September 11, 2013: A Tour of Bath, England
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As we planned, Guy, who had come down from Chamberlain to San Antonio a few days ago, drove from there to Dallas with Ron and Prudence, and we saw them off at the airport on Sept. 5th. Today, Monday, Fred and I met Nancy and Karl at DFW for our own 8PM flight to Heathrow.

Our Flight to England

We got our bags checked in with plenty of time to spare and boarded our flight, settling in to the four seats I'd chosen on the port side of the aircraft.

The flight itself was uneventful, taking about seven hours, during which time we occupied ourselves with the entertainment systems at our seats, or read, or chatted with each other, or ate the simple meals that were served. I knew already that Ron, Prudence and Guy had also had a pleasant trip over, so I was hoping that my actions in booking our travel on American, an airline they' had bad experiences on before, would turn out to be a good decision. Little did I know.

It was already getting dark when we left DFW, but as we came in over Ireland and England the following morning, Fred had his camera out to take pictures. He snapped quite a few of them, but I've chosen just the four most representative or most interesting for inclusion here. Just click on the thumbnails at left to have a look.

The real hassle of flying these days is not so much the flights, although they can be crowded and boring, but the terminals, what with all the security when you leave and, at least on overseas flights, the customs when you arrive. We were towards the back of the plane, so this meant that we were at the back of the customs line when we crossed the U.K. border (actually, of course, we'd already crossed it, but going through Customs just makes it official, I guess). But we breezed through the check when we finally got to the head of the line, emerging free and unfettered into the United Kingdom. While we were waiting, we took a couple of the first pictures with my new little Panasonic Lumix camera; these are below:

We got our first surprise when Nancy's bag didn't appear at baggage claim. Why only that bag didn't, I had no clue, since all four were checked at exactly the same time by the same person at DFW and tagged the same. This was not good, as Nancy already had a bad opinion of American Airlines. But what could we do? We filled out the claim form, and I got a number to call and website to check for updates on the bag's progress. It would have to be delivered to Bristol, since we were on our way there as soon as we left the airport. Nancy got authorization to buy what she needed pending her bag's arrival; we'd have to submit that claim when we returned to the states.

Nancy handled things well, although I could tell that she was worried that her bag wouldn't get to Bristol before we left there in two days' time to continue on to Haltwhistle, England.

Our Drive to Bristol, England

On the itinerary Karl had worked up, the four of us would take a train from Heathrow to Bristol. When we found out at the information desk that this would involve first getting a train into London and then transferring to a train to Bristol, we questioned the amount of walking that we wanted to do lugging our bags with us. We also found that for just an additional $40 or so, we could hire a car right at the airport that would take us directly to our hotel in Briston (eliminating the transfer to a taxi at the Briston train station). So we opted for that.

As it turned out, hiring the car was a good move; I think it cut at least two hours off our trip to Bristol, and it was a lot less hectic that schlepping our bags into London, from train to train, and into a taxi in Bristol would have been.

It was a nice drive over to Bristol, taking just under two hours to cover the 100 miles. Along the way, Fred was snapping pictures out his (tinted) window. For my part, sitting in the front seat next to the chauffeur, most of mine were looking ahead at the roadway. You can use the clickable thumbnails at right to have a look at a few of the many pictures we took. I would compare the countryside to North Carolina- mostly rural and quite green- with gently rolling hills. As I said, it was a nice drive before we came into Bristol itself.

I don't suppose our route through town is of much interest, but I was glad someone else was driving who knew where he was going. After we were in the city for a day, I got something of my bearings, but for now, all I could remember was that we came in on the expressway from London (the M4) and got on another that took us down into Bristol itself. Then we angled off through the circuitous city streets until we pulled up to the front of the Avon Gorge Hotel.

At the Avon Gorge Hotel

The Avon Gorge Hotel was, of course, our first hotel of the trip. Prudence and Nancy picked all the places we stayed based on a list that Karl put together for each of the stops. I am not sure what all their criteria were, although I do know that they favored bed and breakfast inns rather than hotels.

As its name indicates, the Avon Gorge Hotel was situated high above the gorge formed by the River Avon as it flows past the hotel to the northwest, under the Clifton Bridge and on to the Bristol Channel which leads to the Celtic Sea; that's the area of the North Atlantic that is situated southwest of island of Britain and south of Ireland.

And yes, this is the same river that, 100 miles northeast of here up towards Birmingham, in the English Midlands, runs through the small town of Stratford-Upon-Avon, home of that guy who wrote all those plays. The River Avon is fairly small, even here close to its outlet.

This was where we were going to meet up with Ron, Prudence and Guy, who'd been spending some time in London prior to our arrival. We went ahead and checked in, and I made the first attempts to locate Nancy's bag, which the American website indicated had not yet been located.

In the aerial view at left, you can see that the hotel is part of a complex of buildings. If you look at this complex from Sion Hill Road in front of the hotel, you'll see that the hotel itself is a large building at the north end of a row of other buildings which, on the ground floor, house a series of bars and restaurants close to the hotel and some offices further down the street, and then residences above.

Behind the facade of these buildings is a long, broad patio and balcony, which has a great many tables and some covered areas, along with large umbrellas and planters. Here, guests of the hotel or the restaurants and bars can come out and sit to enjoy the view of the Avon River Gorge just down the steep slope to the west, and of course, they can also enjoy great views of the Clifton Suspension Bridge that spans the gorge just northwest of the hotel. I planned on walking up and onto the bridge sometime while we were here, but it wasn't long before the other folks arrived and we got a table to have some wine and an afternoon snack.

When the four of us first entered the hotel, we came into a nice lobby, where the helpful staff got us situated quickly (and also helped me call back to Heathrow airport for any news on Nancy's bag). When we took our bags up to our rooms on the third floor, we used the small lift down the hall (very small), but when we weren't schlepping luggage, at least Fred and I used the main staircase. The lobby had a small sitting area where we could wait until a taxi arrived or until everyone was together so we could head out for a walk.

As with most of the places we stayed, breakfast was included with the room; the breakfast at the Avon Gorge Hotel was served in the adjacent restaurant, were we were able to get one large table for all of us. There were nice views out the broad windows to the patio and the gorge.

Sitting out on the patio in the cool afternoon sun was very pleasant, and while we had our wine Fred and I walked around taking the occasional picture. I've selected a few of these to include here, and you can click on the thumbnails below to have a look at them:

I took one other picture out here on the patio. Fred and I now have cameras by the same manufacturer, and they have many of the same capabilities, one of which is the ability to have the camera automatically create a panoramic view as you move it. I tried this capability for the first time out here, and you can see the result below:

An Evening Walk in Bristol

After relaxing on the patio for a while, catching up on what Prudence, Ron and Guy had done in London, the seven of us set out to walk in the area of Bristol near the hotel, just to see what we could see.

We wandered up and down some of the streets near the hotel, eventually ending up a couple of blocks away at a small cafe that had a table big enough for the seven of us so we could have dinner together. On the way back, we stopped at the Primrose Cafe for some English cider.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

Along our walk, Fred and I took a number of candid pictures. As the sun went down and the evening got darker, the opportunities for interesting pictures diminished, but still a number of them turned out well. The walk was really enjoyable; it was a nice night and there were quite a few people about. As I said, we found a small restaurant that looked as if it had a varied menu, so we all went in to eat. It was a pleasant meal, and we took a few candid shots during it. All of these pictures are in a slideshow.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

Then it was back to the Avon Gorge Hotel for some sleep in preparation for our trip to Bath tomorrow.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	September 11, 2013: A Tour of Bath, England
	Return to the Index for Our British Isles Trip