A Tour of Southern England, June 28 - July 28, 2003
Day 3 - From Canterbury to Dover - Day's mileage 32.4
Day 4 - From Dover to New Romney - Day's mileage 28.9
Day 5 - From New Romney to Rye by bike, Rye to Hastings by train - Day's cycling mileage 16.0
Day 6 - From Hastings to Lower Horsebridge - Day's mileage 33.3
Day 7 - From Lower Horsebridge to Brighton - Day's mileage 26.0
Day 8 - From Brighton to Arundel - Day's cycling mileage 23.0
Day 9 - From Arundel to Chichester - Day's mileage 22.0
Day 10 - From Chichester to West Dean and back - Day's mileage 25.6
Day 11 - From Chichester to Porstmouth by train, around Portsmouth - Total cycling mileage 5.6
Day 12 - From Portsmouth To Freshwater - Day's mileage 25.7
Day 13 - Touring the west coast of the Isle of Wight - Day's mileage 13.8 miles
Day 14 - Freshwater to Cowes and return - Day's mileage 35.8 miles
Day 15 - Freshwater to Southampton - Day's mileage 27.8 miles
Day 21 - Around
Bath - 1.5 miles
Day 22 - On to Oxford by train, riding around Oxford - 8.6 miles
Day 23 - From Oxford to Blenheim Palace and return - 22.2 miles
Day 24 - Oxford to London by train, around London - 8.6 miles
Days 25, 26, 27 - London: Museums, Museums, Museums - 15.6 Miles
Day 29 - Last Day, a grand ride through London - 16.0 miles
Epilogue; A war child's thoughts about England and the English
Days 1 & 2 - From San Francisco to London by air, London to Canterbury by train, a day in Canterbury.
Day One, Total mileage 5.0
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At the airport, bikes in their bags |
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Our first pub |
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Do NOT call him a, "Bobby!" |
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The Wincheap B&B, nice place! |
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The streets of Canterbury |
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The West Gate Gardens |
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One small part of Canterbury Cathedral |
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The Old Weaver's, a good place to eat |
If you're a passenger in a commercial airliner, flying is not fun. Especially being crammed into a 747 for over ten hours. However, that's what it takes to get to England from San Francisco and that's what we had to look forward to as we stood in line at the airport. Our panniers, trunks and handlebar bags were packed and our bikes were in their bags.
Virgin Atlantic, our carrier, takes good care of it's passengers. They give you a little goodies bag, pillow, blanket and lots of food and drink. Even so, ten plus hours is a long time in a plane.
We touched down at Heathrow a little after 11AM and soon cleared immigration and picked up our baggage. With all of the baggage loaded on a luggage cart, we found the elevators down to the trains and once at that level, found a bench to start assembling the bikes. The plan was to keep the bags but discard all the cardboard and newspaper protection. One problem, we couldn't find a garbage can. Since 9/11, trash cans at any public location are scarce. An attendant came by and told us just to leave all the stuff in a pile and he'd pick it up when we were done.
The bikes went together quickly. No damage! Jeanette bought the two tickets to Paddington Station at #13 each from the vending machine while I worked. We hooked on the bags and were set to go. We peered out the windows as we traveled and saw the usual graffiti and industrial sites as we neared Paddington. After 15 minutes the train stopped and we found ourselves in a vast building with no clue to how to get out. We looked for signs and saw the answer to our question, a big sign saying, "The Way Out".
We pushed our bikes through the crowds and were now on the street. The sky was overcast but the temperature was a pleasant 70 or so. Time to ride, and on the "wrong" side at that, in a strange city in a strange country. The four lane streets were narrow with no room for bikes, no shoulder, and cars seemingly parked or at least stopped in the second lane here and there. We gave it a try and found that the drivers seemed used to bikes and slowed, changed lanes and passed us without notice. This was going to be a lot easier than we thought. I had clipped a map of how to get to the New Atlantic Hotel to my handlebar stem and in a matter of minutes we rolled up in front of the building.
I took the bicycle bags in and asked if they could hold them for a month while we were touring. The desk clerk cheerily agreed, gave me a number tag and said, "Have fun." We turned and headed for Hyde Park but, within a block of the hotel, noticed a pub. "How about a beer?" We stopped and I had my first English pint while Jeanette had a Bacardi Breezer. Drinks over, we now had to ride through Hyde Park, through Buckingham Palace grounds and to Victoria Station where we would catch a train for Canterbury.
