26 June: Magical, Mystical Tintagel

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was look out the window. It was raining. Again. What a surprise.

The mention of a “full English breakfast” in every one of our hotel reservations is apparently not a misnomer. Once again we were treated to eggs made to order, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, and toast. Oh, the calories!! The only variables seem to be the cereal selection and the fruit, which in this case was stewed prunes. A woman we hadn’t seen before came in and chatted gaily with all of the other guests before coming to greet us, rather perfunctorily might I add. I got the feeling that the others were repeat customers at the hotel, but it was still a little off-putting.

With just one day to spend in Cornwall, I had a single destination in mind: Tintagel, legendary birthplace of King Arthur, located about eight miles down the rocky, surf-battered coast from Boscastle. I have always pictured Tintagel as Marion Zimmer Bradley described it in The Mists of Avalon: an impenetrable iron-gray fortress rising majestically from its rocky foundations, separated from the mainland by a narrow stone causeway, its lonely battlements ravaged by the wind and waves, its occupants huddled in front of a blazing hearth to ward off the perpetual chill of the sea. I would like to tell you that this grand vision still exists in all of its mystical glory on the northern shore of Cornwall, but alas, the mighty castle has been reduced to a few ruined walls and gates, pockmarked here and there by jagged windows opening their blind eyes to the crashing surf below. And yet, it seems that history is alive and well on this windswept promontory at the end of the world…

If Arthur really existed at all, he most likely lived in a wood-framed, thatch-roofed hall whose 6^th-century remains have long since rotted away. The first person to place Arthur in the context of Tintagel was Nennius, a 9^th-century cleric, who, struggling to fill a blank spot in the pages of history following the departure of the Romans from England, knitted together the story of a great Christian war leader who successfully warded off the invading pagan Saxons in a series of battles around 500 A.D. This representation of Arthur might have long since faded into the annals of the past were it not for the creative mind of one Geoffrey of Monmouth, who apparently decided that the Kings of England needed an ancestor of whom they could be proud. He made Arthur out to be a powerful king who had defeated a Roman Emperor and conquered most of Western Europe. Arthur was eventually wounded in battle and spirited away to the Isle of Avalon, from which, Geoffery hinted, the great king might one day return to lead the people of England to peace and prosperity.

It was quite easy for medieval French poets and storytellers to pick up the now-popular tale, embellishing it with their own current ideals of noble knights, chivalry, and courtly love. Soon the Knights of the Round Table and the colorful personas of Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Lady of the Lake were added to the cast of characters. With the coming of the Crusades, Arthur and his knights were given a new mission – the quest for the Holy Grail. And so, over the centuries, the legend of King Arthur morphed and evolved to suit the needs and desires of the day. The story might have died out were it not for The Idylls of the King, a narrative poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the 1860s, introducing a whole new audience to the legendary Arthur. In the end, the question of whether Arthur really existed is largely irrelevant in the face of the influence his story has had – and continues to have – on countless generations. The themes of courage and cowardice, love and hate, virtue and sin are timeless, and will live on in our collective consciousness for centuries to come.

Which brings us back to Tintagel, and why this place continues to draw so many visitors year after year. Curiously, one solid piece of evidence has been uncovered to link Arthur to this mysterious spot. In 1998, an archaeological team turned over a slab of stone covering a 6^th-century drain, revealing a portion of an inscription containing the name ARTOGNOV. Someone named Artognou built something here and wanted people to know about it. A fire in 1983 burned off the peaty topsoil of Tintagel’s island to reveal the foundations of dozens of small buildings dating to the 5^th and 6^th centuries – Arthur’s time. And someone wealthy enough to import luxury goods from Spain, North Africa and Greece apparently lived here, because shards of wine jars and other pottery vessels originating from those distant locales have been found in great quantities all over the island. Obviously Tintagel still holds many secrets beneath its slate-covered surface.

What we do know is that a 13^th-century Earl of Cornwall by the name of Richard, brother of King Henry III, took it upon himself to rebuild the remote and strategically-unimportant fortress at Tintagel (from Din Tagell, meaning Fortress of the Narrow Entrance). This was either a purely romantic gesture or a savvy political move to strengthen Earl Richard’s self-promotion as a successor to the legendary King Arthur and protector of Cornwall. Whatever his motivations, the fortress never served much purpose and soon fell into ruin, the grassy promontory serving as a sheep pasture until it was rediscovered by 19^th-century romanticists and turned into the Arthurian tourist attraction we were heading off to visit today.

We found the small village of Tintagel (which changed its name from Travena to Tintagel in 1900 to profit off the famous castle) to be busy with tourists at 10 a.m. on this breezy Tuesday morning. The streets were lined with shops selling plastic swords and mood crystals, and the huge bulk of the ugly Camelot Hotel (originally built as a railway terminus hotel, except that the railway was never built) marred the otherwise tranquil view out to the sea. We found a gravel lot in the middle of town where we paid £1 to park all day and set off down the steep path to the castle. Our first glimpse of the fortress consisted of a jagged span of wall rising from the grassy promontory, the man-made construction barely distinguishable from the surrounding outcroppings of layered slate. We walked around a bend in the trail and more of the ruins came into view above us. We used our English Heritage pass to get in (saving us £9) and watched the short film about “uncovering Arthur,” which basically said that the whole legend is a “bunch of hooey” (John’s words, not mine).

Below us lay a short stretch of sandy beach, where ships once landed to load and unload goods. A zigzagging set of stairs led us to a wooden footbridge, which crosses the narrow span of rock linking Tintagel to the mainland. The fortress is split into two main sections – two large courtyards on the mainland, set high up on a cliff to our left, and the island courtyard nestled in a sheltered hollow on our right. We decided to head to the island first. We climbed the steep trail along a battlement wall, a 19^th-century construction that replaced a medieval section that fell into the sea (probably foretelling the eventual fate of the rest of the island courtyard as the sea pounds inevitably away at its base), and passed through an archway into the remains of the 13^th-century courtyard, where Earl Richard’s Great Hall once stood. All that remains is a romantically ruined section of stair-stepped battlement (photo, above) and the rough outline of several rooms. The buildings were all constructed of local slate, set in thin layers much like the geologic formations from which they came, so the walls look like they grew organically, right out of the ground. From here we looked through empty windows at the dramatic Cornish coastline stretching away to the north (photo, above). It looked very much like a stormy day on the Mendocino coast of northern California, complete with low threatening clouds and a chilling wind. My boots were still wet from yesterday so I was stamping my feet and running around trying to warm up.

