Trip Report: Mother-Daughter Trip to England, September 2022

Pre-Departure, arrival in the UK, and Bath

We flew Delta from Minneapolis to London on September 8th. Yes, that is the day the Queen died. Our flight left at 5:30 PM, only a few hours after they announced her death. On top of the uncertainty about what that would mean for our trip, I’d also had an unfortunate bike accident the previous Monday, resulting in a slight crack in the radial bone of my left arm below the elbow (fortunately I’m right-handed). The injury was not overly painful, but I had limited mobility in that arm for several weeks. It generally just caused an added layer of complication/inconvenience, especially on transport days, since I couldn’t lift my suitcase easily and my mom had to manage both our bags on trains/planes. In retrospect, I think the universe was watching out for me when I decided to invite my mom along!

Our flight departed on time, and we arrived in London with no incident about 7:30 on the 9th. They’ve updated the immigration checkpoint to a digital scanner since I last flew through London in 2015, and so we were through immigration by 8:30. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it went! Since the direct National Express bus to Bath wasn’t leaving until almost 11, we decided to take the Heathrow Express to Paddington and catch a train to Bath from there.

After checking into our B&B in Bath (the Brooks Guesthouse, well-known to RS travelers!), we headed into the town center for a Blue Badge Guide walking tour. We hadn’t booked before leaving the States, but we realized on the train to Bath we’d be able to make it in time and figured it would be a good way to stay awake! It was an excellent tour-the guide walked us around and explained the historical aspects of the city, all the way back to when Bath was known as “Aquae Sulis.” After the tour we walked down to the Parade Gardens, for which the entry fee had been waived because it was the designated place for people to bring flowers for the queen.

We also went into Bath Abbey, which was open for “prayer and reflection” in memory of the queen, but no photos allowed.
(A side note-since our trip didn’t take us to London until after the queen’s funeral, we experienced minimal disruption through the trip. In all honesty, with places like Bath Abbey, Christchurch Cathedral and York Minster closed to tourists but open for prayer and reflection, I felt like we were actually able to enjoy and appreciate the buildings for their original purpose, and not as a tourist attraction.)

On our first full day in Bath, (after meeting some Rick Steves Best of England trip participants at breakfast!) we started out by watching the Jane Austen promenade on Pulteney Street, an event associated with the Jane Austen festival that just so happened to be occurring at the same time as our trip. This English Lit major was in her own version of heaven :-D. We spent several hours at the Roman Bath complex, and highly enjoyed the audio guide commentary by Bill Bryson. And we enjoyed our first cream team of the trip, at Sally Lunn’s Bakery! Teatime became one of our favorite things to do for a chance to sit and rest our feet. We ended the day with a walk along the Kennett and Avon Canal towards Bathampton (as recommended by Rick), dinner at a pub in Bathampton and a taxi back to our B&B.

Day two in Bath took us to the museum at 1 Royal Crescent, which, fittingly enough, had a Jane Austen exhibit running during the festival. I’d just read “Persuasion” and seen “Emma” at the Guthrie in Minneapolis this summer, so I was digging all things Austen. We also stopped for a bit at the Assembly Rooms, and it was fun to imagine the young people in Austen’s novels dancing the night away!

On our walk to the museum from our B&B, we walked through Victoria Park and behind some townhomes that had gates leading into their gardens. My mom commented that it felt like the Secret Garden-mystical and magical!

Bath cont'd...

That afternoon, we decided to take a hike up to Prior Park Gardens. We had planned to take the bus up, but we missed it. Since the next one wasn’t coming for half an hour we decided to walk-in hindsight probably not the best idea, because, while it’s not a terribly long walk mileage wise (only a little over a mile), half of that is a steep, steep climb. We made it, but the bus we would have taken had we waited passed us as we approached the apex of the hill. Whoops…

Despite the challenging climb, the gardens were lovely. If you take the correct path, you can find a point with great views overlooking the city. They’ve also recently finished work on restoring a Palladian bridge, and it felt like something out of a movie set. I almost imagined the Crawley family might come out with their servants to have an outdoor luncheon (but they wouldn’t have been sprawled on the grass like we were!)

