Barefoot Travels

England

My husband and I love to travel.  When he was in the military we traveled all over, living in 7 different states while he was active duty.  Each place had its good points and its bad points.  But the one state we as a family can agree we would like to visit again is Alaska.  The beautiful snow covered mountains, the salmon filled rivers, the moose, fox and bear roaming nearby, and the best darn pizza in the whole wide world at Moose’s Tooth Pub and Pizzaria!  We can’t wait to go back and visit!!

Now that the kids are grown(and by the way our son is majoring in Tourism in college) we plan to travel more.  My husband’s second career as a medical lab manager has given him the opportunity to travel a lot in the last two years.  Business trips aren’t the same as traveling on vacation though.  Now that we have our daughters wedding and honeymoon all paid off we just have to decide where and when we will travel next.  In the last year we have traveled to England, New Orleans, and Chicago.  We hope to go to Alaska, Florida and somewhere in Europe in the next few years.  Seriously, the biggest argument my husband and I have is:  Should we go to Italy or Germany the next time we go to Europe?

I would like to share all of our travels with you on this page.  Past, present and future.  I will begin with one of our most recent trips–England.  My husband lived in England with his family for 4 years beginning when he was 4.  His dad was in the Air Force too and they were stationed at Feltwell.  He also did a high school exchange with a group of students in Germany; so he had traveled in Europe a bit during his life.  Although I dreamed about it and visited many different countries through the books I read, I had never actually been.  Finally at the age of 48, I got to go to Europe!  I was so excited.  England seemed like the easiest of all the European countries to visit because we speak the same language and the people as a whole seem very nice. There was another reason I wanted to visit England.    I recently had my dna analized by ancestry.com.  I thought I was about 25% English, 70% German and a little Swiss, French and who knows what thrown in.  It turns out I am 55% British.  So I was so excited to go to England and visit the country most of my family came from.

I have done a little geneology, but I have cousins on both sides who have done a lot more.  So I already knew that I had relatives from a few generations back who came from Lincolnshire England.  When we planned our trip to England we decided to be based in London and plan a couple of trips to the outlaying towns.  We planed to visit Lincoln in Lincolnshire and Bath and Stonehenge.  We didn’t plan any trips to the seaside villages because it was the middle of winter.  We thought it best to visit those places when we returned sometime in the summer.

The first day I explored the city of London.  There was a double decker bus that stopped right in front of our hotel and took us to the subway station.  From there we could go anywhere.

I saw the famous Eye, Westminster Cathedral,  Buckingham Palace and the view from across the Thames was grand.  I saw a lot of random buildings that I thought were pretty too.  But I don’t know what they are.

My trip into Lincoln was amazing.   I took the tube to Kings Cross station and from there I caught a train to Lincoln.  I walked around the city and took a bus to the Castle and Cathedral.

 

I had english tea and bangers and mash for lunch.  After lunch,  I took a walk down steep hill; it is aptly named.

 

 

I decided to take a bus tour when I visited Bath and Stonehenge.  My trip to Lincoln was wonderful but a little lonely.  Traveling with a group sounded a bit more fun and safe.  So I got on the bus in downtown London and off we went to Stonehenge.  For all you Outlander fans, I tried to get close enough to the stones to see if I could hear the buzzing,  but they only let me get this close.

In Bath we visited another cathedral.  We had lunch at a small little pub and I had Yorkshire pudding and some mulled wine.  We stayed until sunset and the Abbey was beautiful in the distance.

 

Our final stop was a little pub in Lacock where they filmed many of my favorite shows-Downton Abbey, Harry Potter and many others.  That was a real treat!

My final day in London I went to the Tower of London.  I also went to the British Museum and saw the Rosetta stone.  That was amazing!

 

 

 

 

My husband took this incredible picture around the corner from the museum just as the moon was rising.

Full moon over London.  It was a wonderful trip!  The city was so easy to get around and the people were all so nice and helpful.  There is so much history to explore!  I can’t wait to go back again one day!!