Up at 8 AM for breakfast at the Bay Tree B & B - thank goodness we're biking to burn up all of this food! Decided to wait for the skies to clear more before our loop ride around the lowlands SW of Wells and instead went into town. Peter went off to sketch - his goal is one good sketch a day and so far, so good. I landed at Starbucks only because they have wireless available, at a price of course. But after some false starts I posted the blog and off we went to gear up for our ride.

It is hard for me to truly describe the feel of the roads we typically find ourselves on. Say you were riding down the Gateway trail, or any other standard U.S. bike path, and all of a sudden cars were passing you in BOTH directions! We hear or see the car coming and most of the time look for a pulloff to let them by, as the "road" barely accomodates the car and one bike side-by-side! Add to this that we are riding on the left side of the road and you have some intense sensory adaptation going on. I'm so entertained at my near-inability to use my normal glasses-mounted mirror on the right side of my head; my right eye is so untrained it barely can move in that direction for more than 2 seconds! I did notice some improvement today but it is glacial. So we use all of our senses when out and about.

U.K. road (aka U.S. bikepath!)

Note Glastonbury Tor in the far distance

We did 27 miles that consisted mainly of lowland peat operations and cattle farming - quite a contrast to yesterday's uber-hilly and ultra-textured ride. So we sped it up a bit (hooray, no panniers!) and were at Wells Cathdral showered and changed well in time for the Evensong service. We are SO glad we did. At 5:15 PM we filed into the east nave and sat right in the choir stalls, which felt a bit strange. Little did we realize that when the choir came in, they sat right in front of us - 2 rows of six chorusters directly in front and another 2 rows of 6 across a small aisle. The singing was breathtaking and we were so close to the individual voices we could pick out their parts, such fun.

Vicar's Lane, Wells - home of the choir since 1348!

Wells Cathdral

Floating on air, we went to dinner at a recommended Indian restaurant and were served more food than the two of us could consume in 3 days! Delicious and a shame we couldn't take home the leftovers, hate to waste good food.

Tomorrow we will get a slightly earlier start - Peter would like to sketch more, I will blog, and then we'll tour the Bishop's Palace in Wells at 10:30 AM opening before heading east to Warminster/Hetesbury for the night - it's not a terribly long day (40 miles max) but we'll be leaving at noon from Wells, so our time will be limited. So much to see and not enough time!

Day 3 - Bath to Wells, via the Cheddar Gorge

Had a wonderful dinner at the home of cousin Chris,his wife Debbie and son Matthew, and we were also joined by my cousin Nick and his wife Suzy. These are the adult children of my mom's sister - my mom was a war bride and came to the U.S. in 1946. Great conversation and wit, not to mention a lovely meal. We did not get to sleep until WAY after midnight, not exactly the best plan to prepare for Day 1 of the tour route, but who cares?

After breakfast at the B & B we packed our panniers (wow, forgot about that extra weight!), and after 10 AM set off on the first big biking day. We estimate that our pannier/packs add about 30-35 lbs. to our bikes, and that was a big change for us from fast and flat in MN. There was no flat terrain after the 6th mile of 44 today! Two climbs were so epic we walked about 200 yards of them as we ran out of low gears and leg. But the scenery and charm were unmatched - gorgeous vistas were the payoff of those incredible climbs. The day was highlighted by climbing through Cheddar Gorge (pictured), a rock canyon that rivals any natural wonder in the U.S. - we were not thrilled with the massively commercial tourist traps at the "base" in Cheddar, but as luck would have it by the time we finished a late lunch and started our climb, the traffic and frenzy had died down greatly. And yes, we bought some cheddar cheese.

When we finally "summited" at a small campground store outside of Priddy and 5+ miles of climbing later, we were told by the proprietor that we had climbed over 1,000 feet from the Cheddar base - whew!

Cheddar Gorge

High above Wells

BTW - weather was perfect, albeit a bit windy, but at our pace the wind was not a factor - 60's and cloudy and NO RAIN.

Had some hair-raising downhills through Wookey Hole (love that village name) and arrived in Wells tired but very pleased with our toughness on a big first day. Showers and the pub grub never felt so good! The best part is we have 2 nights here, so tomorrow's ride will be a short loop WITHOUT PACKS - we will feel as if we are flying. We'll also visit Wells museum and do the evensong at the medieval cathedral of Wells - it will be a big day!

Look!

Days 1 and 2 - MN to Bath

Very smooth and successful travels to Bath, despite the ominous 1.5 hour late departure from Minneapolis Thursday night. We actually touched down at Heathrow Airport 15 minutes early! To add to our good fortune, we sailed through Immigration Control, our bag was waiting for us at the claim, and we got an earlier bus to Bath than we had reserved. From our front door to Bath's Avon B & B took a total of 15 hours, amazing when you thin about time and distances.

We had our bikes delivered to the B & B by Ian of Iron Donkey, our tour outfitter - we'll do a shakedown ride tomorrow and adjust as needed. We of course brought more (or perhaps heavier) stuff than we recall having on our 2005 MN to Yale journey, but the daily distances are not as daunting so we should be OK.

Had a very simple first evening - a walk around the Bath town center to try and clear our heads, a cappucino, and a great experience hanging out at the Royal Oak pub across the street from our B & B. We greatly advanced our knowledge of cricket (not saying much there) by watching England play Australia in what appeared to be a very major series (won't leave you hanging breathless for the outcome - England lost by 4 after a valiant comeback!). The local ale was lovely and the plate of chili-smothered french fries was straight out of State Fair - note to self when reading menu, "chips" are FRENCH FRIES not taco chips, right!

Got a very good night's sleep with the aid of Tylenol PM (thank you Carolyn S.) and had a "full English Breakfast" to fortify us for the shakedown ride. We found the Bath-to-Bristol Bikeway quite easily, a very charming route along the river Avon with wonderful passenger barge boats going through small hand-crank locks. We biked about 16 miles out and back on the bikeway and got to know the bikes a bit better. We also moved our mirrors to the right side and I for one am amazed at how hard it is to train your eyes to look back the opposite way! I still am doing double (triple)-takes at drivers sitting on the right side...

The Avon-Bristol Bikeway

The Avon and Beautiful Bath

We followed the bike with a great walkabout of Bath including a "home tour" of No. 1 Royal Crescent- the Royal Crescent was a prominent backdrop in the BBC version of Jane Austen's "Persuasion", a great favorite of mine. Fun to see it firsthand, now I have to watch the film again! Had "Cream Tea" at a small shop (consists of 2 scones, clotted cream, jam and tea, so good) and in a short time Peter and I will walk over to my cousin Chris' home in Bath for dinner - I will be seeing my two cousins and their wives for only the third time in my life - first was in 1963, second in 2003 - at least we didn't delay for quite so long this time!

(P & J, Spain 2002)

The countdown is getting very close and, of course, nothing motivates me more than a really close deadline!  Hoping to be mostly packed by this time tomorrow night - no excuses!  Happy to report I found all of the plug converters for the UK, buried deep in one of our older travel suitcases....weather report is for a chance of rain every day for the rest of the year (or does it only seem that way?).  We will most certainly get our money's worth out of those new Showers Pass rain jackets we bought last fall.  Bring it on!

Pre-Trip Ramblings

Getting prepared for a self-guided bike trip in the Cotswolds - spent last night (8/22) linking up to each B & B accomodation on the 2-week journey, and then making multiple maps of their location in varying scales.  Peter is assiduously researching each and every town we pass through (and there are A LOT) - we are already reeling at the level of charm and the depth of history!  Leaving a week from this Thursday and we have so much yet to do...