We didn’t get back down the hill in time to attend the Evensong service at Bath Abbey, but I ended up going back myself to an informal service later that evening while mom rested. It was a nice, calm and peaceful way to end the day.

Next stop-Oxford!

We took much the same trip as you in 2029 except we went to Cambridge not Oxford. Enjoyed revisiting Bath with you and looking forward to more.

Oxford, Including a day trip to the Cotswolds and Blenheim Palace

Oxford, of course, felt completely different than Bath. When we visited, term time was still a few weeks away, so the student crowds were lower, but it was still very obvious that the University has a significant impact on the overall vibe of the city.

On the train, we spoke with a local woman, and it was interesting to get her perspective on the queen “situation” (basically, in her mind, it was a definite transition for the country, but the BBC gave a skewed perspective that every person in the country was in full-blown mourning, even as life just continues for most people.) These are the moments I value while traveling-getting an on-the-ground perspective about peoples' lives.

Our first afternoon, we took a walking tour with a local guide (fascinating to learn that, had the Germans defeated the Brits in WWII, Oxford would have been the capital, and Hitler would have used Blenheim Palace as his British headquarters!), and a lovely walk around Christchurch College Meadows along the River Thames and Cherwell. It was also fun to see members of what appeared to be a crew team on the Thames!

The next day, we spent the morning back at Christchurch, doing an audio guide walking tour. The cathedral was closed for the tour, but we were able to see places like the cloisters, great hall, and the main “Tom” quad. I’m not ashamed to admit that I greatly enjoyed seeing where several Harry Potter scenes were filmed :-D. A cheap lunch of handheld pasties from the Oxford covered market followed, and then I climbed the tower of St. Mary’s University Church for some great views of the city (alone, since my mother hates heights and those twisty stone staircases)! We rounded out the afternoon at the Grand Café for tea-they argue with the shop across the street as to which is the “oldest” café in Oxford!

While we were in Oxford we did a day trip to the Cotswolds through the organization Go Cotswold Tours. Since we didn’t want to feel like we were just being shuttled around to a million different villages, we opted for the “Cotswold Walks and Village, which only hit three different villages, but also included hiking through the countryside. We visited the towns/villages of Broadway, Swinbrook and Burford, encountered many sheep (including the famous “Cotswold Lion” that made the region wealthy), had some tasty apples freshly picked from a tree and offered to us by a local resident, and saw some churches that had been built as far back as the 12th century. It was a great way to get out into the countryside and see a part of the Cotswolds that most tourists don’t get a chance to see. We clocked over 25,000 steps on this day!

Finally, our last day based in Oxford, we spent much of the day at Blenheim Palace. My first thought upon walking through the entrance arch was “And people actually still live here?” It’s stunning and beautiful and ostentatious and grand and all sorts of superlatives. I enjoyed seeing artifacts and paintings connected to Consuelo Vanderbilt and Winston Churchill, including a painting exhibition of Churchill and the artist Paul Maze. That exhibition also included video footage from Churchill’s funeral in the 1960s, which was the last state funeral held in the UK. Since we were seeing all the pageantry going on with the queen, it felt oddly familiar and a bit surreal to realize the history we were living through.

The gardens at Blenheim were generally past peak, but the rose gardens still had some nice blooms. And we enjoyed a lovely walk along the lake before catching the bus back to Oxford for the rest of the day. That evening we went to Evensong at Christchurch, which was satisfactorily intimate and a good opportunity to breathe a bit after a hectic few days!

The next day we were off to York!

Linnae, lovely trip report! I've enjoyed reading it and it sounds like you are having a wonderful time!

These are the moments I value while traveling-getting an on-the-ground
perspective about peoples' lives.

Well said. We were in England in September as well and that feet-on-the-ground perspective was interesting when it came to discussions about the Queen.

