ElendilPickle:

Title caught my eye right away and what a delightful read.

How brave you and Mr. ElendilPickle were to stay at Hostel 63. Your honest review will help others decide if it is even worth $71.

Loving your style of writing and do hope you get to stay somewhere a little nicer as your trip progresses.

We are going to San Francisco in early July and saw on one of the other threads you also are planning a visit. Perhaps we will bump into each other.

Sandy

Sandy, we took the kids to San Francisco last year for a couple of days, but we're not planning a return trip right away. It's a wonderful city, one of my favorite places in the United States. I hope you enjoy it!

Lee Ann

Enjoying your fun report...

Strange scratching noises during the night would qualify as a "CON" for me! Priceline, baby, Priceline.

There's also a sort of American male hair that looks obviously woven.
I'm all in favour of orthodontics, but a lot of cosmetic dentistry is a con trick,
Veneers actually involve removing a slice of enamel and once you have them, they have to be renewed from time to time.
Tching! goes the cash register.
Bleaching teeth makes them porous, so they stain more quickly.
Guess what, they have to be re-bleached.
Tching again.

Perhaps you should revert to the old idea that the best thing to do was have them all out (some people got that as a 21st birthday present) and use false teeth instead....

Enjoying this smart and funny report.

Hope the hair and teeth part is over.

I've got all my own of both, thanks.

I have all my own english teeth, but sadly me and my english hair have come to a parting of the ways.

May 5th In Which Mr. Pickle Vanquishes Godzilla and Mrs. Pickle Fulfills a Lifelong Dream, Views a Grandiose Spectacle, and Meets the Roundabout from Hell

We packed up early, bade a happy farewell to Hostel 63, and walked to the Queensway station to take the Tube to the car rental office near Marble Arch. Unfortunately, the Central line was closed for repairs over the bank holiday weekend, and we had to take a very full bus to our destination.

We lugged our suitcases on board and found a place to stand – at least, I stood. Mr. Pickle had to hold onto Godzilla (now renamed Hernia Helper after he dragged it back down all those stairs, down the street, and on the bus) and spent the ride uncomfortably crouched, attempting to hold the pole and prevent Hernia Helper from running amok in the aisle.
London buses don’t announce approaching stops, so I was anxiously trying to peer out the windows around the fellow passengers while avoiding the Mr. Pickle vs. Godzilla match. Providentially, I spotted Marble Arch and we left the bus, to the relief of the people near us.

We reserved our car through AutoEurope; since he drove on the left in New Zealand, Mr. Pickle decided it would be best to save some money and rent a manual transmission.

The nice man at National Car Rental looked through our paperwork, made a phone call, and asked, “Can you drive a car with automatic transmission?” “Errr…yes,” Mr. Pickle said. “Well, we’re out of manual transmissions at the moment, so we’re giving you a free upgrade to an automatic transmission.” Whooo hoooo!! We were given a lovely Citroen Xsara, a comfortable sort of mouse-shaped car.

For the rest of the trip, we used our Michelin road atlas and the excellent driving directions found at http://aa

“…the soil of the Shire is deep. Still there are things deeper and higher; and not a gaffer could tend his garden in what he calls peace but for them, whether he knows about them or not. I am glad that I know about them, a little.” -- J. R. R. Tolkien

From Marble Arch it was very easy to get on the motorway and drive to Oxford. I’ve been a Tolkien fan for 35 years, and I’ve long dreamed of visiting the city where he wrote The Lord of the Rings. Janisj recommended we park at the Pear Tree Park and Ride, which is next to Wolvercote Cemetery, where Tolkien and his wife, Edith, are buried.

Naturally, we got lost trying to get into the car park and ended up stopping at the Trout Inn in Wolvercote to ask directions. If we had had more time in Oxford, it looks like a delightful place to eat. We retraced our steps, found the car park, and rode into town.

