Back Home Again

Phew! It was so busy at the end of our London & England trip, that I am now writing the last post for the trip from Eugene.

We stayed with an absolutely lovely Hungarian couple in Basingstoke. Thank you to Emese and Bence for a super warm welcome and visit, despite the fact that they had just moved to their new apartment in the last 2 weeks! They are amazing people.

From Basingstoke, we drove up to the Cotswolds area on Friday the 25th. The weather was incredibly beautiful - blue sky with not a cloud in sight. We were lucky! We stopped in the lovely little towns of Bibury and Lower Slaughter, then finished our daytrip in Chipping Campden in the north.

One of the things that always is difficult when traveling - it takes forever to get places! We left by about 10:30am from Basingstoke, and we barely reached Chipping Campden before sunset at 4pm. Of course, we did take a nice long walk along a public footpath & bridleway in Bibury. I would love to go back and just do a trip hiking from town to town on the footpaths.

The town of Chipping Campden was particularly lovely. There are still houses with preserved thatched roofs, which I was delighted to see. The town is also the birthplace of the Arts & Crafts movement. One artisan shop is still going strong - Harts Silversmiths, which still lets visitors come right in to the workshop area. It was really amazing to see a working silversmith shop - so many tools and so much work!

From Basingstoke, we drove to return the car back to the Redhill car rental on Saturday the 26th. Then a long series of buses and subways (the train was undergoing strikes - whoops!) up into London, where we had an AirBnB booked near to Heathrow airport. We planned to load our bags down with chocolate and other treats, so a close hop on the subway to get to the airport was perfect.

Monday the 28th, we found our chocolate to take home at a nearby Lidl (after much searching!). And, we also found a whole leg of prosciutto! I am looking forward to slicing that up soon.

That afternoon, we had a last chance to do some sightseeing. We walked past St. Paul's Cathedral, then over the Millenium Bridge to Globe Theatre. And a final stop at a lovely knit and hand-dye shop, before we took the subway back.

All in all, a great trip! London is an incredible, though massive, city. Check out our photo album of the trip! Thanks all for reading. Cheers, and toodle-oo!