Great report, I look forward to more. And I was glad to read about Go Cotswolds Tours. A few years ago we took a similar van tour from Oxford with a company that went out of business later. It was fine, though somewhat rushed, and I've wondered if anyone had come along to fill the void. While the Go Cotswolds tours start in Moreton-in-Marsh, that's a short train trip from Oxford. From the website it looks like they offer a good choice between driving tours (like we took) and tours featuring walking (quality over quantity). Good to know there are day tours reachable from Oxford again.

I'm looking forward to your next posts. On to York!

City of York

I’m not sure if it was the medieval character, the Yorkshire accents, or something else, but York became my favorite city very quickly! I was also in the middle of reading James Harriot’s “All Creatures Bright and Beautiful,” so that may have played into it as well 😊. After an easy train ride from Oxford and checking into our B&B, the Dairy Guesthouse, we spent our first afternoon walking the old city walls and enjoying our first Yorkshire tea. We wandered through the Shambles, had our first glimpses of York Minster, and enjoyed Thai food for dinner (I highly recommend Rosa’s Thai restaurant!)

The morning of our first full day, we went back to York Minster. Even though we couldn’t take photos inside, we sat in chairs under the nave for awhile, just pondering this massive expanse and the beauty of the vaulting in the ceiling. To think these structures were built without electric tools over centuries! A true testament to their faith even though the majority of them would never see the finished product.

We did a walking tour through the Association of Voluntary Guides that morning. Our guide was named Barry; he was probably in his late 70s and had a think Yorkshire accent. He loved history and archeology, so we got a great overview of the city all the way back to Roman times! I think it helped that we’d done a bit of wandering the day before, just to give us a bit more context to where we were walking (which wasn’t necessarily the case for the two previous city tours we’d done, where we basically landed in town, dropped our bags, and went to meet the tour).

After lunch we went over to the Jorvik museum. A bit kitschy? Yup! Worth it? Absolutely! We’d debated whether to do Jorvik or the Yorkshire Museum, and settled on Jorvik just because it seemed more “fun,” and we’d done more serious, “high-brow” museums in Bath and Oxford. The animatronics were amusing, and I found myself grinning through most of it. And the exhibition afterwards showing some of the 40,000 artifacts they’d found during the archeological dig in the ‘80s was interesting as well.

Later in the afternoon we had tea and cake at Betty’s Team Room, which kept us going through the Evensong service at York Minster. That service was not nearly as intimate as the one at Christ Church; we both agreed that we preferred our experience in Oxford. While the choir was lovely, we couldn’t really see them from our vantage point, and the music selections were quite long (I think the first Psalmody was almost 10 minutes!) But still, Evensong at one of the largest churches in the UK is nothing to sneeze at! And standing among the crowd of Brits singing “God Save the King” is definitely one of my “become a temporary local” highlights.

York continued:

On our second full day in York, we visited Clifford’s Tower and the York Castle Museum. The museum was worthwhile, giving a good picture of life in York primarily during the Victorian era. And I actually got my mother to climb Clifford’s Tower, since they’ve built a new catwalk system meaning fewer spiral stone steps to climb 😊. It was a good way to see views over the city, including York Minster from a distance. The afternoon was spent wandering the Shambles, doing a bit of shopping, and finishing our walk on the city walls. This last stretch brought us right to the front of the Minster, and the views were incredible! We finished that walk shortly before the 4 p.m. commemorative service for the queen was going to start, so we decided to attend that, which was again a good “local” experience and a chance to see the Brits acknowledge their long-time queen and new king.

Our last event in York was food-related. I’m really not a foodie, but I knew I wanted to find a Sunday roast while we were in Yorkshire. We found a pub called the Mason’s Arms, and they delivered! Mom and I each got the “half” portion of the roast, and we probably could have split the half and still had enough to take home! Roast beef smothered in gravy, three kinds of potatoes, peas, carrots, and of course, Yorkshire Pudding. I don’t take pictures of every meal, but this one you bet I did! We also spoke to a few other travelers who were also dining in this pub, one from New York who had come over for the queen’s funeral and a mother/adult son from Australia. Even if the conversations weren’t super long, it was fun to connect with other travelers for a short while.