Despite the crowds in town, we soon left most of the visitors behind as we set out to explore the island. Narrow trails led us from one ruined structure to the next, including the foundations of a tiny chapel and the rectangular outline of what is believed to have been the castle garden (photo, above). The island was carpeted with grasses and wildflowers, including tall spikes of bright pink foxglove, which really should be the national flower of England, it is so common. The island flattens out on top, where a shallow depression in the rock forms a water catchment and you can crawl through a short, triangular tunnel carved out of the rock, which possibly served as a food larder for the castle, cooled by the sea breezes. As we scrambled about on the slate outcroppings, the clouds began to disperse and patches of blue sky appeared to compete with the brilliant aquamarine of the ocean. We circled the entire island, eventually coming back to the landward side, where we had a lovely view across the narrow inlet to the squat stone tower of Tintagel’s parish church of St. Materiana (photo, right).

We crossed the bridge back to the mainland and toured the two ruined courtyards on that side (seen in photo at right, with the town of Tintagel in the background), which offer good views back to the island fortress. From here you can really see why they call it an island, though it is just barely connected to the mainland (photo, below). Then we hiked along the coastal trail to the 11^th-century parish church, sitting all alone on the bluff, surrounded by an ancient graveyard (photo, below). The church was likely built on the site of a Celtic oratory and later replaced by a Saxon building. The oldest portion of the church is the wall and porch on the north side, dating to 1080. Inside, there is a lovely timber-framed ceiling, a Norman font, and various medieval and modern additions. The South Transept features a stone bench running around the edge dating to the 15^th century, when people used to stand through the services. Only the elderly and infirm were allowed to sit (“the weakest goes to the wall”). The little pamphlet about the church mentions a famous altercation between Thomas Hardy and the Vicar that took place here in 1916, but apparently the visitor is supposed to know the details already, as no further information is provided. The church registers date back to 1546, and many of the lichen-encrusted headstones in the graveyard looked like they could be that old, time and weather having long since worn away the inscriptions. We wandered through the graveyard and then back to town on a narrow country lane. On our way back to the car we passed the 14^th-century Old Post Office with its undulating slate tile roof.

It was now early afternoon and we decided to head down the coast a few miles to the fishing village of Port Isaac. Susie kept trying to send us on impossibly narrow roads, so I took over and tried to keep us on roads that pretended to be two lanes wide. It didn’t help that it seems to be perfectly legal in England to park facing the wrong way (so it looks like a car is coming right at you in your lane) and block half the road. We started to feel like we had the largest car in England. It also didn’t help that there are no shoulders to speak of, and most of the roads are fenced in on either side by five-foot hedges, so you can’t see what’s coming around the bend.

Port Isaac is described in my Fodor’s guide as a cluster of cottages that “tumbles precipitously down the cliff” but you wouldn’t know it unless you parked in the lot above the village, as we did, and walked down, because the village is literally invisible from the road above. We didn’t want to risk any more parking tickets so we put a full four hours on the meter, to the tune of £2,70. I returned to the car and put the ticket on the dashboard. To my dismay, as I exited the car, a gust of wind blew the ticket down into the crack between the windshield and the dashboard. We spent several long minutes trying to extract the ticket using John’s mini Swiss Army knife, but to no avail. Finally I went and bought another ticket, this time only for two hours because I was running short on change. I came back and John was still trying to get the other ticket out. I thought it was gone for good but John swore that he could see the “reflection” of the ticket in the windshield, just a few inches out of reach. I told him he was seeing things. Then I took off my (polarized) sunglasses and realized that you could actually see the ticket. I finally used the pamphlet from the Tintagel chapel to carefully ease the ticket out of the crevice. Now we had two parking tickets with six hours of time between them. I walked back to the machine, certain that I could find someone to buy the ticket off of me. A couple of minutes later an English guy walked up and I offered him my ticket, showing him that it was good for another two hours. I said I would take a pound for it but he insisted on giving me the whole £1,50 (don’t laugh – that’s $3!).

After this minor drama, we set off towards the village on the coastal trail. Port Isaac is indeed a lovely little hamlet of whitewashed stone houses perched around a narrow harbor dotted with colorful fishing boats. There are a few touristy shops, art galleries, pubs, and little cafés offering simple meals and afternoon tea. There were lots of little cottages for rent and I imagined that this would be a nice place to spend a few days, either to explore Cornwall or just sit and watch the waves roll in. We wandered the narrow streets for a while admiring the quaint houses and gardens (photo, right), peeked into an art gallery inhabiting an old church, and then hiked up the other side of the valley to get a spectacular view of the village and harbor (photo, below). We continued up the narrow trail, which dumped us into a sheep pasture, and walked out to the next point, where we could see all the way back to Tintagel’s island. We returned to town by the same route and decided to stop at the bar at the Slipway Hotel (a place I had researched staying at before settling on the Bottreaux), where we indulged in Cornish cream tea and scones slathered with strawberry preserves and clotted cream. John said he felt a heart attack coming on. Granted the clotted cream came in store-bought plastic tubs, but it was still delicious! We stopped in at a few galleries on the way back to the car but didn’t see anything that really attracted us.

We drove back to Boscastle, left our car at the hotel, and then took a long walk through the village. A steep road leads straight down the hill from the hotel, lined with charming stone and white-washed houses, each with its own little garden out front (photo. The hydrangeas and roses were in full bloom, splashing the subdued gray and white houses with bright pinks and reds. A plush gray cat sat on a wall and stared at us as we walked past. We hiked up a very steep hill to the Forabury parish church, which we could see from our hotel window. The church was already locked up for the night but we wandered around the graveyard and then out to the coastal trail. (If I haven’t mentioned it before, a public trail runs all along the spectacular Cornwall coastline.) We headed out to a funny little white building on the nearest bluff, which turned out to be the Willapark Lookout – originally built as a summer house in the early 1800s by a local landowner and later used as a Coast Guard lookout station. From this windy vantage point we had a gorgeous sweeping view over the Cornish countryside: emerald-green fields bordered neatly by dark hedgerows, like a rich green plaid blanket spread over the hills (photo, right). Along the rocky cliffs we made out the remants of stone walls and buildings – more mysterious ruins from the distant past.

