tour of Europe

Photos of the highlights of our two weeks in London (21 photos) are posted here.

Hello to everyone who may be checking in on our blog. It's actually now near the end of our third week of our trip, and I'm posting this from the Public Library in Penzance on the coast of Cornwall. Today I'm posting a pretty detailed accounting of our first two weeks in London. We don't necessarily know from week to week how we will be able to access e-mail or whether or not a facility's computers will enable me to work with a disk. So, bear with us... we may not post every week but will post whenever we can. I also suspect that my approach to the blog will change over time (perhaps become less of a daily diary)...

Photos of the highlights of our two weeks in London (21 photos) are posted here.

And now the luxury of a second full week in London! We are settling into somewhat of a routine and feeling very comfortable in this city. Every morning I am up first, fix myself some tea, and work on my journal or on the computer until Charley gets up. He makes coffee (using the French press), then goes down the street to the bus station and brings back breakfast breads and a newspaper. We eat our breakfast, drink coffee and read the paper, then take our showers. At that point, we try to rouse Sleeping Beauty! It is difficult for us to get out of the flat much earlier than 10 am. How we managed to get off to jobs and school each morning before 8 am, I now have no idea!

We bought the seven-day travelcard for the underground last week, and so we focused on London itself to try to maximize the benefit of our travelcards. This week we plan to do a couple of daytrips outside of London, likely traveling on the train. The weather is not expected to be as good as our beautiful first week, and so we will watch the weather in making our plans.

Photos of the highlights of our week in Cornwall(17 photos) are posted here.

We spent the third week of our Grand Tour on the southwestern tip of England…. in the small fishing village of Mousehole (pronounced “Mouzel”) in Cornwall, about three miles from the larger town of Penzance. This was our first visit to Cornwall, and we absolutely loved it—especially Kelly. I wish that we had somehow planned the trip to spend two weeks here… there was so much to see and do. (This would be the ideal way to feel about every place we just spend a week!)

The houses are made of granite, and many are built up on the steep hills. Most of the houses have brightly colored trim and are decorated with window boxes and pots filled with colorful flowers. The streets are extremely narrow—if two cars meet in the village, one has to back up to let the other by. We enjoyed exploring the twisting alleys where smugglers once hid their goods. Mousehole has several restaurants and cafes, a couple of tourist shops, a bookshop, some art galleries, and a newsagent that sells a few groceries. Other than the newsagent, there really aren’t any shops to serve the residents—you have to go to Penzance for any major shopping. The village was on a regular bus run (imagine the buses navigating the narrow streets!), and we were interested to see quite a few residents using the bus. After our two weeks in London, this was a very big change of pace and lifestyle. I think the change was good for our family too, as we continued to settle into a positive rhythm for our 14 months together.

July 3 - July 9

We spent the week in South Somerset, a lovely part of England that we've visited briefly before. We stayed on a farm with an old restored mill and beautiful gardens and were really happy with our cottage and the location. Kelly enjoyed the dog Bramble, the cats and the sheep, although she never did see a badger.

The weather took a strange turn during the week... chilly, rainy and windy a couple of days. I actually bought a coat in July! We came here thinking we'd probably visit Bath, Salisbury and Lyme Regis and didn't end up doing any of that. Instead we visited Winchester and Wells, two interesting smaller cities with beautiful old cathedrals. We especially enjoyed our couple of visits to the Stourhead Estate, about 20 minutes from Gants Mill. Once again, we wished we could have stayed another week.

July 10 - July 16

We were eager to return to the Cotswolds, our third visit to this beautiful part of England that we love so much. We stayed at Michaelmas Cottage in the village of Blockley, near the market town of Moreton-in-Marsh. We loved our week here—we explored the countryside, did a couple of good walks, visited Stratford-on-Avon and Oxford, and toured two beautiful gardens and a unique old home. We liked being part of village life and met some people here—Kelly found the park was a good place to connect with other kids and a highlight of our week was meeting a wonderful couple who gave us a complete tour of their beautifully-restored home and garden. We had a wonderful week.

July 17 ? July 23

Our week in North Yorkshire was an unexpected delight. We had never been to Yorkshire before and really didn’t know much about it. We loved the beautiful countryside… lush hills and valleys and the contrast of the desolate moors. We visited the historic city of York and also had a special day at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal. This is “James Herriott Country,” and we experienced first-hand why James Herriott loved Yorkshire so much.

We were so happy with our location for the week… a perfect cottage on a 500-acre estate. We became part of the estate community for the week, and everyone was very kind to our family. It was Kelly’s birthday week, and she especially enjoyed the opportunity to help take care of three horses who lived in the stables next to our cottage.