6/20/17 – A three horn day

Sunday found us on the road leaving Stratford-on-Avon towards the Costco at Coventry. Our intent was to drive by Warwick Castle for a photo opportunity. It is another iconic English Castle that has been restored and is now owned by Madame Tussaud’s. It has re-creations of different periods of the castle’s history and the entry fee was a lot steeper than we cared to pay. We asked Tammy/Theresa to direct us to the castle which she did with great alacrity. We were hoping for our approach to be via the river side where, if memory serves me correctly, the view is magnificent. Instead we went through the town and along the historic castle approach with beautiful old buildings lining the roadway towards castle keep. Then we took a wrong turn trying to find that photo view. We gave up and continued onward to Costco.
Bottom line is we have no photos to show the beautiful castle at Warwick.
We were on major roads that were busy with cars in a hurry to get home and prepare for the work week (we presume). The major roads had roundabouts with four lanes and directional traffic lights as well as four to six exit opportunities. It took a lot of concentration to keep all those variables in mind as well as to remember to drive on the left.
On the whole, Bruce has been an exceptional driver, but today we managed a three horn day. It seemed like every time we entered one of the complex roundabouts we pissed off some driver and were honked at. We fear we’re giving the Dutch a bad name.
We reached Costco around 11:30 and were amazed to see a half empty parking lot. British Costco’s are laid out identical to the American ones only they have British products – and we were so amused to see the misspelling of Tyre Centre on the side of the building.

As always, we found a few items we felt in need of and we had to have the £1.50 hot dog for lunch. While the deal is the same, our American Costco hot dogs are ever so much better.

We were still making our way towards North Yorkshire Dales and the Wednesday meeting about the awning room. Along the way was the Peak District. In all the years I have heard of Britain’s Peak District, it never once crossed my mind to equate the name with mountain peaks. There are four peaks in England that are higher than 4000 feet, so to our mind the Peak District is full of foothills. It is as lovely as reputed with rolling hills and exposed cliffs of limestone. Dry rock walls sliced across great open fields dividing them into sheep and cattle paddocks.

Monday we revisited Chatsworth Stately Mansion, staying at the Caravan Club on the grounds of the estate. We walked to the mansion in hopes of visiting the gardens but were foiled by high entry fees which we would have paid had we never seen them, but we have, so we didn’t. We remember that Europe (including the UK) requires entry fees everywhere (our reason for joining the English Heritage) and we are picking and choosing our sights. We did go through the stables, now a restaurant/gift shop and walked among ranging sheep on our way to and from the campground. The estate is several hundred acres of landscaping, designed by the famous 18th century landscape architect, Capability Brown. It’s fascinating to think of an architect planning out a design and planting trees and hedges and gardens, all the while knowing they will not reach maturity for 100+ years.

Six miles up the road from Chatsworth is the village of Eyam, famous for sacrificing 1/3 of its population to contain the bubonic plague within its town limits. The 1665 plague outbreak reached Eyam in September through a shipment of wool. As people began to die, the populous chose to isolate themselves in order to stop the spread of the disease. After 14 months the plague had run its course taking 253 local victims. Several houses – the plague homes – are still occupied. The parish church – St. Lawrence – dates from the 14th century and is surrounded by gravestones so worn by time as to be unreadable. A Celtic Cross from the 8th century is on the church grounds.

The whole town is built of stone with the exception of one building made of brick. Originally an inn known as The Stag’s Parlour, it became a residence in 1878, almost 200 years ago. I don’t know how long the building stood as an inn.
We left Eyam to continue our drive through the Peak District countryside. We traveled back roads working our way to Sheffield where we picked up the M61 highway in order to make better time to our destination: Settle, in the Yorkshire Dales.

6/21/17 – Settle

We bought the Safari Room to attach to our awning, doubling our enclosed living space. This will come in handy when we stay in one spot for several days, and most especially this winter when we hope to stay put for several weeks at a time. Now all we have to do is get efficient at putting it up and taking it down.