Brighton and the Seven Sisters Cliffs

So, everybody's heard of the White Cliffs of Dover, right? But did you know that those aren't the only white cliffs in England? Lee and I decided to go to the Seven Sisters Cliffs and they were amazing! First, though, we had fun at Brighton Pier.

King George IV built the Royal Pavilion because he liked to play at the beach, basically. We took the tour, but no pictures of the interior allowed.  It was cool, though.

The man himself, George IV.

Waaaay at the end are bumper cars, my favorite!  Totally worth the 3 pounds. 

I love that we were able to go to the beach and see the Channel. 

Yummmm, jellied eels.  No, thank you.

It was windy.

Really windy.

The railing was so pretty and the cliffs in the background so gently rolling.  I could have stayed there for hours.

Gosh, too bad we didn't have time to experience the fish pedicure.  Maybe next time.

I like seagulls.  This one was well-behaved, but I'm a bit leery of the red dot on its beak.  There were signs all over warning against feeding the birds because they become aggressive.  Maybe the red dot is some hapless tourist's blood.

See, I like seagulls.  And rock beaches.

I'd always heard and read that Channel was rough, but I was not expecting this!  It was so powerful.

Lee was determined to touch her feet to the Channel, but it took some creativity.  See, you can't tell, but she actually had to climb down a bit of a slippery rock cliff to get close to the water.  And once she got close enough, I started to worry that she'd get sucked out to sea.  Silly, now that I think about it, but I was really concerned!

After Brighton, we raced the setting sun to reach the Seven Sisters Cliffs before the light faded.  We made it!  I loved this spot.  There were only a handful of other people there, so it was peaceful and quiet.  Aside from the crashing waves, of course.

I have an almost identical picture to this of me on the beach in Nice, France, from my very first trip overseas in high school.

Pretty cliffs.  Hey, did you know that a scene from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was filmed here?  The part where Robin & Azeem land back in England and Robin rolls on the ground yelling "I'm home!!"  I did not re-enact this scene.  Too cold.

Yeeeaaaah, it was a late night.  Our route home was somewhat meandering, but the villages and towns were pretty. Then it got dark and we passed the road we should have taken.  Minor details.

London

 Kemble station, 15ish minutes from our cottage in Chedworth.  I gotta hand it to the English, their trains run on-time!

Dawn, with her omnipresent smile and camera, as we wait for the train to London.

The Jubilee Walkway, which we walked and walked and walked and still didn't get to where we were headed.  But, it was fun to see these little markers all over the city.



Whhhhyyyyy is there a Notre Dame flag flying in London?

Westminster Abby was incredible. Did you know that Mary, Queen of Scots, is buried just across from Elizabeth I?  The Poets' Corner was pretty cool, too.  Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Henry James.

It was a very pretty day - much warmer than we expected it to be.

Hearing Big Ben chime the hour was fun.

Hmmmm.... which way to go?

To the Palace!!  And this isn't even the biggest set of gates. 

Gate detail.  I need to look up what the unicorn symbolizes.

The balcony!  The balcony!  It's smaller than I thought it would be.

Next time, I gotta go up in this! 

Paddington Bear at Paddington Station.

Emma's Cottage

We arrived at Emma's Cottage fashionably late, but just in time for some gorgeous afternoon light.  And look at that sky - so blue!  

Our front garden overlooked the valley and a horse farm.  It was fantastic and picture-perfect. 

Parking was tight.  Very tight.  As in, the worst-part-of-driving-in-England tight.  We had regular-sized cars and wished we had a Fiat.  Hmm, but then our suitcases wouldn't have fit. 

Welcome!

Our lovely hostess, Myra, left bouquets around the cottage for us.  It was so homey and welcoming.

Looking into the kitchen from the front door. 

We had a fireplace in the kitchen, which we didn't light.  But we did enjoy the one in the living room a couple of times. 

Love the exposed beams.  Our cottage started as a 1700s-style duplex that was combined into one sometime in the early 1900s, I think.  A family of six lived in half of the cottage.

The view out the kitchen window at our car. Fun!

Upstairs are two bedrooms: the twin and master bedroom.  Our twin room had a cute little window seat with a view of the horse farm across the valley.

The bathroom was small.  The shower was tiny.  But it was inside, which is an improvement from where it was.  Outside.  Across the yard.  In a shack.   

Driving was fun, though Lee might disagree.  :-)  The scenery on the road from Bath to Chedworth was fantastic and just so quintessentially ENGLISH!  I loved it. 

We hiked up a path behind the cottage on our first night to get to the farm shop (yummy local food!), turned around, and saw this.  So lovely.

We're alive!

So, yeeeeaaaahhh, not much access to wifi so far.  Thank goodness for Starbucks!

Here's a recap:

We flew.

We drank.  Rose & Crown pub in bath.

 We checked into our cottage in Chedworth.

Look kids, there's Big Ben!  Actually, it's St. Steven's Tower.  Big Ben is the bell inside.

Lee made friends with a very nice South Yorkshire fellow outside 10 Downing Street.

We rode the bumper cars on Brighton Pier.

We saw the Seven Sisters Cliffs.

We saw the sun rise through Stonehenge.

We re-enacted our favorite movie scenes: "God!  And King Richard!"

We interacted with Woodhenge.

We drank beer at lunch in Oxford.

And now, we're off to Blenheim Palace, Stratford-Upon-Avon, and maybe Wales!

Cheers, yeah, bye!