UK

The three of us woke up in Brussels and walked across the street from our hotel to the train station to catch the Eurostar to London. Because the train enters the UK you are required to pass through border control before you can board. Becca received a stern warning from the customs agent because her passport didn't have stamps to show that she had entered the EU. I was asked by the same agent if I "was a time traveler" because one of my stamps from Amsterdam was dated 2015. Naturally, the stamps that he gave us had an incorrect date (May 1st instead of 2nd).

A couple of hours later we arrived in London and took a taxi to the rental car agency. They tried to get us to upgrade various things and, failing that, they found a problem with our online reservation and used it to charge us an extra $160; add National to the list of bad rental car experiences we've had. Eventually they gave us the keys to a Toyota with only 800kms on the odometer. After spending 90 minutes fighting London traffic we jumped on the freeway and headed to York.

York is even more beautiful when the trees are blooming.

We spent one night haunting our favorite pubs in York and then managed to get all of our shopping done the following morning. We were eager to see Scotland so we were on the road by noon. After a couple of hours on the freeway we decided to transfer to the coastal road so the drive would be more interesting. Becca booked a hotel in Edinburgh using her cellphone and we checked into it by nightfall.

We hiked about half way up the Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh. Unfortunately, the grass along the path was taller than my tiny, Swedish tripod so there was only one place for me to take a photo.

We ended up spending two nights in Edinburgh and enjoyed the whisky and Scottish accent equally. The hotel we booked was more of an apartment and had a clothes washer as well as a full kitchen. Unfortunately, our room's clothes washer was missing its door because the previous tenant needed to leave during a wash cycle so the janitor simply removed the door in order to retrieve the clothes; The hotel gave us the keys to another room so we could use its washer. My mom was eager to get back to England, however, so we prepared ourselves for the trip south.

We drove past many sheep farms to visit Melrose Abbey on our way back to England: the surrounding farmland was almost as impressive as the ruins.

We took the scenic route south so we could visit the Melrose Abbey. Along the way we stayed in a very old hotel in Yorkshire that was originally a Victorian house from the 19th century. The next day, we drove further south into the Cotswolds and spent some time in Chipping Campden before heading to Bourton-on-the-Water. While enroute Becca found a nice B&B for us to stay in.

Bourton-on-the-Water is eerily quiet after the tourists have returned to their buses and gone home.

We were surprised to see these people shampooing a horse in the river in the middle of a small tourist town. We later learned that they were gypsies that were travelling to a nearby town for the purpose of setting up a temporary market on a piece of land that they own. Later, we saw a horse-drawn gypsy caravan that was stopped on the side of the road while its horses grazed on the grass that grows between the road and the fences of the adjacent farmlands.

The Cotswolds area is defined by the stones that are produced there. Many of the houses seem to be occupied by old women with impeccable gardens.

We left Bourton-on-the-Water and headed to Bibury on our way to Lacock.

This is a short path in Bibury that follows the water from the cottages to the mill.

It's impossible to visit Bibury without driving past the Arlington Mill.

Unfortunately, the place in Lacock where we had intended to have lunch had gone out of business a few months prior. We found a pub with WIFI and booked a hotel in Bath for the night.

I had already decided that wisteria was my new favorite flower by the time we arrived in Lacock. I'm disappointed that it isn't mentioned anywhere in LoTR.

If you squint really hard you may be able to see some of the fashionable ghosts from the 1800s that haunt the area around the Parade Gardens in Bath.

The Hilton hotel in Bath was a huge disappointment. We did, however, get to spend an evening in Bath and when we woke up we were less than an hour away from the Longleat.

One of the goals of trip was to be in Longleat for the giraffe feeding event. Even though the weather was rainy the animals were very active (I suppose they are accustomed to the English weather). Becca says: "Did you know that a giraffe can run at 35 mph for short distances and 10 mph for extended lengths of time?"

One of the themes from this trip was a children's show called 'Mr. Tumble and his Spotty Bag.' Unfortunately, it appears as though we have been bitten by the British accent because the proper way to sign 'giraffe' is notably different from what Mr. Tumbles taught us.

For a small fee you can feed the Parkland Deer. The part they don't tell you is that if you stop feeding them the more aggressive ones will kick the crap out of the door of your rental car.

Have you ever been close enough to a rhino to hear the sound of it tearing the grass out of the ground? It's amazing.

After we were finished with the safari we took a trip to the adventure park and rode the miniature train and the river boat. These sea lions (notice the ears) knew that the passengers on the boat were capable of feeding them and where therefore quite noisy.

We decided to head back toward London (via Stonehenge) and arbitrarily chose a hotel in Dover because we couldn't think of anything better.

The weather wasn't great at Stonehenge but there were relatively few visitors and the grass was very green. FYI, they opened a completely new Stonehenge visitor center last December.

It's actually impossible to miss the 'white cliffs' while visiting Dover.

Dover was a nice, quiet little town and we had fun ordering appetizers for dinner in the hotel restaurant 15 minutes before it closed. We drove a little bit out of town the next day to have breakfast at a pub that had particularly good ratings on the internet. Then we filled the car up with gas and pointed it back toward London.

We spent a relaxing afternoon in the Kensington Gardens for Mother's Day and enjoyed the afternoon tea service at the Orangery.

After we returned the rental car (in flawless condition) we checked into our hotel near the Tower of London. On Saturday night we saw 'The Book Of Mormon' and it was hilarious. On Sunday we visited the Camden Market and had high tea at Kensington Palace. On Monday we took a private car to Heathrow, ate breakfast, and flew home.