Leaving for England

[Shropshire Slasher]

So...

 

After what has been an... interesting ... year, I'm heading off on a personal vacation.

 

I'm leaving Friday for London, then to Exmouth on the south coast of England. I'll be there for about a week then back to London/Canterbury for a weekend, then home. Nine days total in England.

 

Nothing to accomplish while I'm there, just sight see (Cambridge, Stonehenge) and crawl from pub to pub.

 

Got myself a Britrail pass, so I've got 8 days of unlimited rail travel... so I can hope a train each morning and hit some new city and back before last call.

 

Wish me luck, never traveled international, but looking forward to it.

 

Got any hot tips on must-sees in England, feel free to post them up.

[stutters]

go to liverpool and see some bloody punk rock.

[shaftiel]

Go to Bath, and see the Roman baths and other structures.

 

 

 

 

Shaftiel

[Playaa]

Definitely go to Liverpool and watch Liverpool play this weekend

 

Also definitely go to Bath (pronounced "Baath" not "Bath") and Stonehenge is a must.

[Shropshire Slasher]

Definitely go to Liverpool and watch Liverpool play this weekend

 

Also definitely go to Bath (pronounced "Baath" not "Bath") and Stonehenge is a must.

 

When I get to Stonehenge, will they be 3 feet tall?

[Leveller]

Bath? only one way to pronounce it surely (maybe it's just because I'm English).

 

Exmouth's in a beatiful area, I grew up about 70 miles East in North Dorset (about 40 miles South of Baaaaaaath).

 

Be sure to head out West and have a look around Dartmoor, again beautiful scenery although there's not a huge ammount to do if you don't like scenery.

If you want to take a day trip along the coast, head East out to Abbotsbury (stopping off at Beer for a beer, and Lyme Regis), they have a wonderful Swannery (?) there, and if you continue East towards Bournemouth, stop off in Weymouth/Portland, I think they've started developing Portland Harbor already for the 2012 Olympics. Just West of Portland is Chesil beach which is about 20 miles of a pebble sand bar type thing, which is quite impressive.

 

If you head north from Weymouth through Dorchester (old home of Thomas Hardy), stop off and have a look at Maiden castle, which is I believe the largest Iron Age hill fort in Europe (and a favorite field trip for schools) then if you follow the road north towards Sherborne, you can see the Cerne Abbas giant, which is great for encouraging the wife to have a giggle.

 

The Strand or Manor gardens are really nice in Exmouth in the evenings (although I used to head down in the summer, I'm not sure I'd recommend them if the weather isn't great).

 

Lympstone's just north and apparently walkable, although I've not done the walk. It's a nice little village (the Saddler's Arms is a great pub for food in the evening, and the village is home to the Royal Marines).

 

A favorite pub of mine in Exmouth itself is The Beach, it's down on the marina, I think it's on Victoria Road but I've not been back in a few years now so I could be wrong.

 

Just a few ideas, oh, and Stonehenge is obviously a must, but if you go about 20 miles south of Stonehenge to Salisbury it's a beautiful old Cathedral city and worth a visit. Salisbury Cathedral has the tallest spire in England or Europe, I can't remember which.

[Clueless]

Sounds awesome man...have a great, well deserved trip! Are you taking a female companion or are you just gonna get some locals?

 

Take pics of the cool scenery, I for one would love to see it!

 

Be safe dude!

[dwEEziL]

Go to Scotland and play St Andrew's Old Course (of course, I think you might have already needed to reserve your tee time).

[Shropshire Slasher]

Go to Scotland and play St Andrew's Old Course (of course, I think you might have already needed to reserve your tee time).

 

I'm thinking I should make a tee time for my grand kids.

[Shropshire Slasher]

Sounds awesome man...have a great, well deserved trip! Are you taking a female companion or are you just gonna get some locals? :DTake pics of the cool scenery, I for one would love to see it!Be safe dude!

Thanks, man. No... going solo. Meeting locals IS on the agenda ... but I will consider it a successful trip regardless.

 

 

LOL... that may be the dirtiest use of the dancing smillie ever. And completely unintentional. Go me.

Edited May 7, 2008 by Shropshire Slasher

[stutters]

LOL... that may be the dirtiest use of the dancing smillie ever. And completely unintentional. Go me.

for sure. hi5.

 

also +1 for pics. might justify a flickr stream....

[anonymo]

You couldn't wait until the 21st to go? Then we could hang out and my father and I could take you on a tour of the only two worthwhile landmarks in all of Great Britian. I speak of course of Highbury and Emerates stadium Maybe next time!

 

Scotland is a trip all in itself and I highly recommend it once you've been around England a bit.