I wanted to visit Christ Church College, but the dining hall (used as Hogwarts’ Great Hall in the Harry Potter films) was closed, so we walked through its memorial garden and down around Christ Church Meadow to Merton College, where Tolkien lived and taught for many years.

At Merton, we were able to walk all over the college, looking at Tolkien’s rooms (he lived there after Edith died) and imagining what it would be like to live in such a building.

We walked down toward the river, passing Magdalen College (where C. S. Lewis taught), the Botanic Gardens (where you can see Tolkien’s favorite pine tree) and a labor protest march attended by union members, Greens, Communists, and Socialists.

Addison’s Walk, along the Cherwell, is where Tolkien, Lewis, and Charles Williams had many of the conversations which were instrumental in Lewis’s becoming a Christian. We, too, strolled that path – it’s difficult for me to describe how I felt walking where two of my literary heroes walked!

“…I’ll cook you some taters one of these days. I will: fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee. You couldn’t say no to that.”

“Yes, yes, we could. Spoiling nice fish…”

Of course, we had to stop for lunch at the Eagle and Child. The Inklings (Tolkien, Lewis, Williams, and other writers) met here weekly in the “Rabbit Room” to have a drink and discuss their current work. The “new Hobbit” (Lord of the Rings) was first read to an audience here.

Like Sam, I couldn’t say no to a serving of fish and chips, fresh, piping hot, and delicious, accompanied by mushy peas (which tasted like fresh peas, not dried, with a hint of mint) and a pint of Brakspear Bitter. Mr. Pickle had a very good sausage sandwich. We took pictures of the Tolkien/Lewis memorabilia and one of me standing by the fireplace in the Rabbit Room.

Wolvercote Cemetery is a lovely place with many old gravestones and a small chapel. The Tolkiens’ grave is topped by a rosebush, a rosemary bush, and some other plants I didn’t recognize. When Edith died, he had the names of Luthien and Beren, two of the heroes of The Silmarillion whose love endured beyond the grave, engraved on the stone under their own names.

Blenheim Palace is only a few minutes from Oxford, and it was high on Mr. Pickle’s list of places to see. I wasn’t as enthralled – there must be a picture of Blenheim in the dictionary next to the word “ostentatious” – but we still enjoyed touring the house and some of the grounds, watching the peacocks and pheasant stroll across the lawn. Blenheim’s rose garden and “secret garden” are quite lovely, even in early May.

We had a reservation at the YHA hostel in Stratford-upon-Avon (£54 for a double ensuite room, including breakfast). Unfortunately, when I printed driving directions, I neglected to include the hostels in those directions. So we reached Stratford, but couldn’t find the YHA (which is actually a couple of miles outside town in a village called Alveston). We asked for directions at a gas station, and were told if we went around the roundabout, we would be on the road to the hostel.

Several miles later, there was no village in sight, much less the hostel. Back we went, through the same roundabout, back out the same road somehow. This happened a few more times – no matter what, we ended up at The Roundabout.

Finally, we called the hostel and found someone who could give us exact directions, and arrived with a huge sigh of relief. Mr. Pickle decided he needed to lie down for a few minutes and recuperate, and I checked my email.

Unfortunately, we arrived at the hostel too late for dinner, which necessitated another drive into Stratford. Knowing the proper road made getting back there much easier, even though we had to take The Roundabout from Hell again. This time, we could see the YHA signs – not too helpful when you’re coming from there!

We drove in the dark through some part of Stratford, passing pubs and restaurants, but couldn’t find a grocery store or a place to park. We looped around, went in and out of a residential area, and found ourselves on the road leading back to (say it with me) The Roundabout from Hell. Spotting an open pub (I would give you the name, but I’ve blotted it from my memory), we decided to skip cooking and have dinner there.

We walked in and stood at the bar, looking at the menu and beer selection and discussing what we wanted to eat while the Stepford-like staff and patrons stared at us. After a few minutes of this, the bartender said, “Oh, we’re not serving food tonight.” Either they enjoyed our accents or they were too clueless to figure out that we were talking about food choices for a reason.