Our next stop took us farther north, up to Whitby on the North Sea!

Thank you for a wonderful trip report!

Loved hearing about your time in York as I’ll be there in May.

Whitby, England

Back when I was planning out my itinerary for this trip a year ago, someone on the RS forum had mentioned the Cleveland Way hiking path, specifically the portion of the route between Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay. As I researched a little more about Whitby, I immediately knew it was a place I wanted to visit! I also learned along the way that Dracula was partially set in Whitby, so I included it on my pre-travel reading list 😊.

September 19th was our travel day from York to Whitby, which was also the day of the queen’s funeral. We briefly tried to connect to wi-fi and watch some of the service on the BBC, but cell phone reception was poor. That was fine, as we could watch coverage of the service later, but we wouldn’t be able to re-watch the train ride! We were afforded fine views of the moors and some of the small, picturesque stations along the Esk Valley rail line.

We stayed at the Number 7 Guesthouse in the West Cliff area, which, to my delight, was actually referenced in Dracula as the home of Dracula’s solicitor. We even stayed in the “Dracula Room” with a stunning view of the Whitby Abbey ruins. We spent our first afternoon walking along the pier, standing in line at what seemed to be the only fish and chips shop open that day (due to the bank holiday), and generally taking in the atmosphere of this seaside town. Throughout the afternoon it became more and more crowded (but never suffocatingly so), as locals from the area finished their funeral coverage watching and came out to enjoy the rest of their holiday. We had more moments of feeling like locals as we enjoyed our lunch of fish and chips, fended off seagulls and strolled along the beach as the tide went out. It was my first time seeing the North Sea, and it did not disappoint!

After our afternoon arrival, we only had the next day as our one full day in Whitby. Mom and I both wished we could have stayed longer! We started out the morning after breakfast by taking the Hop-on, Hop-off bus over to Whitby Abbey, since there was a pickup point right down the street from our B&B. We planned to start the Cleveland Way hike and see how far we could get, and we knew that climbing the 199 steps up to the Abbey from the sea would only shorten how far we could hike along the trail.

We spent an hour or so exploring the Abbey ruins and gift shop before hitting the hiking path. It was high tide during our walk, so the waves were just crashing into the cliffs! I was trying to think of any place in the USA where you could find a similar landscape, and was at a loss. You could possibly compare the scale of the cliffs themselves to the cliffs along Minnesota’s North Shore and Lake Superior, but the lake doesn’t have the same intense tidal activity. We saw lots of seagulls as we walked, all roosting on the rocks.

We hiked for about two miles before turning back, so even though we didn’t get to do the full walk to Robin Hood’s Bay, it was still a respectable distance and we got our steps in for the day! We walked down the 199 steps to the old town, much easier than going up 😊.

Whitby, continued

The highlight for the rest of the day was doing a full afternoon tea at a little tea shop in the old town. We had talked about doing afternoon tea in London, but the price was a deterrent. Whereas at a place like Fortnum and Mason it’s something like 65-70 GBP per person, this little shop gave us tea, enough sandwiches to take home, slices of cake and a scone to share, all for 20 GBP total. And while it wasn’t “fancy” like I imagine F&M would be, it felt more real and less “touristy.” There were a few other pairs having their own treats, in the same way I’d meet a friend for coffee in a coffee shop back home.

After that feast, we didn’t need supper! We were both tired and in need of a rest, so we headed back to the harbor area and caught the hop-on/hop-off bus back up to the West Cliff area and our B&B. Even though we only used it once at the beginning and once at the end of the day, avoiding the steep climbs was worth every penny!

