Left Amesbury on Thursday morning 9/10 with bright sunshine and cool temperatures. Judging by the consistent stories we're hearing from our various hosts, this wonderful weather is a huge piece of good fortune - apparently August was cold, cloudy and torrentially rainy for almost the entire month and July not much better. We are thanking the bike touring gods!

The bike to Devizes (pronounced Dee'-vizes) was very relaxing and relatively flat - and only about 27 miles. We saw some wonderful vistas such as "Strawhenge", and one of the many White Horses etched into the hillsides. Apparently this White Horse phenomenon is fairly recent (20th century) and the thin topsoil of the hills has an abundance of chalky rock underneath, thus the idea was born. They are fun to see looming up on the landscape!

"Strawhenge" - a lesser-known historic site

White Horse, one of many

We arrived at Rosemundy Cottage in Devizes (http://www.rosemundycottage.co.uk/ - a lovely, lovely place we would highly recommend to anyone), but too early to check in. As we were less than a mile from the town center and it was Market Day, we rode into the thick of things - the tourist info center was extremely friendly and accomodating, and gave us a secure spot to lock the loaded bikes and do the town with good maps.

We walked about and settled in the only pub with Wifi just to snack and send off emails. We also visited the Shire Horses kept at the Wadworth Brewery stables, Devizes' local brewery - amazing creatures, huge and beautiful! We got the lay of the land well enough to see that our B & B was located right on the Kennet and Avon Canalway, and the towpath serves as part of the National Bike Route - so charming! We decided then and there to make up our own loop for Friday to include seeing the Caen Hill Locks (amazing set of canal locks - 29 of them rising 237 feet in 2 miles!).

Caen Hill Canal Locks

We had tea at the B & B, a wonderful Italian dinner in Devizes, and of course a delicious English breakfast at Rosemundy Cottage on Friday morning. We set off west on the canal towpath as planned and loved seeing all the interesting canal boats. It is obvious that this particular waterway is somewhat a Mecca for canal boaters - lots of them tied up the whole 8+ miles we biked of the towpath!
Our destination was Bowood House (http://www.bowood-house.co.uk/) - we wanted to see as many grand manor homes as the route would allow so we "made up" a route to get there which inclded one absolutely epic climb! Thank goodness we left the packs at our lodgings, would have never made it with them on.

Bowood House

Bowood was a great contrast to Longleat House that we described a few days back - built in the 18th century versus the 15th, and much more understated in its setting and presentation (think Longleat as "Disney Channel" and Bowood as "BBC Drama"). We toured the rooms that included the room/laboratory of the man who discovered oxygen (he was a tutor to the resident sons of the lord), and also really enjoyed an extrodinary collection of paintings and drawings. The gardens were beautiful and Peter had a great sketching break before it was time to ride back to the Cottage.

My favorite Bowood garden sculpture

Peter sketches the Bowood profile from the gardens

Tired but happy we arrived back with about 36 hilly miles under our saddles, plus with another plan to modify tomorrow's route to include more of the canal towpath - loved that ride! Time for dinner and a good rest before tomorrow's ride to Tetbury and the start of the Cotswold portion of our route.

I've given Peter a new title after today's tour - "Henry the Navigator" (Henry is Peter's middle name) - with a few hours of effort last night we greatly modified our route to include Salisbury Cathedral, which was not on the Iron Donkey tour route. Having no cue sheets or detailed maps, we Googled and zoomed, and Peter sketched maps by hand until we were convinced we could wander off on our own and still make it to Stonehenge and our B & B in reasonable time.

And the day was a total success. The terrain was relatively flat and the scenery very bucolic - I even tried to make peace with a local pig named Ginger; she's been quite worried that her reputation has been ruined by the H1N1 virus. Peter chatted with a local thatcher and later on that day took a great photo of roof thatching in progress.