At this point, I had had it. I stuffed the menu back in its holder, marched out to the car park, and yelled, “I HATE STRATFORD!!” Fortunately, our senses of humor kicked in, and once we stopped laughing, we went back to the RfH gas station, got some pasties and drinks, and called it a night.

You certainly saw and did a lot on your Oxford day. I especially like all the Lewis and Tolkein references that you provide. Back in 1974 when I was attending university, I took a seminar on CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein. Now I wish I'd paid a bit more attention to the Eagle and Child pub and a bit less to my (half) pint!

Ms Pickle:

Not only do you write one of the best written trip reports ever - but you get it right about Blenheim.

Congratulations on talent AND taste

Lee Ann - Sorry I didn't notice you went to San Francisco last year - I have been reading old posts.

Quite an adventure getting out of London.

You and Mr. ElendiPickle are changing my perception of who stays at hostels. My only experience was years ago on a school holiday when I was 14. Give us full details on the Alveston YHA.

Thanks for sharing your trip.

Sandy

May 6th In Which We Spend a Long Time at a Touristy Castle and Receive a Directional Revelation

We got up early and enjoyed breakfast in the dining room (sausages, hard-cooked eggs, fruit, croissants, yogurt, cereals, etc.) while we looked at our road atlas. You can imagine our delight when we realized we didn’t have to go back through Stratford to reach our next destination, Warwick Castle.

Warwick Castle (another Mr. Pickle choice) is a bit Disneyesque in some of its displays - the Kingmaker thing comes to mind - , and I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend much time there, but I liked it quite a bit more than I thought I would. Since it’s in good shape, it was interesting to see something of how a working castle would have operated. They had a variety of medieval weaponry demonstrations the day we were there, including archery, birds of prey, swords and other hand weapons, and the trebuchet.

After we toured the inside of the castle, we walked around the ramparts. I’m not a fan of heights at all, but it wasn’t too bad, and the views from the various towers are pretty incredible. We took some time to enjoy the gardens, including the peacock garden. The peacocks all went into their displays as we walked past. Either they found us strangely attractive or we have incredible animal magnetism.

We walked into the town of Warwick to look around a bit. As it was Sunday, most of the shops and restaurants were closed, but we window-shopped a bit and took pictures of the Lord Leycester Hospital. The building looked familiar, but we couldn’t place it until I read, in a book about Austen novel filming locations, that it was used in the BBC Pride and Prejudice as the place where Wickham and Lydia hide in London. We stopped at a tea room for lunch, but they had stopped serving sandwiches for the day, so we gave up on Warwick and left.

As usual, we took a wrong turn somewhere, but at least we ended up on a highway that would take us to the Peak District. We stopped for a late lunch at the Waterman in Hatton. It overlooks a canal and has lovely views. They were still serving Sunday lunch, and I had some delicious pork loin and the best roast potatoes ever – brown and crispy outside with wonderfully creamy centers. Mr. Pickle had the crab cake appetizer – I knew he was trying to save some money so I gave him some of my food since it was a really large serving.

After more than one wrong turn in Burton-on-Trent, involving raised voices and a few tears, we realized that if we checked off the finished sections of the AA directions, we wouldn’t get lost quite so easily. It still happened occasionally, but not as much. Eventually, we found an open grocery store, picked up some dinner and breakfast food, and made our way into the Peak District.

This area of England is just beautiful – green, rolling hills, stone fences, and sheep with twirly-tailed gamboling lambs everywhere. We made our way to the YHA Hartington Hall hostel for two nights.

Hartington Hall is one of YHA’s flagship hostels, and its quality shows everywhere you look. It’s a large, rambling 17th-century house with its own pub and restaurant. The barn and coach house have been converted into dormitories and private rooms as well. We had a room in the coach house with the shower and sink ensuite and the bathroom right next door. The coach house also has its own kitchen, so we didn’t have to compete for cooking and table space with others. It was very busy Sunday night, with many couples and families. We unpacked, fixed our dinner, got some locally brewed cider at the pub, and settled down in the library to relax and plan the next day’s activities.