I recognized the entrance to Boscastle harbor off to our right so we decided to hike down that way and come back up through the town on the inland side. The harbor was amazing – a narrow, sinuous channel cutting deep through layers and layers of slate (photo, below). We found it hard to believe that boats could navigate the channel in the crashing surf. As we walked up to the village we could see remnants of the raging flood that nearly destroyed Boscastle in 2004. They were in the process of tearing down the historic stone bridge over the river to be replaced by a new one for flood control purposes. We passed the Wellington Hotel, which I had also looked into staying at. It seemed a little touristy, but charming. We hiked all the way back up the hill to the hotel, at which point we agreed that we had definitely gotten our share of exercise today.

We had an hour to shower and change before dinner in the Bottreaux’s restaurant. There was just one young woman serving the ten or so tables (we were one of just three or four parties). She was very sweet, although rather inappropriately dressed in a cropped white t-shirt and skin-tight low-riding black pants, baring about three inches of flesh above the lacy trim of her bright green underwear. Wowsers! We both ordered from the 3-course menu for £28 and an Australian Chardonnay called Apple Hill. John had the smoked salmon, blini, and caviar for appetizer (the blini was fluffy and piping hot), followed by a big slab of turbot with what I identified as pickerel weed (“poor man’s asparagus”) and a lemon Hollandaise sauce. John described his meal as “okay.” My appetizer and entrée were excellent: seared sashimi tuna with soy sauce and sesame seeds on a bed of pickled bok choy, followed by fillet of bream with panko-coated fried eggplant and tempura-battered zucchini flower with a bouillabaisse sauce. For dessert we both had the chocolate and orange tart (excellent except for the crust, which was a bit underdone) with delicious homemade lemon and thyme ice cream.

I asked our waitress about getting a picnic lunch to take with us tomorrow, as this was listed as an option in the hotel guide. She came back and said that they needed more advance notice, which was a bit frustrating because it just said in the guide to order lunch the night before. My take on the Bottreaux is that it is is trying really hard to be top-notch, but it’s still a little rough around the edges.

25 June: How to Get a Parking Ticket In Salisbury & the Wonders of Stonehenge

It was raining again this morning, so we weren’t in much of a hurry to get going. We experienced our first “full English breakfast” – all the fruit, cereal, and yogurt you could eat, followed by a huge plate of eggs made to order, with roasted tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, bacon, sausage, and toast on the side – and realized that if we got this sort of breakfast at every hotel, we weren’t going to have to spend a lot of money on lunches. We checked out around 10:00 and followed our host’s directions into town, parking in a pay lot near the cathedral, which we wanted to see before heading to Stonehenge. We put several pound coins in the parking meter, giving us about two hours, which we assumed would be plenty of time to tour the cathedral.

I should note that I became interested in visiting Salisbury after reading Edward Rutherford’s lengthy but fascinating novel Sarum, which is a fictionalized history of the settlement of the Salisbury area from pre-historic to modern times. The construction of the cathedral is a major theme of the novel.

We crossed a stone bridge over a slow-moving canal and glimpsed the quaint shopping district lined with medieval houses (photo, right) before passing through the High Street Gate and entering the famous Cathedral Close. This is a series of regal homes and church outbuildings – some designed by the famed architect Christopher Wren – flanking smooth green lawns, where the church canons were given allocations of land upon which to build their homes. Before us loomed the single 404-foot Gothic spire – the tallest in England and the highest pre-1400 spire in the world – of Salisbury Cathedral. We forgot all about the parking meter when we walked through the main entrance and decided to sign up for the 90-minute Tower Tour (£11 for the two of us). We had some time before the tour started to wander the long nave of the cathedral and its double transepts, admiring the simple, unadorned grandeur of the interior. The nave is lined with the tombs of famous crusaders, bishops, and war heroes, the intricately carved choir stalls are quite impressive, and in the north aisle you can see what is believed to be the oldest clock in the world, dating from 1386. We also visited the lovely cloisters and the octagonal Chapter House, which is home to one of four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta (penned in 1215), one of the most important documents in the history of democracy, serving as the basis for the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

We assembled for our tour near a model of the cathedral at the rear of the building and were introduced to our friendly volunteer guide, an older woman who instructed us (wisely, it turned out) to leave our bags in lockers in preparation for the long ascent to the heights of the spire. We stopped at various points along the way while our guide provided a colorful narrative of the cathedral’s construction. Salisbury is unique in that the cathedral was built – the mastermind of Bishop Richard Poore and the architect Elias de Derham – to replace the old Norman cathedral at nearby Old Sarum, and the new town of Salisbury grew up around it. This is why the cathedral’s setting is so spectacular; the area around it was purposefully left open for the expansive Greens and the buildings of the Close. In contrast, most medieval cathedrals were built on the sites of previous churches, crowded between existing buildings.

Salisbury is unique in other ways as well. Whereas most cathedrals were constructed over a period of centuries, and so represent a hodgepodge of architectural styles, Salisbury Cathedral was completed (save for the spire) in the relatively short span of 38 years (1220-58) and thus has a consistent Gothic style. The construction of the spire in 1320 – not to mention the fact that it is still standing, albeit 2½ feet off vertical, over 680 years later – represents a marvel of medieval engineering. The cathedral’s foundations are only four feet deep due to the high water table, and by logic alone could not have supported the weight of the unplanned spire, but thankfully the entire structure sits on a thick, supportive bed of gravel. Over the centuries the building has shifted and settled, and we got an excellent view of the subtly bending columns from the elevated arcade at the rear of the church (photo, above). This is no trick of the eye – the columns really are leaning outwards (on the order of 18 inches if I recall) under the weight of the spire!

