England with my Parents (April 7-12)

The morning after I arrived back from Scotland, my parents showed up. They had flown in a few days earlier and had driven to Queen Mary, having a difficult time finding the school. We all then drove over to my mom’s cousin’s home in Hampstead (which took a ridiculous 1.5 hours). For the next few days, we visited with Rupert and his wife Fran and I showed my parents a few of the interesting sights around the city. I stayed at their place too, even though it is in London, because it is at the other end of the city.

After a few days, my parents and I drove down to Chandler’s Ford, just south of Winchester, where my parents had rented a place. It was out in the countryside and very traditional British. That evening, we drove down and walked around Southampton, which is where the Pilgrims left from to head to America. It still has any old buildings up (and its walls) and was fairly interesting. The next morning, we drove out to Salisbury to see the great cathedral there. On the way, we passed through the New Forest, which was really neat. There were loads of wild ponies, swine, and other critters roaming loose (including on the road) and many old houses. The funniest was a giant sow that was rubbing herself on a tree (she had climbed up a little bit on a tree). It was a very humorous sight. Salisbury was quite neat (I love seeing cathedrals) and the town is still very medieval. We also visited a church in the city where some of my ancestors are buried.

After Salisbury, we drove up to Stonehenge, which is not far away. Stonehenge was alright – I found it a let down because it cost quite a bit, even though all one got to do was walk up near the stones. It is cool in that it is one of the oldest structures on earth, but it was kind of a “been there, seen that, ok next” sort of thing (the extreme cold may have had something to do with this). After Stonehenge, we headed over to Old Sarum, which is something that I had really wanted to see. Old Sarum was once a prosperous castle and town before the cathedral and town were moved to nearby Salisbury in the early 13th century. After that, it entered decline and eventually became the most infamous of the “rotten boroughs” that plagued British politics. Now all that remain are ruins, but the enormous hill and earthworks that were constructed still form an imposing sight and allow the visitor to easily imagine what the castle was once like.

The next day, we drove back down to the New Forest and visited the National Automobile Museum in Beaulieu Wood. It was quite expensive to get in, but seeing all the cars was fairly neat. They have most of the earliest cars built, including the very first car, as well as a fine collection of hot rods, racing cars, Ferraris, the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car, and more. Since my dad and I like cars, it was neat. We also walked through the estate that is there by the museum, which was fairly interesting.

The following morning, we drove back to Heathrow, turned in the car, and took the tube back to Rupert’s place in London. We visited and ate lunch with them for the afternoon and then caught the Eurostar to Paris. Staying in the countryside was alright – we were able to see some interesting things. However, we all later felt that the time we spent there could have been spent in Paris or Switzerland, where we could have seen more (especially for my father, who had never visited Europe before – he likes the tropics). Overall, though, the first part of our trip had been good, and it was great seeing my parents again.