Radhika, Avinash and Raj's UK Trip : May - June 2010: Part 4, Days 6 to 8

Day 6 - June 5, 2010

As some of you are aware, we planned to drive to Bristol (where Radhika's cousin Latha lives) via Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath. The previous day, we spoke to Chandra, Latha's husband, who told us to skip Bath as it was very close to Bristol, and we could go there the next day.

We had made bookings online for a Standard size automatic car (viz something like a VW Passat or Honda Accord) from Europcar, and we were scheduled to pick the car up at 8 am. However, by the time we packed and checked out of the hotel, it was past 9. On reaching the Europcar office at Kings Cross, we were told that a Std Automatic was not available, and that the only automatic they had was a Mercedes B Class (which is a car slightly larger than a Honda Jazz). My immediate concern was whether all our luggage would fit, but decided to look at the car after they insisted that the only alternative was a manual Skoda Octavia Estate.

As it turned out, the Merc was very smartly packaged, with a surprisingly large hatchback boot that easily accommodated all our luggage (which struggled to fit in an Innova in Bombay). We were issued the car (plus child seat and a Tomtom GPS receiver) by 945. Interestingly, while Europcar provided us with a child seat, they did not provide any assistance in fitting it. By the time we got the car loaded, the child seat fitted and Avi into the seat, it was around 1030. And so we were off, my first attempt at driving abroad. And pretty soon, I realized that I had committed a cardinal error - while I programmed the GPS to take me to Windsor, I had not adjusted the volume, which was on mute.

Fortunately, there were a number of signals on the way, and I was soon able to get the volume working. After the initial tension of driving wore off, I found that the Merc was quite sluggish and that my drivers seat was too low as well. The crawl through London took almost an hour for the first 10 odd miles, but once we were on the M4 (the expressway leading west from London), progress was smooth and we reached Windsor a little after noon. We found a pay and park, paid for 3 hrs and set off to see Windsor. After feeding Avi with yet another Tomato cheese sandwich, and some ice-cream for all of us, we entered Windsor.



Windsor Castle is extremely beautiful - there is a lot to see there but given the limited time we had, we focused on the major items - viz Queen Mary's Doll house, and the State Apartments. The doll house was a special gift to Queen Mary from her grandmother on one of her birthdays. The doll house is a miniature version of a palace with proper plumbing and electrical connections. There were stairs connecting thru the whole house, miniature furniture adorning the various rooms, miniature paintings by the real masters put up on the walls, it was really an exhibition of wealth...

Avi was thrilled to see the realistic looking vintage cars parked in the garage of the doll house, and was caught between wanting the toy vintage cars, and wanting to see real ones. After a quick run thru the staterooms, we headed out of the castle, tugging along Avi, who was disappointed that he had not seen a real vintage car.

Soon we were on our way to Stonehenge. The initial drive was thru expressways, but soon we were on a local highway, which ran thru extremely green countryside. The only disappointment was that Avi had dropped off to sleep, and missed the sight of the first few meadows that we saw in England.

Stonehenge was a magnificent place - pictures fail to do justice to the beauty of the place, especially on a beautiful, bright English summer evening.Stonehenge is one of the oldest monument apparently from the stone age. There has been lot of research on these stones to understand who built it, and why. Lots of theories are provided, but no body knows the reality about these stones. They apparently were used for determining the equinox that marks the beginning of spring. They say these stones were brought to this location from very far away places and its a mystery as to how these heavy stones were transported and further raised to position them upright. There is also a theory that goes to say that this could have been a temple dedicated to the sun.


We had an audio guide to take us through our tour of this place and it was quite enchanting to hear the same. Further, we also felt that Britain is doing a lot to preserve these places and also propagate/market it such that people like us from far away places come and visit.

After about an hour at Stonehenge (which took us to 630), we set out for Bristol. The road to Bristol was exceptionally beautiful, winding thru scenic English villages similar to those we had seen in the Cotswalds. This was followed by a motorway section where the lack of power of the B Class became evident.



On reaching Bristol at around 9pm (having covered almost 170 miles), we were received by Chandra, Latha, Chandra's parents and the kids. Avi and the kids quickly bonded - and we settled down to a great Indian dinner, which was wolfed down by all three of us.




Day 7 - June 5, 2010
Our original plan for June 5 was to go to Bath. But Chandra pointed out that Bath was not different from any other Roman ruins and proposed that we instead go to some old limestone caves, where we could see stalactites and stalagmites. Radhika and I decided this would be more fun, and took up this offer. Around 11, we set out with both Chandra and Latha taking their cars, and Latha and Maami having put together a massive picnic lunch. The drive to the caves was longer than I had anticipated, about 80 miles, and also took longer than Chandra had planned due to an accident ahead of us on the motorway. On the way, we crossed the beautiful Severn bridge (which has two main cable stayed spans, each longer than the main span of the Worli Bandra sea link).

The Dan yr Ogof caves in Wales, are a massive set of limestone caves, carved by flowing water out of the Welsh Hills. There is a dinosaur park set outside the caves, with life-size models of a wide variety of Dinosaurs.

Avi, Anoushka and Abhishek all had a very good time - with Avi trying to act as if he was the other two kids' peer, and the older kids being nice enough to indulge him. Avi promptly declared that these were "toy" dinos, and wanted to know where the real ones were and why they died out.







The caves were extremely cold, and full of beautiful natural formations, and underground streams and waterfalls. One of the caves has a Cathedral at its end, where marriage ceremonies can be conducted. Another one, where bones had been found, has an exhibit reconstructing various facets of its history including how early humans lived in it. Overall it was a fun time. At about 530, we left the caves and then stopped on the way near a farm which had emus etc in it - and played frisbee for a while in a green area nearby. Then we headed back - by the time we reached Bristol, Chandra and Latha must have been dead tired after the long 160 mile drive, but still stayed up with us till late night, helping us plan what to do in Scotland.

Day 8 - June 6, 2010


Sunday was a day of rest - we woke late and then set out with Chandra and Latha to explore Bristol, seeing a large park (where a ballooning festival is held in August) and seeing one of the oldest suspension bridges(built sometime in the early 1800s) in the world. After a drive thru the city, we headed back home for lunch. Prior to that, I joined Chandra, Abhishek and Anoushka for the kids swimming lessons - Abhishek is a truly talented free style swimmer (he was a head faster than any of the other kids in the fastest group there, including kids taller than him by nearly half a foot), and I am told that Anoushka is as good when it comes to the back stroke.

Post lunch, Chandra, Latha and Anoushka dropped us at the airport. We truly had a great time there, and watching how close Avi became to the kids was very nice. From time to time Avi would mention that he likes Bristol and that this was his home.

The house has a small garden outside, Avi was very thrilled about the idea of a garden in the house. An interesting discussion between Latha and Avi goes like this... Anoushka had not finished her grapes and very happily asked avi to finish the same, Avi was more than happy to do that despite having polished a cup earlier. So Latha very casually mentioned to Avi as to how cunning anu was to have asked avi to finish her grapes, to this Avi responded-- " Latha periamma, Anoushka is a very nice girl, she was only sharing her grapes with me. " I found it very cute of Avi. Lots of such nice events happened during our stay.

Chandra and Latha's advice on what to do in Scotland was invaluable in the next leg of our trip , as was the atlas of British roads that they gifted us.

More on our Scottish saga in our next mail.

Luv

Raj, Radhika and Avinash.