As we proceeded up into the tower, we got an up-close look at the amazing timber framing under the roof, some of which has been repaired over the centuries. One whole side of the roof was replaced in the last decade; the funding required for the constant repair and maintenance of this structure must be mind-boggling. We arrived at the top of the bell tower just in time to hear the bells ring out the noon hour – the famous four-pitch tune of the Westminster Chime followed by twelve reverberating bongs of the great bronze bell. We proceeded up a slightly rickety wooden spiral staircase (not recommended for those with a fear of heights) and got a good look at the intricate wooden scaffolding that supports the spire itself (photo, right). You can’t actually ascend the spire (this would involve climbing a series of scary-looking ladders), but we did go out onto the balcony circling the top of the bell tower and got some great views of Salisbury and the surrounding countryside. Fortunately the rain had let up, although it was rather windy up there! We looked down at the red-brick buildings of the Cathedral Close and out across the plain to the water meadows dotted with white sheep, the winding River Avon and, way off in the distance, the distinct rounded form of the ancient Norman hill fort of Old Sarum (photo, below).

After descending back to ground level and receiving our “I’ve Reached the Heights” pins from our guide, John and I wandered out across the front lawn, circled the cathedral (photo, below), peeked around the Close, and headed back into town. We walked up and down the main shopping street, looking into a few stores to see if we could find a good umbrella, because we were starting to realize that the two travel models that we had brought along might not be sufficient for England’s turbulent weather. Surprisingly we didn’t find a lot of umbrellas – certainly no sturdy wind-resistant ones – so we gave up for the time being and ambled back to the parking lot.

As we approached the car, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach as I remembered the parking meter. Sure enough, our time had expired more than an hour previously and there was a white envelope on our windshield with a £30 ticket inside (£60 pounds if we waited longer than 14 days to pay it). I think I said a bad word at that point, which was overheard by a friendly guy walking by. He smiled, instantly identifying the source of my angst, and advised us not to pay it if we had come from overseas. I wasn’t sure if he realized that we weren’t driving a rental car, and I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask him if his advice applied to private cars from the continent. Eventually we decided to take our chances and didn’t pay the ticket – after all, the city of Salisbury would have to track the car to Germany, then to Mercedes, and finally to John, a process that would certainly cost some city employee more than a measly £30 pounds. I am normally a law-abiding citizen but I felt pretty unsympathetic in this particular instance. I am used to German pay lots where you pay for your time when you leave, which makes pretty good sense to me. (Postscript: It’s now two months later and we haven’t gotten any nasty letters postmarked from Salisbury, so hopefully we are home free!)

As we headed out of Salisbury, we passed very close to the hill fort of Old Sarum. If we had more time I might have liked to stop there, but at least we got a good view from a distance. We continued onwards to Stonehenge, which is about eight miles north of Salisbury. I had debated whether we should visit this king of all tourist traps, particularly after I found out that the special after-hours access to the site (available by prior reservation through the English Heritage organization and various tour companies) was not being offered at the time of our visit. Nevertheless, I couldn’t imagine passing so close to one of England’s most legendary sites without giving it at least a quick look.

We were not disappointed. Even though we arrived in the middle of the afternoon, the crowds were not bad, perhaps kept away by the inclement weather. It had actually stopped raining and the sky was blanketed with billowing clouds in a thousand shades of gray, making for a spectacular backdrop as we approached the stone circle across a gently undulating plain of emerald grass. We took the audio tour (£13 with the general entrance fee for two people) which was excellent – informative without being cheesy. The narrator speculates on the ancient origins of the site, dating to about 3000 B.C., including the great distances over which the great stones were mysteriously transported and the site’s purported uses as a religious shrine and astronomical calendar.

We circled the stones on a grassy path, which is marked occasionally by numbers corresponding to points on the audio tour. While I had read many complaints that the path keeps you disappointingly far from the stones, preventing you from viewing the ancient carvings, there are no ugly barriers as I had imagined. I personally didn’t want to see the stones swarming with people, and I actually got some good pictures despite the fact that we were in the company of several hundred other visitors. Most everyone was quiet and well-behaved, and standing on that wind-swept plain with the clouds billowing overhead, I was certainly awed by the mystery and mysticism of the place.

Before returning to the car we decided to invest in the English Heritage Overseas Visitor Pass, which would get us into other English Heritage-operated sites and partner sites in Wales and Scotland for free or at a reduced rate. We didn’t start our journey west to Cornwall until after 4 p.m. and ran into more rain along the way. As we left the Stonehenge area we encountered a long traffic jam on the two-lane highway, the cause of which was a terrible accident involving a tour bus. The entire left front corner of the bus was smashed in and we just hoped that no one was sitting up front at the time.

After passing into Cornwall, we left the main highway and set off across a windswept landscape of hedges and open fields. Finally the ocean came into view, a plate of blue-green metal on the horizon. We took some crazy narrow winding roads to Boscastle (Susie has some pretty weird ideas about how to get around in England), and literally stumbled across our hotel, the charming white-washed Bottreaux (photo, right), as we came down the hill into the village. It was 7:30 and the front door was locked, so I rang the bell four or five times, to no avail. There was a phone by the door as well, so I finally picked up the receiver and called the number indicated, which finally succeeded in rousing someone to let us in.

Our room was tiny and spartan, starkly outfitted with all-white walls, a white bedspread, one small ultramarine-blue oil painting of the ocean, and a massive wooden cupboard, but we had a very nice modern bathroom with white-and-green tile, a stand-up shower, and a very swanky green glass bowl sink (albeit with a serious drainage problem). We’d been advised by our host to get to the pub next door before 8:30 if we wanted a meal, so we headed over as quickly as we could.

The Napoleon is an awesome 16^th-century pub with loads of atmosphere – low ceilings, dark wood, and a local clientele. Right after we ordered, the lights flickered and went out: a power outage caused by a localized storm. We nursed our Cornish ales (Tinner’s and Tribute) for a while until finally our waitress came around and said they didn’t expect the power to come back on until 10:00. The only things they could make without power were smoked salmon and crab salad. We ordered the smoked salmon and were busy digging in when the lights came on again. We were hungry so we decided to go ahead with our original main course orders. John had a Cornish rump steak piled with mushrooms, tomatoes, onion rings, and chips. I had the crab cakes, which looked and tasted like something out of the freezer aisle, with a side salad to which I grudgringly applied a foil packet of "salad sauce" (a.k.a. mayonnaise). Despite the less-than-stellar food, the place had good entertainment value – we watched the locals celebrating a birthday and a couple of young German guys (most definitely gay) puffed away on their cigarettes in the corner (a ban on smoking in restaurants goes into effect in England on July 1^st).