The day ended in a slight disappointment, as I had planned to take one of the local ghost tour walks that evening. However, despite there being no mention of this on the tour website, it was a cash only tour. In the two weeks of our trip, this event and one other taxi ride were cash only, and everything else either required cardless payment or noted their strong preference for it. I had managed to spend down the 20 GBP I’d pulled from the ATM at the beginning of the trip (mainly by throwing money into donation boxes at churches) and was down to about 2 GBP. The guide was also not very friendly about it when I pointed out that the website didn’t state cash only, which added to the frustration. (I just checked again, and he’s actually added a note on his website about it being cash only, which was not there at the time of our trip. I guess my reviews on Trip Advisor and Google must have made him realize he should provide that clarification).

Whitby was a whirlwind, and it would have been fun to have another day to explore. But we were nearing the end of our journey. The next day we would head back to London for the final leg!

I’ve enjoyed reading your trip report, thanks!

Where did you stay while in Oxford?

Looking forward to reading about your time in London!

Priscilla, we stayed at a hotel called the Turl Street Mitre. It was in a great location right in the center of town! But compared to the B&B's that we stayed at in Bath, York, and Whitby, it lacked the personal touch that made those places so warm and friendly. It was also the only place that didn't serve breakfast. I'd definitely look for more of a B&B next time, but we did a decent amount of research and I'm not sure if those are even super common in Oxford.

Glad to see another York lover! People rave about London but my favorite city had to be York, perhaps because I stayed in a flat inside the city walls and perhaps because people there seemed a lot more friendly, even the shopkeepers than in London.

Heather, I loved the whole Yorkshire region and would love to spend more time there! The vibe was just more laid-back and friendly (I'll elaborate more on the comparison in my London recap). There is of course so much more that I want to see in London even after multiple trips, but when I go back again I'd love to stay a little more outside the city and not smack dab in the middle of the touristy areas. One of the big realizations of this trip was that I'm really glad I did a lot of the major European capitals in my late teens and twenties, because my patience for the crowds and long lines at the "must-see" sights has definitely worn thin as I've gotten older :-D.

Thanks for sharing this. I'm also planning to visit Yorkshire next year and fell in love with Whitby on a YouTube video, so hoping to be able to include it on my trip.

Roubrat, I definitely recommend trying to fit in two full days in Whitby, especially if you're interested in hiking. When the weather is nice there are short cruises out to the sea (too wavy while we were there), and railroad trips out into the moors. And the Cleveland Way hike could take a good half day if you did the whole walk to Robin Hood's Bay. But even one day is enough to give a taste!

Wonderful trip report. I enjoyed reading it immensely. These are all places I have been so they brought back great memories.

Like you, my husband and I have less tolerance for the noise and crowds and traffic of large cities than we did when we were younger. We much prefer smaller towns and villages now. We spent three weeks in northern England a few years ago and loved it. Whitby and Grassington were our favorite stops. Whitby offers so much to do for such a small town. I’d love to go back.

Such a great report! My friend also attended the Jane Austen Festival (and even attended a ball) which made me so jealous. Thanks so much for sharing!

Linnae,
Thanks for the information about the hotel in Oxford. I also like staying in B&Bs for the reasons you mentioned.
Enjoy your time in London!

Great intel. You reminded me I should revisit York. Haven’t been since the Thatcher years.

Always fun traveling away from city centers to smaller towns and villages.

Love England. Train transport. Same with busses
( coaches ) and when in London environs, the Tube.

Guess my appreciation of public transport is because here in the Land of La, cars rule. Its boring. I

London
And finally, to London! By now it was Wednesday, September 21st, so the queen’s funeral and all related pageantry was over. However, there were still visible signs of the event, from barricades and bleachers at major points along the funeral procession route, to Union Jacks lining the Mall towards Buckingham Palace (or maybe those are always there). There were still crews working on de-construction even into Friday.

