No free lunch... or historic attraction

  Bath, England, United Kingdom
Sunday, May 18, 2008

Spring brought (relatively) warmer weather and our first guests. My brother and sister-in-law became the first to take advantage of family/friends living in Europe and we took advantage of having them here to venture out to see some of the England attractions outside of London.

So I had a full blog writen out describing our trips for two days but it was lost and I don't have the time or energy to re-write everything. The jist is this: Salisbury Cathedral was beautiful but the £6 price tag was a bit steep for a church.

Stonehenge is an impressive site to see along the road from Salisbury but less impressive was the £8 price tag to get a little closer, so we passed. Bath has to be one of the UK's most attractive cities but £7 for the roman Baths was out of the question.

The second day included a trip to Kent in the southeast of England. A visit to Leeds Castle would have meant a £15 cover charge per head but luckily we found a walking path that wound around the grounds, through a sheep meadow and onto the castle grounds making free a much more enjoyable fee. On to the town delightful town of Canterbury and the £6 cathedral, followed by an afternoon on the coast drinking ales.



Throughout their week in the UK - both on the road outside of town and in evenings after we worked and they toured the city, there were opportinities galore to consume a variety of different English Ales. It has been my brother's life work to try as many different beers as possible and Britain did not disappoint. I believe by the time they left for Paris the following Friday, a further two dozen beers had been added to his list.

As for Paris... I'll let Tamara handle that one.