I just noticed I neglected to properly copy and paste the URL for AA's Trip Finder. It is http://www.theaa.com/travel/index.jsp

Lee Ann

This is great! Keep it coming!

May 7th In Which The Pickles Spend Time with Mr. Darcy and Prince Humperdinck

We ate breakfast (man, that back bacon is good!), picked up our lunch, and drove to Bakewell. Jane Austen experts think this pretty town was her model for Lambton, Mrs. Gardner’s childhood home. It was market day, and we strolled about the stalls while sipping hot drinks. Thankfully, I was able to find good coffee pretty much everywhere we went. We bought a pork pie topped with pickle and some Lincolnshire fruit bread to eat with lunch, found the car, put in our Pride and Prejudice soundtrack CD, and drove to Chatsworth House, Jane Austen’s model for Pemberley and another of my “must-see” places.

<i>“Elizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of Pemberley Woods with some perturbation; and when at length they turned in at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter.”</i>

Chatsworth is a grand house, beautifully situated, and well kept. Unlike Blenheim, it feels comfortable and…well, more like a home. The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, who still live at Chatsworth, continue to add new art to the house and grounds, some of which makes an amusing contrast to the antique furniture, sculpture, and paintings.

We thoroughly enjoyed touring the house. Everything, down to the stone windowsills filled with tiny fossils, was lovely. Unfortunately, the terrace isn’t open to the public, and we had to reenact the “Mrs. Darcy…Mrs. Darcy…Mrs. Darcy” scene from the newest version of P &amp; P elsewhere. ;-)

The last room you tour at Chatsworth is the sculpture gallery. It contains many fine pieces, some of which you see in the movie. As we were walking through, I jokingly said, “I don’t see Mr. Darcy’s bust anywhere – it just doesn’t seem right without it!” Just then, Mr. Pickle said, “Look to your left.” There he was! I didn’t know the filmmakers had actually carved a marble bust of Matthew Macfadyen, which they donated to Chatsworth. I couldn’t help laughing, because I really hadn’t expected to see it.

<i>“Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!”</i>

Somehow, we resisted the temptation to buy anything in the gift shop, and went out to the picnic area for lunch. All the YHA hostels pride themselves on serving locally grown foods as much as possible, and everything we had was very good, down to the freshly made baps and rolls. I had decided to take the plunge and ask for Marmite on my turkey sandwich, and I really liked it. It added a nice savory flavor to the turkey.

We spent an hour or so strolling through the fabulous gardens, then reluctantly left for Haddon Hall, just a few miles away.

<i>“Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work. But I have my country’s 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Gilder to frame for it. I’m swamped.” – The Princess Bride</i>

Haddon Hall, which dates from Elizabethan times, is a lovely home. The Manners family is in the process of restoring the house, so the rooms and furnishings aren’t as well kept as Chatsworth, but it is worth visiting, especially if you’re a Princess Bride fan. It’s not nearly as busy as Chatsworth, either, so do go and contribute to its restoration! The main hall was Prince Humperdinck’s office, and I think they used a few exterior shots of the building as well. The new Pride and Prejudice made the main hall the public rooms at the inn in Lambton, and Haddon’s dining room was used for Elizabeth’s bedroom. The gardens are fairly small, but very nice, with roses, clematis, and a number of other plants I didn’t recognize. There’s also a small museum on the grounds which contains a variety of things they’ve found during the restoration.

We stayed until closing time, and stopped in Monyash on the way home so we could visit the church and its graveyard and walk around the town a bit. Our plan to try a Bakewell pudding was delayed since all of Bakewell’s shops were closed when we came back through. Providentially, I remembered the hostel’s restaurant, Eliza’s, serves it for dessert. We started our laundry and enjoyed dinner (baked goat cheese with honey, bread to spread it on, salmon, veggies, and the aforementioned pudding). The evening was chilly, so we asked the manager to start the fire in the library, got some of the excellent locally brewed stout from the pub, and wrote in our trip journal until bedtime.