But let’s back up just a bit. We had booked a taxi from Whitby to York, and then a train to London King’s Cross. We hadn’t been able to go hiking in North York Moors National Park, so fortunately the taxi ride took us right through the moors with beautiful views. We also had a driver who was more than willing to chat during the hour-long ride, giving us another opportunity to get a local perspective on life in the UK. Let’s just say that, from what I observed both in this conversation and through local media, there are a lot of similarities in the current socioeconomic and political situations of both countries right now. We can read the newspaper and watch the news, but being able to actually talk to someone living through it in another country helps drive the point home that the USA is not the only Western country wading through challenging times.

But I digress. This driver also kept referring to King Charles III informally as “Charlie,” which both my mom and I found amusing!
Upon arrival in London, you can bet that I dragged my mom around to the Platform 9 ¾ trolley to get my picture taken! The last time I came to London they hadn’t opened the Harry Potter shop yet, and it has become more of a production, with a defined queue and store workers there to take photos you can purchase (they also let you take your own). But the line wasn’t too long, and we were soon on our way to our hotel in the Westminster area, the Rochester.

We spent that afternoon walking through the parks around Buckingham Palace and nearby – St. James Park, Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington. We were both feeling sensory overload from all the crowds after the more relaxed pace of Yorkshire, so we found this approach helped us ease back into urban life a bit. We made friends with some ducks enjoying the Serpentine in Hyde Park, found the very simple Norwegian War Memorial, and sat to enjoy an ice cream treat as our feet started to give out. And of course, we marveled at the acres of floral tributes laid out for the queen. Row after row of bouquets, handwritten letters and drawings, Paddington Bears and corgi stuffed animals. By this point the flowers were definitely past peak (and would ultimately be taken away for composting in the next few days), but I’m glad we got to see in-person the scale of what we’d been seeing on the news for the last two weeks.

By the time we got back to our neighborhood Tube station (Victoria), we were pretty spent and overstimulated! We grabbed a quick dinner at an Italian chain called Zizzi’s (where we’d also eaten our first night in Bath) and headed back to the hotel. We were looking forward to what the next day would bring, especially seeing Les Mis at the Sondheim!

London continued

After breakfast the next morning, we headed over towards Westminster Abbey and Parliament Square. The Abbey was still closed to tourists, and in retrospect I wish we had tried to go in following the “prayer and reflection” guideline that was still being followed. But we had booked tickets for the next day, so we just wandered around the outside and then headed over to Westminster Bridge. Since there were no tourist lines that day, the photos we took of us standing outside the gates actually show the Abbey, and not crowds of people, which is a plus!

With only two days we knew we wouldn’t have time to see nearly everything we wanted to see, so we spent the morning following along with Rick Steves’ Westminster Walk. This took us up to Trafalgar Square, and on the way, we hit Horse Guard’s Parade shortly before their changing of the guard ceremony. It doesn’t have the same pomp and pageantry as the Buckingham Palace changing of the guard, but it’s much less crowded, much shorter, and still interesting to experience. And I got a kick out of the “horses may kick and bite” warning sign at the entrance gate :-D

We enjoyed a lovely lunchtime choral concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and wandered through Covent Garden. I was a bit disappointed in Covent Garden, because it seems to have gentrified significantly in the last 10 years since I last visited. There were many more luxury brand chain shops than I remember, along with the cheap tourist trinket stands, but not much in the middle as far as independent artisans. So we didn’t stay long, instead heading a bit further north to a shop I had read about online in my quest for a bone China teapot. I like to find one or two nicer physical souvenirs on my trips that feels representative of the country I’m visiting (e.g. Dala horse from Sweden, Delft porcelain vase from the Netherlands), and I found what I was looking for at Cosmo China, an independent art studio/shop a few blocks west of the British Museum. The trick would be packing it in my suitcase and getting it home safely!

The highlight of the day (and really of the trip) was seeing Les Mis at the Sondheim Theatre! Les Mis has been my favorite musical for years, and it’s been my dream to see it in the West End. Last time I went to London I was a broke college student, so I bought groundling tickets to the Globe instead, which is its own unique experience! We splurged a bit on our seats, sitting in the front row of the first balcony. It was such a great production! We chatted to a woman sitting next to us who commented that “there’s just something about a West End show,” and I agree-it just has a level of presence and polish that is hard to replicate elsewhere.

