Tuesday 16/7/19
Our first day in Collingborne Kingston, Wiltshire, England and we wake up starving as we had missed dinner the night before by sleeping through it.
A quick aside: Yes i know this is not Ireland or Italy but it was too much to add England in the title as it is only 4 days anyway. So move on.
This is the Barleycorn Inn where we are staying.
It is a lovely pub in the countryside but is not close to anything. we are basically halfway between Marlborough and Salisbury. Not what we had been expecting but comfortable room and nice owners.
Today we were joined by friends Penny and David from Somerset whom we had met on the river cruise (see Gabby and Paul Europe blog). They came to join us for some sightseeing in the country and we hoped they might be able to show us around.
We decided to go to Avebury, an historic town and have nice lunch and drink (see previous blog re cruise).
As it turned out, they were not that familiar with this part of the country and the combination of dodgy GPS, confusion over how it works and poor back seat navigating, we got lost, took the long way around and generally saw more of the countryside than we had wanted to and more than once.
But we did get to Avebury and it was very pretty. It is an actual village where people live and work while bus loads of tourists park just outside the town and pay to walk through the village. A bit weird.
And would you believe we found more stones and henges. This time we were even able to touch them!
Next stop, another historic medieval village called Lacock which was very similar but older. Again there were cars and busloads of tourists parking (paid parking) in a special car park and then walking through the village where people were living, working and driving cars through it just like a normal village except for the hundreds of tourists walking everywhere and taking photos. Weird.
Due to the poor directions, we took a very long time to get to these places and by the time we got to Lacock we were all starving so our walk became a desperate search for food. The pubs were no longer serving food and neither were cafes apart from afternoon tea type food. Not good enough.
We left in disgust/hunger but feeling confident we would find food somewhere on our way back to the pub. We were wrong. Everywhere we went was no longer serving food and pubs along the way were shut. We did find a store which was a bit like a corner store and bought packaged sandwiches. Not what we had anticipated but saved us from starvation.
just a quick note about the truck carrying hay. As it went past hedges right on the road. the hay was sheared off and we were covered with hay rain.
Finally we returned to the Barleycorn and had a few drinks and a lovely dinner.
And we met the guy who was the reason for us being there in the first place. The boyfriend of the woman at Piggots Pharmacy whose name Paul does not even know. It was on her recommendation that we are here. Should one take an almost complete stranger's advice on where to stay? Hmm?
I think that either Marlborough or Salisbury would have been more convenient but it is a nice quaint pub with nice food. Not incredible however.
Our first day in Collingborne Kingston, Wiltshire, England and we wake up starving as we had missed dinner the night before by sleeping through it.
A quick aside: Yes i know this is not Ireland or Italy but it was too much to add England in the title as it is only 4 days anyway. So move on.
This is the Barleycorn Inn where we are staying.
Today we were joined by friends Penny and David from Somerset whom we had met on the river cruise (see Gabby and Paul Europe blog). They came to join us for some sightseeing in the country and we hoped they might be able to show us around.
We decided to go to Avebury, an historic town and have nice lunch and drink (see previous blog re cruise).
As it turned out, they were not that familiar with this part of the country and the combination of dodgy GPS, confusion over how it works and poor back seat navigating, we got lost, took the long way around and generally saw more of the countryside than we had wanted to and more than once.
But we did get to Avebury and it was very pretty. It is an actual village where people live and work while bus loads of tourists park just outside the town and pay to walk through the village. A bit weird.
And would you believe we found more stones and henges. This time we were even able to touch them!
Next stop, another historic medieval village called Lacock which was very similar but older. Again there were cars and busloads of tourists parking (paid parking) in a special car park and then walking through the village where people were living, working and driving cars through it just like a normal village except for the hundreds of tourists walking everywhere and taking photos. Weird.
Due to the poor directions, we took a very long time to get to these places and by the time we got to Lacock we were all starving so our walk became a desperate search for food. The pubs were no longer serving food and neither were cafes apart from afternoon tea type food. Not good enough.
We left in disgust/hunger but feeling confident we would find food somewhere on our way back to the pub. We were wrong. Everywhere we went was no longer serving food and pubs along the way were shut. We did find a store which was a bit like a corner store and bought packaged sandwiches. Not what we had anticipated but saved us from starvation.
just a quick note about the truck carrying hay. As it went past hedges right on the road. the hay was sheared off and we were covered with hay rain.
Finally we returned to the Barleycorn and had a few drinks and a lovely dinner.
And we met the guy who was the reason for us being there in the first place. The boyfriend of the woman at Piggots Pharmacy whose name Paul does not even know. It was on her recommendation that we are here. Should one take an almost complete stranger's advice on where to stay? Hmm?
I think that either Marlborough or Salisbury would have been more convenient but it is a nice quaint pub with nice food. Not incredible however.
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