May 8th In Which We Actually Don’t Get Lost Very Much

Today was another travel day, heading northeast to Buxton and west into north Wales. It was a pleasant drive, although it drizzled or rained most of the way. We traveled past Chester along the coast to Conwy Castle, one in the “Iron Ring” built by Edward I to attempt to contain the Welsh.

Most of the castle and the city walls are intact (houses and businesses are built into the walls); you get an excellent view of the walls from the top of Conwy’s highest castle tower. The vista was worth the climb, but the top was a little scary because there isn’t much space between you, the stair railing, the wall, and a long drop. I held on tightly and tried to look out, not down, until I couldn’t stand it anymore and went back.

We wanted to try a cream tea somewhere, and thought Conwy was the place for it, since we still had a bit of driving ahead before we reached our next hostel. We walked across the street to a tea room, which is built into the city wall and looked like it might have a nice view of the bay. As I set my foot on the first stair, the owner popped out, gave me a look, and slammed the door. Apparently most tea rooms close at 5:00 or shortly before.

We spent an hour walking through Conwy, doing some window shopping. As we walked, we considered stopping at a pub for a snack, but the “Please Leave Quietly” sign – on the outside of the door – made us reconsider.

We drove into Caernarvon, where, inevitably, we didn’t see the sign for the A4085 until we were past it. However, we found a Tesco as we looped around for another try, and stocked up on groceries for the next couple of days.

Our plan was to attend a Welsh male choir rehearsal in Caernarvon, but I’d had difficulty contacting the director, and we weren’t sure of the rehearsal location. By this time we were starving, so we decided to drive to our hostel, have dinner, and then decide what we wanted to do.

The YHA Snowdon Ranger hostel is about eight miles south of Caernarvon; it’s an old coaching inn at the foot of Mt. Snowdon, next to the Snowdon Ranger trail and across the road from Llyn Cwellen, with Cwm Cwellen looming behind the lake. The hostel has its own beach, but it was too rainy and cold to even put a toe in the water. Our room overlooked the lake and was very comfortable.

By the time we finished dinner, we decided to skip the choir rehearsal and just hang out at the hostel. One nice thing about traveling this way is the variety of people you can meet. We chatted with two sisters who were there to walk up Snowdon. The weather wasn’t cooperating, but they hoped to make the climb later in the week.

Mrs. Pickle -

This is lovely and has lots of useful info. I am also enjoying your observations. Please continue . . .

Still enjoying this wonderful read. I'd love to know: What sort of research did you do in anticipation of the trip?

Noe847, we started by deciding how long we could stay and going from there.

I had certain things I had to see - London, Oxford, Chatsworth, Haddon Hall, Stourhead, and Chawton - places associated with some of my favorite authors, mostly. Mr. Pickle wanted to go to north Wales, and added Blenheim Palace and Warwick Castle as we started to research.

I checked out a variety of guidebooks from the library (Fodor's, Frommer's, Lonely Planet) and eventually brought a Frommer's to bring along. Using those, we put together a basic loop route: London, Oxford, Warwick, the Peak District, north Wales, Shrewsbury, the Cotswolds, Bath, Salisbury, and back to London.

Janisj and some others recommended we revise our route, since Oxford and Warwick are easy day trips from pretty much any Cotswolds location. We decided to stick with our original plan, and it worked well for us. It was a good suggestion, though.

Basically, we tried to balance seeing things we really, really wanted to see in the amount of time we had with not wanting to spend hours in the car every day.

Accomodations - we'd stayed in a few hostels in New Zealand, so we didn't mind doing that in the UK. It really helped us keep costs down, and aside from the place in London, they were all very good.

I had a mental list of foods I wanted to try - local ales, good sausages, cream teas, Marmite, Pimm's - and was able to enjoy most of those as well.

Lee Ann