Hyde Park was only three blocks away. We entered the park and headed east dodging pedestrians and in-line skaters as we rode, gawking at everything we could while riding. We were soon at Buckingham Palace along with a crowd of tourists. Jeanette stood by a Constable and I took the obligatory picture, at the same time, making the mistake of calling him a, "Bobby" and watching his face grimace. As soon as I said the words I knew that something was wrong and that, at first opportunity, I'd have to find out what faux-paux I had made. We asked another constable directions to Victoria Station and found it was only four blocks away.
This time we dived into the traffic without trepidation and were soon at the station. We bought two tickets to Canterbury, found the platform the train was leaving from, boarded and used the handicapped area to stow the bikes. The train was off and rolling within ten minutes and an hour and a half later we found ourselves in Canterbury.
The B&B we were staying at was only four blocks from the station. We asked directions of a pedestrian on the street to get our bearings and had our first experience in negotiating a busy roundabout. We crossed it by walking the bikes and had to run to clear the traffic. Once across, we were back up on the bikes and after four blocks were in front of the Wincheap House, our home for the next two days. Joe, our host answered our knock on the door. We offloaded our bags and rolled our bikes around to the back yard, cabled them together and headed into the house for a shower.
The room was nice and the house inviting. We cleaned up and decided to walk to an Indian restaurant we had passed for dinner. The restaurant, Jalsha Tanduri, was only a block away. Our dinners, when converted to dollars, were about $17.00 each and very disappointing. I started thinking I was not going to like eating in England if this was indicative of the food we'd be eating on the tour.
It was time to go back to the room and hit the sack. We had been awake for 29 hours and jet lag was setting in. It was still light outside but well past 9 PM. We climbed out of our clothes and into the sack and presumed we'd sleep the sleep of the dead.
Day 2, A non-riding day
We awoke about 4AM. It was already starting to become light. We couldn't sleep, our internal clocks were way off kilter. We stalled around, repacked, looked at our tourist guides, showered, and watched TV until it was time to go to breakfast. The TV weather report predicted rain. The clock finally showed eight AM and we headed for breakfast where we met a delightful retired couple from Newcastle. Joe, our host, gave us some tips on touring Canterbury. We finished eating, went upstairs, got our raincoats and were on our way.
On the way to town we found that the round-about that we negotiated the day before had underground tunnels for pedestrians to make crossing easier. We used them and put that in our book of, "how to get around" skills for use in the future. We were becoming adept at buying train tickets and reading train schedules, bikes on trains, riding on the left hand side of the road, and round-abouts.
We saw most of the tourist sites including some that were not on the list. It started raining shortly after we left the B&B but that did not phase us. We walked through the old town following Dane John's walk along the old city walls, visited St. Thomas's church, walked up and down High Street, and looked from the bridge at the River Stour. We discovered the city gardens by the West Gate and delighted in walking through the intense colors of all the flowers. We stopped at a Starbucks for coffee and then decided it was time to take on Canterbury Cathedral.
We walked through the town square crowded with school kids, through the Cathedral Gate and surveyed the structure of the cathedral itself. It was immense. Much larger than either of us had imagined. A size that just cannot be conveyed in photographs. We went inside and spent several hours reading all the plaques mounted on the walls and floors, saw the spot where Thomas Beckett was killed and the tomb of the Black Prince. After about three hours we were saturated and could view no more. We had a map titled Queen Bertha's Walk which took us past the ruins of the old abbey founded by St. Augustine and St. Martin's Church, the oldest still functioning church in England.
We had some recommended places to eat, one being the Old Weaver's on St. Peters Street. We hoped that our meal would be better than the first night's and we weren't disappointed. The Weaver's has an outdoor dining area surrounded by flower boxes that is along side the River Stour and a truly peaceful and beautiful place to eat. We had a delicious meal at about two thirds the cost of the previous evening. We were tired. We'd been walking all day in the rain and had woken early. It was time to head back to the B&B and bed. This time we fell asleep immediately, almost before we could say goodnight.