Consoling Ginger re/swine flu

The art of Thatching

Salisbury Cathedral was just as wonderful as I remember from my first and only visit in 1980. Seeing one of only four remaining copies of the Magna Carta (housed in the cathedral's Chapter House) was so moving. I love the setting of the cathedral; like Wells it has a wonderful surrounding green. The scale of it is magnificent!

June is dwarfed by Salisbury Cathdral's grandeur

We left the cathedral at about 2:30 and arrived at our B & B at about 3:30 PM. Leaving our heavy packs, we rode west to Stonehenge. This was also my second visit to the site but the first where we only could view it from a circular grass path around its perimeter - too many visitors had defaced the stones to allow continued touching access. But the Audio Tour was great and we learned a great deal about the site and its mysterious history. Peter had a great Zen moment I captured for posterity.

The force is with Peter at Stonehenge

Then it was back to home base after a 34 mile day, at the lovely Mandalay B & B in Amesbury. Cleaned up, dined at a pub, watched some England vs. Croatia World Cup soccer, and then did some reading/blogging. Time for some sleep to prepare for Devizes!

I should know better than to start a blog entry at nearly 11 PM, but so many things happened today that were more than fortuitous I felt compelled to at least start now and finish tomorrow AM...

We headed into central Wells again after breakfast, packing and goodbyes to Paul our host at the B & B. As Peter was sketching at the Vicar's Close, he was thrilled to see one of the choir members from yesterday's Evensong walking by, and complimented him on the singing. The compliment was received with surprisingly grateful appreciation, which Peter so enjoyed.

Vicar's Close, Wells (Peter Sketch)

We visited the Bishop's Palace, a wonderful castle-like structure surrounded by a moat and lovely gardens within. We "hit the road" just before noon and after leaving outer Wells began a great deal of climbing - happily the weather remains ideal for us as it is overcast and cool but not cold.

We did a strenuous 23 miles before a stop in Maiden Bradley for a late lunch - so late that at first it looked as if the Somerset Arms pub was no longer serving. But as our luck would have it, the pub owner and her parents were lunching at the next table, and when I noticed their spectacular Great Dane "Henry" lying on the floor beside them the bond was made! The owner had sandwiches and drinks served up and we had a lovely conversation about dogs, Wells, and the joys of traveling. The calories were a life-saver and Henry was a highlight (he weighs 11 stone, or 154 lbs!).

Father of Pub Owner, Henry the Great Dane, and June

Thus fortified we went on, and the terrain eased gradually. We had written of f visiting the famous site of Longleat House, thinking that according to the route we would arrive too lateto gain admission. But more kismet struck. As we conferred at the crossroads of a route checkpoint, two charming schoolchildren engaged us in conversation about our travels. They said "you ARE going to Longleat House, aren't you?" They proceeded to point out that unlike our mapped route, the actual entry (accessible only by cyclists and staff) was directly in front of us! We were ecstatic to cycle down a small lane, through the original entry gate and behold the splendor of Longleat House - I encourage you to visit the website if you are curious at www.longleat.co.uk/longleat-house.html.

I was 1/2 mile from the house from here!

(I expected to run into Mr. Darcy at any moment...)

We had about an hour to tour the house and it worked out perfectly. We also figured out a shortcut to allow us to get to the Resting Post B & B in Hetesbury by 6 PM, our latest designated arrival time. The route flattened and the wind was at our backs, and the shortcut was perfect - we arrived at 5:45 PM, and sat down at the Red Lion to a pub-grub and cider dinner by 7:30 PM. We love the fact there's just 2 pubs and no other attractions!

The "Red Lion" Peter at the Red Lion Pub

The rest of the evening was spent plotting our alternatives for tomorrow's ride - we decided to detour off to Salisbury to see the cathdral (last I visited was 1980, wonder what I will remember of it) and then make our way to the next B & B in Amesbury, just 2 miles out from Stonehenge. We will visit this iconic site tomorrow afternoon if time allows - otherwise, it will wait until Thursday morning we're sure!

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!