My dad, step-mom and sister visited last weekend. The last time they were in the UK to see us, my daughter was about 8 weeks old and had recently been let out of the hospital following a 10-day stint with the chickenpox (yes, seriously) that included 3 times daily IV drugs. We weren't up for much that visit! The visit before, we had driven to Belgium to stop in Leuven and Bastogne en route to Luxembourg City for the night and then back home through Bruges. Not wanting to do that much this time, my dad suggested we stay in the UK.
Planning was...interesting. Brighton was the lead contender as a place to visit. When my husband and I sat down to try and book hotels we were shocked to see 2 rooms for 2 nights going for upwards of £1000 total, until we discovered some sort of technology trade show going on. So change of plans! We suggested the Cotswolds and that seemed to go over well.
I'll get to the Cotswolds in my next entry.
On the Friday we drove from Folkestone to Bath, taking a bit longer than the 2 hours 56 minutes our GPS's said it would take given road works on the m25, plus a lorry caught fire after the Gatwick exit. We own a 7 seater car, but this time had 8 people to fit so my dad rented a second car. He drove my sister, one of my boys, himself and I, while my husband drove our car with the baby, our other boy and my step-mom. They reached Bath first and managed to easily find the parking garage we had both inputed on our GPS's. Us...not so much. At one point we were about to turn onto a taxi and bus only road but were waved over by a white van, and a police officer who calmly told us that if we made that right turn we would receive "a lovely traffic offence ticket." The van let us into the other lane and found our way to the nearest parking garage at the Hilton hotel.
Because Josh et al were already in Bath, I had texted and asked them to find a restaurant for lunch. My dad, sister and I are, sadly, BIG Nando's fans so when we heard that was option we all jumped. I plugged Nando's into Google maps and we set off. Yeah, Nando's moved. We got to where Google said it was, called Josh and he told us how far off we were. We kept on walking and wound up meeting everyone outside of Giraffe and decided that that was the better option for everyone.
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| Roman Baths |
After lunch, we walked to the Roman Baths. We were met at the door by an employee who told that the Baths were closing in 60min and they recommend 90min for the visit so we'd have to move quickly. We were headed to the Cotswold right after and not returning to Bath so it was now or never. We went through the site faster than we'd like but it was still beautiful. The boys listened to their audio guides, I admired the floor mosaics and column bases, we drank the water, took some photos and were ushered out right at 6pm. Actually, Josh and I went to the gift shop before everyone else to get a new mug and a magnet for the boys.
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| Bath Abbey |
We walked around the outside of Bath Abbey, and then walked back in the direction of our car. My dad and I had no clue where we were so we used the small map from Lonely Map England seeing as my mobile had died earlier. Somehow we found our way back, stopping at Waitrose to grab some essentials for our cottage rental, and made our way to the Cotswolds.
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