Old Dr. Forster went to Glorster....

 OK... a corny reference to the nursery rhyme... 

"Old Dr. Foster went to Gloster,

To preach the work of God.

When he came there, he sat in his chair,

And gave all the people a nod."

But in my case it was Pat and I who went to Gloucester for three days and didn't sit much in chairs.

Thursday April 9 and Friday April 10: 

The BA flight from Vancouver to Heathrow on Friday was quite uneventful, though the disembarking process was a bit annoying as we were on a "remote stand" where there were not enough nose in spots, so we had to climb down stairs and get on a bus to the terminal.

We soon found a transport to the car rental office and quite quickly were set up in a cute little Suzuki Swift. If you're not a "gear head" you can skip this paragraph. I had ordered a manual transmission, just because they are more fun and more "European", but it did occur that shifting was one extra distraction while trying to stay on the left side of the road, but that didn't turn out to be a problem. It turned out that the car was a hybrid as well as manual transmission, and also had the stop/start feature where the engine stops when one shifts to neutral at stop lights, and starts up again when the clutch is depressed to shift back to first. It was all very quick and hardly noticeable, but the truth is, manual shifting is very unnecessary in modern cars. Indeed, manual shifting is anachronistic, because all of these new features make the car just as efficient as manual transmission cars. I guess they still offer manual transmissions just because it's a European tradition, and it is still fun, though silly, to do the shifting. The car was peppy and held to the winding roads very well. 

We immediately headed westward to Gloucester with the intention of it being the centre for exploring the Cotswolds. The drive was a good two hours of quite busy but well regulated motorway driving. They still use miles instead of kilometres in England. Miles are a lot longer, so it takes about 30% longer to get anywhere!

Saturday, April 11: Gloucester

In making our plans, we hadn't really clued in that Gloucester was such an interesting city in its own right, and not just a setting off point. A walking tour app showed us many of the historic old shops and inns dating well back to tudor times. The Cathedral was first founded as an abbey in 670, with the current building begun in 1079. William the Conquerer ordered the Domesday Book from a ceremony here, Henry III was crowned here, and Edward II was interned following his murder in 1327 after many scandals and intrigues of an order to match a certain Mr. Trump.

We spent quite a bit of time with the informative displays of the construction of the building, the furniture, and the huge stained glass window... apparently the largest in the world.

The other historic interest was the Gloucester docks, a complex of docks and canals mostly constructed in the 18th and 19th C to serve the barges on the river, now converted to upscale shops and flats.

By mid afternoon we had little time left for our Cotswold towns, but did manage a little excursion to Bourton on the Wold, one of the dozens of charming villages of the region, and quite swarmed with weekend visitors on this Spring Day.

And of course they had an auto museum in Bourton with this little baby. Identical to mine! I guess that's symbolic of me being a museum piece!

Sunday, April 12:

Some of you earlier fans of our blogs know that we have a "serendipity bunny" that looks after us on our trips. Sometimes when things get a bit challenging, suddenly the bunny finds us a nice surprise. We had a few of these today.

We checked out of the hotel in Gloucester to tour the Cotswolds. It rained off and on through the day, as it often does, but the morning driving was fun. First stop was to be Bibury for breakfast, but it was so crowded with weekenders that we could not find nearby parking. We discovered a second parking lot well up the road, but when we saw the 8 pound fee, we just moved on.

We were going to move right on to Oxford, still hungry for breakfast, but soon found ourselves driving by Burford which was another town we had noted. So in we turned to find a charming little town... still crowded, but we found a single space right beside a tea shop which was serving "cream tea"!

From Burford, off to Oxford. We'd been to Oxford two or three times before, but it is always an amazing experience. It was cloudy with some regular showers and a couple of cloudbursts, but still some lovely surprises. It turned out there was some kind of Morris Dancing festival which we stumbled upon just outside of the famous 18th C "Radcliffe Camera", the round library building.

There must have been at least a dozen groups roaming around 3 or 4 sites where they would set up and dance. They seemed to have great fun despite getting quite damp from time to time. We hesitated to wander in to the "covered market", thinking it would be just some tourist trinkets, but discovered it was quite authentic. The serendipity here was coming across a music spot with a very good "local" singer-songwriter, Mandy Woods on the mic. Here's her website: https://www.mandywoods.com

We left Oxford late afternoon to head to a hotel in the Docklands east of London to be near the London City airport for our morning flight to Amsterdam. Traffic got heavier of course around the "north circular', often stop and start, but we weren't in any hurry.

I stopped for a fuel fill up before arriving at the hotel. Despite more than 700 kilometres, the gauge still registered 1/4. As I was filling the tank, the pump cut off at 26 litres. I tried again to see if it had just backfilled or something, but no, it indeed only took 26 litres. With a bit of math, I worked out it was just over 3 litres per hundred kilometres! Even the most efficient non-hybrids use more than double that amount. So glad they gave us a hybrid car.

Monday, April 13: Amstelveen

Our flight to Amsterdam was pleasant and uneventful... so nice to just go up, have a soft drink and crisps, and then plunk down again, instead of the 9 hour slog from Vancouver. The taxiing takes as long as the flight!

Bus and tram was quick and easy from the airport to the Amstelveen house where granddaughter Nyah is staying with our family friend, Hester. We did get a little off route on what was to be a 10 minute walk from the tram stop, so 20 minutes with three roller suitcases was a bit of a slog. (Normally we would not travel with so much luggage, but with the camper plans, we need to bring more supplies and clothing.)

Nyah was unexpectedly home early from work to meet us which was nice, and we had a lovely evening with her and her new "boy friend", not yet to be defined as her "boyfriend", and a comfortable sleep on Hester's extra room.

We will go into Amsterdam, and also search for bicycles to buy or rent for our camping trip today, and then we pick up the camper tomorrow, so watch for our next post!