24 June: The Goodwood Festival of Mud

We got up at a painfully early 6 a.m. (aren’t we on vacation?) so we could leave for Goodwood promptly at 7 a.m. We had requested a boxed breakfast to take with us and the woman at the front desk said it would be brought to our room, but it didn’t show up, so we went down to the front desk and managed to flag someone down – the same man who had suggested our little stroll last night. There must have been a miscommunication because he came back from the kitchen a moment later with a bulging sack stuffed with two ham sandwiches, two cheese-and-tomato sandwiches, a plastic carton of cherries, two apples, two oranges, and two tomatoes. Enough for a small army! We ate a couple of the sandwiches (OK, they were just dry rolls and ham, but still tasty) and saved the rest for future meals on the road.

We headed west to Goodwood in a steady rain. Covering a sprawling 12,000 acres of rolling Sussex countryside, the Goodwood Estate has been the home of the Dukes of Richmond for over three hundred years. In addition to a long tradition of horse racing, golf, and shooting sports, Goodwood is steeped in motor racing history and, since 1993, has been the home of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, purportedly the “world’s biggest celebration of the motor car.”

We hit a long line of traffic waiting to enter the parking lot (I use the term “lot” loosely) but we finally made our way to a space in the huge, already water-logged field. We were dressed as well as we could be for the weather – I was wearing just about every layer I had brought with me, including a t-shirt, light sweatshirt, fleece, and waterproof rainjacket, along with zip-off nylon hiking pants and heavy hiking boots – but our spirits were definitely a bit deflated by the prospect of a long wet day ahead. Fortunately we fell on the high end of the scale in terms of preparedness in comparison to many of our fellow Goodwood spectators. I couldn’t believe how many women I saw dressed in white summer suits and dresses, high heels, sandals, or ballet flats…what were they thinking??

For £10 we bought a program and miniature radio (which allows you to listen to the continual broadcast from the famous “Hill Climb” no matter where you are on the grounds) and started the long trek to the show grounds. As we approached the entrance we passed the assembly area at the base of the Hill Climb, which was crammed with specimens of just about every supercar known to man…Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, a Bugatti Veyron, the new Skyline GTR in disguise, a Tesla electric sportscar, the new Audi R8…it was a veritable sea of automotive testosterone (photo, right). We arrived at the main entrance around 8:30 and headed for the Hill Climb track, a 1.16-mile paved course that starts near Goodwood House and ends somewhere in the woods above. We found a good spot along the hay bales lining the course with a view of about 200 yards of the track…and stood there for nearly four hours. In the rain. Well, it did stop for about ten minutes around mid-morning.

The Hill Climb runs throughout the day and the cars are divided into various classes by year and type. After the parade of supercars, we watched almost all of the classes come through...hundreds of cars (and motorcycles too) from every epoch of racing history: Grand Prix, Le Mans, CanAm, Indy, rally, touring, F1...they all made a good show, revving engines and sending up great plumes of spray as they whizzed by. We saw one of six "Blitzen Benz", which achieved 140 mph at Daytona in 1911, becoming the fastest car in the world...the one-of-a-kind 1923 Thomas Special "Babs", recovered and rebuilt after being buried at Pendine Sands along with the remains of Land Speed Record breaker Parry Thomas after his tragic 171-mph crash in 1927 (photo, above)...a 1956 Jaguar D-Type "Long-Nose" Le Mans car driven by British F1 driver David Coulthard...the 1985 Audi Quattro S1 driven to victory in the Pike's Peak Hill Climb by Michele Mouton, the first woman and foreigner to do so and the only woman to ever win a World Rallye Championship event. Louis Hamilton, native son and current Formula 1 darling, ran the course twice in the 2006 McLaren Mercedes F1 car, stopping right in front of us to wave to the crowd. Some American stock cars even made an appearance, including the "High-Risk" custom-built Corvette (photo, right) and "Hurst Hemi Under Glass" Plymouth Barracuda, both "wheelie cars" capable of prolonged forward motion on their rear wheels.

Around noon the Red Arrows (the Royal Air Force stunt team) performed a show, which was quite spectacular, given that they had to fly below the clouds (photo, right). Unfortunately it was difficult to watch the planes and the cars at the same time. I must have taken 500 pictures over the course of those four hours, half of which were out of focus due to the rain. At some point the index finger of my left hand went completely numb, which would have been funny except that I lost all feeling in my finger for about fifteen minutes and it turned a rather odd shade of yellow. I’ve always had bad circulation in my fingers, but this was really bizarre. To make matters worse, John refused to take my agony seriously. Finally, after much anxious rubbing and flexing and freaking out on my part, my frozen finger returned to a near-normal state. (Postscript: John insisted that I share the story of my “dead” finger with friends while we were having dinner at the Weindorf in Stuttgart. Granted, I had a little wine in me. That night I dreamed that I was at a hospital and they were going to amputate my finger as a preventative measure. I held my finger up and flexed it frantically, saying, “I don’t want you to cut it off! See? It’s working fine now!”)

We eventually decided to check out the sprawling paddock area (BMW paddock, right), where you can get up close and personal with the cars and drivers. This is one of the features for which Goodwood is famous; in a typical race setting most of the fans never get anywhere near the paddock. We bought cups of hot chocolate to warm up and wandered around, listening to the revving engines and checking out the many rare pieces of machinery on display. We noticed quite a few cars did not go out on the track today, perhaps due to the rain, including what looked to be one of this year’s winning Audi Le Mans cars.

We stopped further up the Hill Climb to watch some more historic cars pass, then made our way up a long muddy slog of a hill (photo, right) to the Forest Rally track. Along the way we passed an off-road course where people were paying £30 to go for a ride in Bowler Wildcat racing SUVs. Mud was flying everywhere and I’m sure they were having a rollicking good time, but £30 seemed like a major rip-off for one lap. We were passed by tractors pulling trailers full of spectators, but we toughed it out in the mud. They added a new jump to the rally course this year, so we followed the signs along a muddy trail through the woods, leaving the crowds far behind. We eventually found the jump and camped out under our umbrellas to watch for a while. The cars (both modern and historic rally cars) weren’t getting as much speed due to the muddy conditions, but a few got some pretty good air. There were several WRC drivers in attendance, familiar to us from last year’s Rallye Deutschland, including British Ford Stobart driver Matthew Wilson and Australian Subaru driver Chris Atkinson (photo, right). The announcer reported that the times were much slower than usual due to the “particularly slippery” and “fluid” conditions (understatement of the year). On our way back we saw several rally cars spinning and sliding through the mud. I managed to get a few good shots, but it meant running up to the fence and snatching a picture, then running away again to avoid the roostertail of muddy spray.

