marie
Posts: 1688
Joined: 4 May 2001
From: Bristol Rhode Island USA
Status: offline
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This a long post - grab a cuppa before your start 
Day 1 – travel day. Too bad we can’t miss the whole messy business of traveling, how that would make the whole trip much more pleasurable.
Our trip started smoothly enough. I drove to Lisa’s house, where Michael drove us to Framingham to catch the bus to airport. Flight went fine, but we had to circle in air before landing. I am not sure if it had anything to do with Obama’s arrival in London. Apparently, his plane landed ½ hour before us at Stansted. We use dot2dot to get to Liverpool St. station.
A word on dot2dot. I highly recommend it. The cost is low - £19 (Heathrow express is £16.50 one way and you still have to get to Paddington – more on that later). The service is really worth it, but you are not lugging luggage on to train, taxi, etc.
The G20 decided to meet in London the day after we arrived. So, basically the demonstrators were out in force. We were warned when we were on the shuttle. Fortunately the driver knew what he was doing. One meeting place was just outside Liverpool St. station. The driver warned us that he may not be able to get too close and we may have to walk. It was still early, the demonstrators were there, on bikes!, but were not in the road, so we were dropped off just in front of station.
The rest was pretty easy, train to Colchester then taxi to our cottage. But we were tired and as you know, Lisa was not feeling well. The house was nice: living room, dining room and kitchen on ground floor. All quite adequate. There was a nice patio in back. The stairs to first floor were STEEP, just great fun getting the suitcases up. There were 2 bedrooms, one a good size, the other small, and a big bathroom with a huge tub and separate shower.
Only problem here was the toilet would not flush. I worked on it for a while but it did not have the same internal works that I am use to.
We went for lunch, then when we got back we called the owner to tell her about the problem. She said she would send a plumber and would come see us later. So we went for groceries. While we were gone, the plumber did not show nor did the owner. We waited until 5:30, then gave up. Lisa booked us rooms at the Crown and Rose and we took a taxi there (after dragging the cases down the stairs). We had a nice dinner at the hotel, then I crashed for 10 hours. Lisa did not..
Day 3 Thursday. Ye Olde Buffer – Barry from now on – came to our rescue. He spoke to the plumber and the owner. He was reassured that all was working properly. So Barry picked us up and drove us back to cottage. It has its own driveway so parking was relatively easy – with Amanda guiding him in (very narrow!). By the end of the trip they had it down to a science. We lugged all our gear back in and up the stairs, double checked the toilet and were finally settled in.
We then were able to truly start our trip. Barry has done a wonderful job detailing where we went, so I shan’t repeat it all, but I will give you my views and what I learned. The nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty originated in Colchester. Humpty was a canon that was placed on a wall by the Royalist during the civil war. The wall was damaged by s shot from the Parliamentarians and the cannon fell. The Royalist (all the kings men) tried to put it on another wall but failed (couldn’t put humpty together again). The rhyme now makes sense to me, though I don’t know how a canon turned into an egg.
Colchester is really a big town (not a city as it does not have a cathedral – believe me Barry was constantly testing me on terminology.) Roman walls, Colchester Castle had a very good exhibit on Roman artifacts, an old Dutch Quarter, lots of shopping and every fast food (a la USA) and type of restaurant you could want. There is a lovely park between the Castle and our house. As far as a base it appears to be a good one. There is the train system and what I found out the last day, a big bus station with many different routes.
Day 3 Friday. Lisa had had a bad night and decided she would be going home. She opted to stay in the cottage for the day. Once she get her flight and transportation arranged, Barry, Amanda and I went off to visit some villages. I got to see some great thatched roofs, Tudor building. We just wandered about in Finchingfield, had lunch there – chicken and leek pie with 3 veggies and potatoes – yummy, then on to Thaxted. There were many crooked Tudor houses. You feel a little wobbly looking at them. I just wonder how level the floors are.