 

Places not to visit include Stoke, Essex, Manchester and Heathrow hahaha

 

Make sure you're ready for the dry cutting wit of British customs agents. Also, guns don't exist in England but knives are prevalent and get used, just keep that in mind if you're out at a local pub getting friendly with a bonnie lass as their socializing, at least in my experience, is much more sexual in nature than what were used to over here.

 

I'm currently in a court session between Toronto and Arizona so I can't really write much more.

[Preacher]

Make sure to go into a small sports pub and yell "Manchester United is a bunch of Pansies" as loud as possible. That's the most adventurous thing to do in London IMO

[anonymo]

Make sure to go into a small sports pub and yell "Manchester United is a bunch of Pansies" as loud as possible. That's the most adventurous thing to do in London IMO

That will do nothing but grant you a free pint in London.

[Playaa]

Points to Preach for trying though.

 

Dare you to head into a Liverpool pub and yell "Manchester United is the greatest team in the world!"

 

Send pics of what happens plz.

[anonymo]

Points to Preach for trying though.

 

Dare you to head into a Liverpool pub and yell "Manchester United is the greatest team in the world!"

 

Send pics of what happens plz.

I wore my Arsenal jersey into Spurs territory once, by dad's sense of humour is just wrong.

[YoMamma]

Make sure to bring double the amount of money you would spend in US currency since everything in England is about double the price (You will soon see just how weak the US dollar is).

 

By the way, Have Fun! Sounds like a "jolly good time, Brilliant!"

[anonymo]

Make sure to bring double the amount of money you would spend in US currency since everything in England is about double the price (You will soon see just how weak the US dollar is).

 

By the way, Have Fun! Sounds like a "jolly good time, Brilliant!"

Except for alcohol, which is more or less the same price as it is over here, so they make double but spend the same on alcohol as we do.

[Shropshire Slasher]

Thanks all for the well wishes and "advice".

 

I'll play the dumb yank card when it comes to soccer. I'd rather be accused of ignorance than rooting for the wrong team.

 

Yeah, I'm totally stoked for this trip. It's a lot of different things all rolled up for me, but since I'm not paying anyone $230 an hour to read this, I'll save that aspect of it for another discussion.

 

One bummer... I was doing a lot of reading on breweries and brewpubs looking for some interesting places to visit. Turns out, there has been a lot of brewery consolidation in the past few years, with a lot of classic English breweries (e.g. brakspears) sort of being bought up and corporatized. Kind of a disappointment. But... I'm sure I'll still find a good pint of bitter, which will probably be all the better tasting for the surroundings.

 

 

SS

[Shropshire Slasher]

BTW, can we do something about the winking smillie? Worst. . Ever.

[Leveller]

There's a great family owned brewery in Blandford about 50 miles east of Exmouth (although it's not no a train line). Hall and Woodhouse, their signature (my normal pint when growing up) is Badger Best, Hopping Hare used to be their Spring ale and it is superb. They also brew Tanglefoot and Badger Golden glory. They have a brewery shop there and I know they operate tours.

I'm going to biased though, it was my local brewery and I was at school with one of the owner's sons, so we never went short

 

The other side of Devon (on the Bristol Channel) is Bideford, I remember going there for a geography/history fieldtrip as a kid and there was an open brewery there, although the glass factory in Torrington was the history part and flooding was the geography part.

 

Unfortunately I don't know of any really close to Exmouth, but there are several microbreweries across London.

[anonymo]

Hall and Woodhouse, their signature (my normal pint when growing up) is Badger Best,

This explains why the British accent sounds like it does.

[Leveller]

The secret is out.

[Shropshire Slasher]

Finishing packing, then off to the airport. 5:00 flight.

 

Totally riding the excitement right now. Way too much energy.

 

Good though.

 

Cheers,

SS

[anonymo]

What's the longest flight you've ever taken? Make sure you get an aisle seat as the trip can be pretty grueling. Also, watch your alcohol intake, what they say about getting drunk in flight is all too true <remembers going to Cancun, at least boarding the plane in Toronto>

 

Taking some eye covers and ear plugs is a really good idea, as well as one of those round the next pillows.

 

And seriously, resist the urge to do anything at the airport, on the flight or anywhere else...I had a run in with Heathrow security once and they are quite...uh...impatient.

 

I also suggest not taking any US currency...believe it or not my good friend was stopped by Australian security because their drug dogs could smell cocaine on his person, turned out to be the trace amounts that are found on just about every US bill in circulation but it took a full strip/cavity search to clear him of any doubt, and I don't think you will want to start your trip that way...at least not from some customs officer (Albeit going out drinking the night before, sleeping 2 hours then having a few drinks in LAX before getting on the plane for Fiji/Sydney probably didn't help his case much).