On our way back down to the main showground, we bought a couple of cheeseburgers for a whopping £12 (That’s $24! For two burgers!) and made the mistake of adding a dollop of mustard to our buns. I don’t know where the English get their ideas about mustard, but this stuff was like eating fire! I saw one guy put a hearty portion on his burger, take a bite, and nearly choke before smearing it all off onto his plate, so apparently we weren’t the only ones to be taken by surprise.

There was more to see of the show, including lots of exhibits and shops near the paddock area, but our pants were starting to soak through and, let’s face it, we were pretty cold and miserable by this point. Plus we had a bit of a drive ahead of us to get to Salisbury, our destination for the night. Getting ourselves into the car without smearing mud everywhere took quite some doing; we didn’t really want to make a mess of the car only a day into our trip. We both managed to get our boots off and change into dry pants. My boots had completely soaked through so I turned the heat on full blast and put my frigid toes over the vents. We later heard that today's was the worst weather they had experienced in the 14-year history of the show.

It took us about ninety minutes to drive to the Cricketfield House Hotel on the outskirts of Salisbury. We stopped for gas a short ways down the road and found the hotel without too much trouble, although this time we had to rely more on Susie than on the directions I had printed off the hotel website, which didn’t make any sense at all. A cheerful older gentleman checked us in and helped us to our room – a “cottage style” place on the second floor, done in pretty floral prints with a springy bed, nice clean bathroom with tiny stand-up shower, and a view into the back garden. We decided to crash in our room and snacked on the leftovers from our breakfast rather than going into town for dinner. We unpacked everything we had brought with us today, washed out our mud-soaked pants in the shower and hung everything up to dry. Before turning in for the night, we watched a really interesting BBC program about the southern coast of Wales – which, naturally, was one of the places we would not be hitting on this trip.

23 June: Whatever You Do, Don't Go to Hastings

Happy Birthday to me! Yup, I turned 32 at precisely 1:06 this afternoon. I think it rather fitting that I celebrate my birthday by stepping onto British soil for the first time in my life – something I have looked forward to for at least a couple of decades…ever since I read the epic Arthurian tale The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and instantly fell in love with all things Medieval.

We were up at 6:30 a.m. and enjoyed the nice breakfast buffet (7 Euro each, but not a bad deal, with croissants, ham, cheese, yogurt, juice, and coffee). We packed up and checked out at 7:45 a.m., wading through a huge tour group of Americans and Brits who were waiting to board their bus. It was pouring rain again, but we made good time to Calais, arriving in almost exactly four hours, just as I had estimated. We stopped for gas about 100 km from Calais, then had to follow a crazy detour for the entrance to the EuroTunnel which required going way past the off-ramp, which was closed, and doubling back on the autoroute for several kilometers.

We finally approached the imposing line of gates but had to wait forever in what is supposed to be the efficient self-check-in line (for passengers with pre-purchased tickets) because someone in front of us was having trouble with the machine. When we finally got our turn, it was a breeze – just put in your credit card to identify your reservation, confirm your info, grab the paper hanger to put on your rearview mirror, and off you go! We were scheduled for the 13:50 train but we were early and were able to get on the 13:20 train for no extra charge. We followed the signs, expecting to see what they call the “terminal building” where we could stop and use the restroom, but instead found ourselves winding through a maze of lanes that ended at the passport control booth. Apparently there is now officially a little chunk of English land in France and vice versa, so they can handle border security before you actually get on the train. We drove up to a window on the passenger side and I handed our passports to the British immigration officer. He asked me how long we would be in the U.K. and I said two weeks. Then he asked where we live, and I said, “Well, right now we live in Stuttgart.” He didn’t bat an eye but said, in that quintessentially British way, “And why is that?” as if he couldn’t imagine why a couple of Americans would possibly want to live in Germany. I almost laughed but managed to say with a straight face, “My husband here works for DaimlerChrysler.” Apparently that was an acceptable explanation, as he waved us through.

We found ourselves heading through another maze of lanes, and before we knew it we were in the line to get onto the train. So much for our potty break! We drove down a long ramp towards the train (photo, right), which looked a bit like a long silver double-decker bus, except with smaller windows, being pulled by a high-speed train locomotive. The platform is exactly even with the bottom level of the train, so you literally drive right on board. We didn’t see how you drive onto the upper level, as they weren’t loading cars on top; apparently the EuroTunnel has not been as popular as anticipated (probably because it’s so darn expensive!) and the trains are rarely, if ever, full. We drove forward through several compartments before coming to a stop. Each compartment holds three or four cars front to back. You are instructed to put on your parking brake, and standing between cars while the train is underway is forbidden, in the unlikely event that a car rolls or the train comes to a screeching halt. A woman came through and shut a set of metal doors that roll down between the carriages. I wanted to get some stuff out of the trunk for our lunch but we started moving before I had the chance, so we just sat back to enjoy the ride.

The 30-minute trip went by in a flash and, aside from being much bumpier than I expected, was quite uneventful. You can’t see a thing out the windows and you never even get a glimpse of the Channel because the stations on either end are quite a ways inland. (We met some Americans in Edinburgh who were talking about going from London to Calais just to say they had been on the EuroTunnel. John told them they would be better off saving their money, driving their car into their garage, closing the door, having a couple of people shake the car from side to side for half an hour, then driving out.)