Day 4 Saturday. Again Barry and Amanda come to our rescue. Since the train lines were being worked on, they drove us to Billericay to catch the train to London. Dot2dot picked Lisa up at the station and I went off to do some shopping. I needed tea – Whittards changed hands last November and appears not to have gotten its suppliers lined up. I was not able to get the tea I wanted but settled for second best as the stock was really low. Covent Garden was really crowded, hard to look around. I needed to go to a book store to find a London guide book for a child (for next year’s trip with my granddaughter), that took some time as I ended up going to 2 stores plus the tourist authority. Went down to Trafalgar Square. St. Martins-in-the-field has been nicely cleaned up with a brand new entrance to the crypt – a great free standing glass dome to the left of the church that has stairs and a lift to take you down. Visually it really works. I finally found a soccer store and got my grandson the shirt he wanted. I wondered around so much looking for things, that I decided to give up. I tried to have lunch at Covent Gardens but it was just too crowded. I decided to head up to the Holburn tube stop, not having any idea how far it was. I found a nice pub on the way and had lunch there. I found my tube stop after several back tracking – I tend to get turned around a lot – and then headed for the train station. Once the train got into Billericay, buses were waiting for us to take us to Colchester. I was impressed that it so well organized. I had expected a bus that would make several stops along the train route, but this was a dedicated bus. I went grocery shopping at Sainsbury and went home and crashed.
Day 5 Sunday. I think this was my favorite day. We went off to Dedham and had a wonderful walk along the river, following the steps of John Constable. I will view his paintings in a much different light now. The weather was great and the walk was gentle, but by my pedometer we did 8.5 miles. I hardly noticed as I was so busy absorbing the scenery.
Day 6 Monday. Off to Cambridge and to see what Tudor Rose has been talking about all these years. We had to have been asked at least 15 times if we wanted to go punting down the river. We passed each time, but did walk along the river. I really liked Queens College. The cloister is impressive, framed by the Tudor building. As I said in another post I made the required visit to Kings College Chapel. I had always seen chapels as small churches. This chapel was huge – tall and narrow. The ceiling is incredible, I marveled at the vaulting. I did not know I had to look for hidden signs of Miss Boleyn, so once I saw the vaulting, I was satisfied. Cambridge was crowded both with people and buildings, not really my kind of city (or is it a town, I don’t know). I am glad I went and got it out of my system.
Day 7 Tuesday. I took the bus to Tiptree, making sure I found a windmill where I was suppose to get off. Barry was there to meet me and we drove to his house. Our first walk was to Layer Marney Tower. I wish we could have gone in as it was a very interesting building with extensive manicured grounds. The church beside it was charming. Now this is the kind of church I like. It had some old brasses on the floor and a lovely 1500s painting of St. Christopher. It was discovered in the 1800s as it had been painted over during the reformation. After lunch, we drove over to Tollesbury. I still can’t get used to boats sitting in mud when the tide is out (I saw this for the first time in Rye). The tides in Bristol, Rhode Island do not go out very far. The estuary is huge with plenty of natural passages where boats were docked; we really did not see open water but could see sail boats in the distance.
Good byes were said (and an invitation to return!!!) then Barry took me back to bus stop with a quick stop at Tiptree Jams shop. I spent the evening packing and getting ready for the trip home.
Here I have to say a GRAND thank you to Barry and Amanda. Besides helping us out in a difficult situation, they are great tour guides. They really went out of their way to see that Lisa and I saw a good part of their area of England. They are know East Anglia well, the history, the architectural style of the building, flora and fauna. In short the best guides around. They truly made my trip interesting and varied. I just can not thank them enough. The only draw back of the trip was Lisa having to leave early. She was missed.
Day 8 Wednesday. Off to London and home. I did not have the phone # of the dot2dot, so figured I would be fine taking a taxi from Liverpool St to Paddington. £33.50 later than the cost of the Heathrow Express £16.50 made the travel very expensive. I will definitely program the number in my phone. Again problems with train line and a stalled train made the usually 15 minute ride to airport 1 hour instead. Fortunately I always allow extra time. The rest of the traveling went smoothly. Lisa and Michael meet me at the bus station as I had left my car at her house. Lisa was better but still not great.
I have yet to download my pictures but when I do I will try my best to get some on to the forums album.
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My version of visit to Colchester - 
Ye Olde and his lovely wife definitely did good by you and Lisa. They are to be commended 
That chapel just really 'does it' for me. The fact I've only been able to see it once really niggles at my brain 
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