This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

  I think I have gushed in this blog several times about how much I love all things English; tea, t.v., literature, drama, actors, landscape, architecture, history- pass it all my way. Well we just returned from an Anglophile's dream vacation- a 10-day driving tour of Shakespeare's "demi-paradise". Unfortunately I found the country of my dreams to be very close to reality, allowing my infatuation to hit swooning level. Oh England! I know "My county tis of thee" is a knock off of "God save the Queen" but I don't know the lyrics to that one...anyways..of thee I sing!
  The trip we planned was probably not the best for the kids (but at this point their idea of a dream vacation is to stay home and do the same things that we always do with a sprinkling of treats and presents). The plan was to tour something in the morning and then, in the afternoon, drive to a new location while the boys nap in the car. I guess it has been too long for Klaus to remember spending significant time in the car and he was less than amicable to the idea. So, while we forced him to go through with the plan, he agreed to only sleep for forty minutes and then cry for the rest of it. Deal.

We saw Stonehenge, Dartmoor, Tintagel, Bath, Oxford, Warwick, York, and London. The trip was too long to cover in one post so I will break it into three. We will start with Stonehenge, Dartmoor, and Tintagel.
 Kurt and I formulated the trip itinerary more or less on the advice of travel writer, Rick Steves ("My buddy, Rick" as a fellow hosteler in Gimmelwald called him) although we disagreed with him totally on our first stop, Stonehenge. Steves recommends Avebury, another prehistoric site, that does not draw stifling crowds of tourists and where you can actually walk up and touch the stones (Stonehenge is roped off and you can't get right up to it anymore.) I still really wanted to see Stonehenge and so I overrode Steves on this and I could not be happier that I did. As impressive as the site and its construction sounds in books and film, it is staggering in person. The sarsens are so much bigger than one would consider movable objects which makes the sheer audacity of these ancient Britians so endearing.
 After stopping at Stonehenge we had a disgustingly eventful drive to Dartmoor. Let me back up a little. We flew into London's Southend airport. The airport is nicely situated far from London traffic and is cheaper to fly to than Heathrow. We had a rental car reservation set-up complete with car seats. The reservation was a bit cryptic about the car seat rental fees but we figured it couldn't be too much. Normally the things are old, dirty and barely safe. So we were a bit shocked when the car rental guy said that it would be 10 pounds a day per car seat- we were planning to use them for 9 days so 180 pounds or $289 dollars- just to rent them! We balked at the cost and the guy, who was actually pretty sympathetic, suggested that we go to a store around the corner to see if we could pick up seats for cheaper. Turned out to be a great suggestion- we got two decent seats for 68 pounds. We had no plan for getting rid of them at the end of the trip but it was still the obvious choice.

Anyway- on with the story. Klaus hadn't eaten a very good breakfast but I chalked it up to all the excitement over the plane ride. When we stopped for lunch I tried to force a few bites down his throat but he was having none of it. Klaus is normally a pretty good eater so I should have been more concerned. I guess I was a bit preoccupied with Leif who was throwing a fit about eating his own lunch ( a burger and fries- what is wrong with this kid? At his age I would have inhaled it!) so when Klaus vomited all over the parking lot it came as a bit of a shock. Luckily we were not in the car yet but it did get on our clothes. We cleaned up the best we could and drove to Stonehenge. Klaus seemed fine as he toddled around the grassy plane of the neolithic site and I didn't think anymore of it. But when we got back in the car to drive to our B&B, 2 hours away, he began to fuss and cry. It got so bad that we had to stop the car. Just as I was about to get him out of the seat he threw up all over himself, me, and the brand new car seat. I used up nearly all our baby wipes cleaning him up by the side of the road. For the rest of the ride I sat wedged between the two car seats, smelling of vomit and rubbing my son's head to help him settle. Luckily our B&B, Yarrow Lodge in Bovey Tracey, was run by the sweetest couple, Hanneke (who is from the Netherlands) and Phil, who helped us get cleaned up, made us tea and dinner, and sent us happily to cozy beds.
 

The next day we embarked on a driving tour of Dartmoor National Park as recommended by Rick Steves. We traveled narrow roads lined by stone walls hidden beneath scraggly hedges (at one point we got stopped by a few cows on the road) and passed though adorable villages composed of only a handful of thatched roofed houses. We drove up and down the sheep dotted moors and marvelled at the green purple and gold landscape. We made stops at Haytor, Post Bridge, and Scorhill Stone Circle.
 

Top of Haytor

Haytor is natural granite deposit that pokes out of the top of one of the moors and offers a great view of the surrounding countryside. We hiked up to the top but unfortunately our view was blocked by the fog. The wind was intense so we tried to find shelter on the leeward side only to stumble across a herd of wild horses who had the same idea. We decided to leave them to it and skipped down the hill back into the car.

Klaus at Scorhill

We ate lunch at the East Dart Inn in Post Bridge after checking out the two bridges in town, one of which dates from the middle ages. After that we coaxed the boys back into the car and drove to Scorhill, another neolithic stone circle. The rocks are not nearly as large as the ones at Stonehenge but the mystery of the place is just as intriguing. The ring sits down in a vast valley with no sign of human habitation in sight. We were the only ones there at the time which made it even more solitary and tranquil. Leif and Klaus enjoyed tumbling off of one of the fallen stones while Kurt and I made wild speculations about the purpose of the site.
 After that we drove to the Cornishman Inn in Tintagel. Despite the driving wind the boys and I enjoyed the Inn's playground while Kurt rounded up some dinner. The innkeeper put us in a room far from the bar where a band was to provide the night's entertainment. We didn't hear a thing and we all slept well.
 

In the morning we toured the ruins that lent the town its name. Tintagel (pronounced Tind-ta-jel) according to folklore, was the home of King Arthur. There are layers of ruins on the site that span the dark ages to the 19th century. The peninsula is rocky and steep and offers a great view of the Cornish coast. One can walk all around it and even though it via a cave ("Merlin's Cave") hollowed out by the sea. The boys could not climb the uneven, often slippery, stairs of the site so Kurt and I certainly got a workout carrying them but we had a good time exploring. Later Kurt said that if there was one thing he had to cut it would have been Tintagel but I disagreed. True its connection to King Arthur and even the existence of a King Arthur is up for debate but I still thought it was a great look at England's past, which is charmingly a mixture of fact and fiction.