John had volunteered to be the first guinea pig to drive on the wrong side of the road. (Honestly he just didn’t want to navigate, because he gets carsick when he has to read maps.) As we set out onto the motorway we passed a little sign that reminded us to drive on the left, fahren links in German. It was still quite early in the afternoon so we decided to take the scenic route along the southern coast of England rather than heading towards London on the motorway and then cutting south as our directions told us to do. It was a terribly odd feeling for everything to be backwards – on and off ramps switched, the left lane being the fast lane, etc. We headed through lush farmland and pastures filled with fluffy white sheep. (Oh the sheep! Little did we know how many sheep we were going to see on this trip.) The road was narrow and twisty, sometimes flanked on either side by high hedge rows, occasionally making ninety-degree turns as we skirted a field or pasture. John was happy. We drove through the picturesque towns of Rye and Wichelsea, full of quaint stone cottages and tiny gardens overflowing with early summer blooms.

We decided to stop at William the Conqueror’s castle at Hastings. We found the town to be much as it is described in Fodor’s – a “run-down resort town” with a rather depressing stretch of gravelly beach and a long row of tacky souvenir shops and greasy restaurants along the waterfront. We had a little trouble figuring out where to park and wound our way through the old town for ten minutes before making it back to the shore and a big public carpark. Unfortunately the parking machine only took change and all we had were paper pound notes that I had gotten at Commerzbank in Stuttgart, so I ran across the street to break a bill by buying a crappy $3 ice cream cone. I came back and put £3 ($6) in the machine for three hours of parking. (I would grow to despise the pre-paid parking lots in England, as you have to guess beforehand how long you think you will be gone.) We ate our lunch of crackers and cheese at a picnic table on the beach, but it was incredibly windy so it was hard to enjoy the sunny weather. Then we headed out in search of a route up to the castle, which looked to be no more than a smattering of ruined walls perched on a rocky cliff overlooking the town (photo, right).

We found “Castle Hill Road,” which sounded promising, but there were no signs to speak of for the castle until we were almost at the top of the hill. Then we found the narrow dirt track to the castle completely blocked by service vehicles, so we went around the long way and came out on an open field on top of the cliff with a view out over Hastings (photo, right) and the castle ruins. Getting into the castle itself (or what little remains of it) would have cost us $15 so we turned back and just looked at the ruins from afar. We couldn't believe how run-down the entire site was - this was William the Conqueror's fortress for goodness' sake! I hardly expected a reconstructed castle, but the whole place was dingy and littered with trash. From our vantage point we could see a large amusement complex along the shore, complete with go-kart track, trampolines, mini-golf course, and carnival rides. We followed a sign leading back down the hill to the old town, only to find ourselves walking down a narrow concrete staircase that stank of urine and rotting garbage. We saw the word “poopie” graffitied in green letters on the wall, which pretty much described our impression of Hastings. At the bottom we came across a guy stumbling up the stairs who insisted that he had not had too much to drink, then we walked through a dark, unpleasant passageway that emptied us out on a street lined with video game parlors and a casino. It was all so gross; we just wanted to get out of there.

We made our way back to the car park and went out to sit on the pebbly beach for a little while. It was so windy that we could feel the sea spray on our faces even from fifty feet away. Around 3:45, having used less than two hours of our parking allotment, we got back in the car and set the navi for Lancing, a small college town near Chichester. Our hotel, the Sussex Pad (which I had found with great difficulty because all of the hotels in the vicinity of the Goodwood Festival of Speed were apparently booked months ago) was the only hotel listed in the navi for Lancing. We plugged in the address and happily left Hastings behind.

Take it from us: if you are ever in southeastern England, you can give Hastings a pass.

It was about an hour’s drive through more rolling green countryside, skirting Brighton, to Lancing. I spotted the Sussex Pad Hotel just off to the right side of the A27 and we had no trouble getting there. John had done really well so far – he only started drifting over to the curb once! The Sussex Pad is a perfectly acceptable two-star hotel; We checked in and found our room, the “Moet Chandon” (all the rooms are named after Champagnes) to be traditionally and comfortably furnished, with an aging but serviceable bathroom. We hung out for a while, watching episodes of “The Weakest Link” and England’s very popular “Quiz Show” on the telly.

We went down to dinner at about 7:45 and were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the hotel's dining room and its menu. It was my birthday, after all, so we decided to celebrate. For starters, John had Scottish smoked salmon and I had a crab salad with crème frâiche, cucumber, and walnut dressing. Then we both had langoustine ravioli with steamed spinach and a pepper sauce. For dessert, John had chocolate bread pudding with molten banana filling and malt ice cream and I had a trio of crème brulées (ginger, orange, and pistachio). Everything was uniformly tasty. After dinner we settled our hotel bill, since we would be leaving early in the morning, then headed out the door intending to take a short walk. A guy who had been sitting at the bar saw us leaving and asked if we needed anything. We told him we thought we would walk to the nearby Lancing College chapel but he said the path was closed at night. He pointed out a mown trail that we could take behind the hotel to get a nice view of the chapel. The path took us past the hotel’s helicopter landing pad (there was even a helicopter parked there, probably some rich car aficionado attending tomorrow’s show) and, at the top of a grassy hill, the promised view of the elegant Gothic chapel, all lit up against the night sky, was quite stunning.

We have a big day tomorrow: the much-anticipated Race Day at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, one of the most famous car shows in the world.

22 June: Off on Our Grand Tour of Britain

Aack! Where did the week go? I drove Mom to Frankfurt on Monday morning; it was a rather rushed goodbye since we had just gotten back from Rome the night before. Other than a Wednesday afternoon German lesson with Stefanie, I spent the last four days running around the house like a banshee trying to get everything in order for our two-week jaunt through t Britian. All I can say is, we’re lucky to be traveling in our E-Class, which has the largest trunk I’ve ever seen (I swear you could fit several full-sized adults in there), because when I pack in a hurry I tend to over-pack. Nevertheless, I still had a huge list of things to do when our departure date finally arrived.

I drove John to work this morning because his office is going on an outing today to visit the Technik Museum in Speyer. He found out about this trip a few weeks ago, which put a wrench in our departure plans since he was originally going to come home early so we could drive to Metz this evening, giving us a jump-start on the long trek to England. We agreed that it was important for him to go on the office field trip because it’s supposed to be one of those “morale-boosting” outings, so we decided that I would drive to Speyer (about 90 minutes north of Stuttgart) and pick him up in the later afternoon, then we would continue on our way to Metz. All he would miss would be the final group dinner at the end of the day. Of course this meant that John had to be completely packed last night and it was up to me to get everything loaded in the car and get myself out of the house on time to pick him up. Knowing my track record on leaving for anything on time, all I can do is chuckle.

After taking John to work I came home, walked the dog, vacuumed, did my Kehr Woche sweeping duties, drove Cody out to the Tierhotel, drove home, got on the computer to write a few emails and send our itinerary to our parents, then took Scotty to the Katzenpension. I got there at about 12:15 (only fifteen minutes late!), just as another couple was arriving. I think they were just there to check out the place because they didn’t have a cat with them and didn’t pick one up. Frau Stäbler invited me in and we went upstairs, where I filled out a registration form (I only had to look up a couple of words – including the one for “gender”!), while a very friendly black-and-white kitty hopped up on the table and kept walking all over my paperwork and butting himself up against my arm, begging to be petted. Then Frau Stäbler ushered me into one of the smaller rooms and left me there for a couple of minutes while she showed the other people out. She came back and seemed surprised that I hadn’t let Scotty out of his carrier yet. I let him out while she extricated a cat from one of the holes in the cat tree and put him in the other room. Scotty had been growling in his carrier and continued to do so as he wandered around checking out his new territory. He jumped into one of the holes in the cat tree and sat in there and growled some more. We left him and I just had to hope for the best. Frau Stäbler gave him some of the food I had brought, assured me that Scotty would be fine, and showed me out the door.

I got back to the house at 1:00 and still had a long list of stuff to do…empty the dishwasher, empty the fridge, update our finances, write a thank you note to Micato (they recently sent me a gorgeous book about Africa in gratitude for my Elephant Express blog), pack the cooler, take the trash out, fold the laundry hanging in the basement, and of course finish packing my own suitcase! John called at 2:15 to say they had arrived at the Technik Museum. I told him that I thought I would be ready to leave in twenty minutes, but I didn’t actually start up the car until nearly an hour later.

If you had told me two years ago that I would willingly hop in a car and drive alone to a strange city in a foreign country to pick up my husband at a museum that I had never been to before, I probably would have laughed in your face. But frankly, armed with our trusty navi Susie, a printout of the directions from the museum website, and my cell phone, I felt pretty confident. Unfortunately I ran into bad traffic from the start, even though I avoided the construction on the A8 by taking the A81-to-A6 route via Heilbronn. I drove in heavy traffic all the way to Speyer, so I kept in touch with John to keep him updated on my progress. It was raining off and on the whole way, and just as I arrived at the museum it started to sprinkle. I found John (who was very happy to see me before he got soaked) at the museum entrance without any trouble. On the way out of town we drove right past the famous Speyer Dom, so at least I can say I’ve seen it from the outside.

We headed on towards Metz, making one brief detour to find a Shell station before leaving Germany (so we could charge 80 Euro of gas to Mercedes and head into France with a full tank). It took us about two hours to get to our hotel in Metz. There were some serious rain squalls en route and incredibly dramatic clouds. We accidentally followed Susie’s instructions instead of paying attention to my directions from the hotel website, so we took the “scenic” route right through the middle of Metz. Let’s just say Susie will usually get you where you want to go, but she isn’t the brightest bulb in the pack when it comes to deciding which is better: busy surface streets at rush hour or the autoroute that circles ‘round the city.

We checked in at the Hotel Ibis Metz Nord with a nice lady who made my day by complimenting me on my French. Our room was very spartan and a bit lacking in the towel department, but for 51 Euro, you can hardly expect luxury and it was exactly what we needed for a quick overnight. We had dinner in the nearly empty hotel restaurant. I had a perfectly decent entrecôte et frites (steak and fries) and a glass of Bordeaux and John had a Salade Nicoise and a glass of Chardonnay. We turned in early, planning to get off to an early start for Calais and the EuroTunnel.

17 June: Arrivederci, Bella Roma!

We rolled out of bed around 8:15, had breakfast, and went out to get some cash at the ATM to pay our hotel bill. I wanted to take a final look at the art vendors in Piazza Navona but didn’t see anything that called to me. Paolo was there again so we went over to say hi; Mom got his card because she wanted to remember his name. We went back to the hotel to check out and had a nice chat with one of the men who works at the front desk. We suggested that our room could use a mirror over the dressing table; this would have made it easier for us both to get ready to go out. We also mentioned that Mom could have used some help with her suitcase when we arrived. We were very friendly and polite about both issues and the man was really nice about it, apologizing for the suitcase oversight and telling us that he would pass the mirror suggestion on to the owners. I told him that I would give them a glowing review on Trip Advisor.

We left our luggage at the hotel and decided to spend our morning back at the bookstore near Largo di Torre Argentina, looking for books about Roman history, but finally decided to do some more research before buying anything. Mom bought a couple of books for the flight home, including one about expats living in Rome.

We walked over to Giolitti, which Elizabeth had told us was the best gelateria in Rome, and splurged on four flavors each. (Actually we bought medium-sized cups only to discover that they were pathetically small; we went back to the cashier and upgraded to the large size!) Mom had green melon, pink grapefruit, raspberry, and lemon and I had pink grapefruit, cantaloupe, peach, and limoncello. It was refreshing and delicious; pink grapefruit wins the prize!

I bought my requisite tacky Rome magnet near the Pantheon. For the last time, we passed the huge, bowl-shaped fountain that had been our guiding landmark every night on our way back to our hotel. We retrieved our luggage from the reception and rearranged our things while waiting for our driver to arrive. He came promptly at 2 p.m. and drove us to the airport in style in a silver Mercedes E-Class. We took a different route out of the city than before, passing right in front of St. Peter’s. We grabbed a quick snack at the airport and bought some pasta, porcini, salami, and parmesan as a treat for John before boarding our flight home to Stuttgart.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have seen Rome twice in one year. My previous two visits have been in December, so I was thrilled to see Rome in the summertime as I have often imagined it: warm-hued stucco baking in the hot sun under brilliant blue skies, ancient stone walls overflowing with brilliant fuschia bouganvilla vines, grand piazzas crammed with artists and performers, long warm nights spent basking in the golden glow of dancing fountains…it was everything I had imagined, and more. I am not a lover of big cities, but I find Rome’s vivid mix of ancient history and modern vibrancy totally, completely intoxicating. I am in love with this city, and I will be back!