London Part 3

Finally, the last day of our trip arrived, and it ended up being a little crazier than I would have preferred. We had tickets for Westminster Abbey for 9:30 that morning (the first slot of the day) so we arrived about 9:20 and there was already a line. The doors didn’t even open until 9:45, and we didn’t get in until 10:00. Let’s just say it was on this day that I remembered how much I hate waiting in line, especially after pre-booking. We’d been so fortunate through this entire trip, and the longest we ever really had to wait was about 10 minutes for the Jorvik Museum.

We finally made it inside and followed the very comprehensive audio guide through the Abbey. I enjoyed seeing the musician graves/memorials (Elgar, Britton, Vaugh Williams) and of course, Poet’s Corner. The last time I went, I attended an Evensong service, and they do NOT let you linger at Westminster if you’ve come in for a service for free. So, this was my first time really getting to wander around. However, it was a stark contrast to the other churches and cathedrals we’d visited, where we were really able to appreciate them as sacred spaces of worship instead of just another tourist attraction.

We had talked about doing the Rick Steves walk through the City of London that afternoon, but mom and I were both feeling like we couldn’t handle anymore audio guides. So we ended up spending the afternoon doing some last minute shopping in Piccadilly and wandering through Kensington Gardens. A word of warning-the public restrooms on both the north and south end of the palace’s Broad Walk are permanently closed. They are shown on the maps in the park, but the closest open public restroom is all the way down on the other side of the Albert memorial.

By the time we had found a restroom, caught our breath, and made a plan for dinner, it was almost 6:30. We were tired, we still needed to pack, and our taxi was coming to pick us up for the airport at 6 a.m. I wish we’d had a bit more relaxing last day, but the hectic pace of London sort of did us in during the two and a half days we were there!

Whew, what a trip this was! I’m going to do one last wrap up/reflection post in the next few days, but it’s been super fun to recap everything and relive some of my favorite moments!

more, more, need more

Oh, Linnae! What a great trip report. I particularly enjoyed reading as I have traveled with my daughter to England and loved the opportunity, visited and loved most of the places you did and Les Miz is also my favorite musical and also the highlight of my stay in London. Thank you for posting here and like Nigel, I’d love to read more. You’re a terrific travel writer and I suppose that means you need to go on another trip!

Linnae, given your laudatory comments about Jane Austen, you might want to consider joining the Jane Austen Society of North America (jasna.org). It's a great group of people with regional chapters and lots of delightful events. I enjoyed reading your trip report and remembering my own adventures in York, Bath and London.

Thank you Linnae. Wonderful trip report. We’re hoping to head to Whitby next year and will definitely try the walk towards Robin Hood Bay.

It’s to bad that while you were in York you didn’t get up to Thirsk, where James Wight (aka James Herriot lived and worked), it’s 20 miles north of York.

I loved this report! I was in York this summer and took the same excellent tour (different guide but extremely knowledgeable) and loved the York Castle Museum. I missed the Jorvik - didn’t make a reservation and lines were way long…. :) Whitby also sounds wonderful - I just ran out of time…. :) But there is so much in that area to get back to.

And I will be in Oxford in a few weeks and think your days there sound lovely!

Thanks for taking me along with you!

Robin Z, I wish we could have gotten to Thirsk! Too much to see and not enough time! Next visit :-)

Thanks for posting such a well-written and entertaining trip report!

Did your tea pot make it home in one piece?

Final England Recap
How do you adequately sum up a trip where you saw so much, walked so much and came away with new perspectives? The blisters on my feet and the slightly lighter bank account all point towards an incredible two weeks. Now I’m back home, back to the daily routine, but of course the memories are forever. Is that cliché? Probably, but clichés usually have an element of truth to them.

Above all, I’m so glad I had this chance to travel with my mom again. It can definitely be challenging to travel with one person constantly for multiple weeks on end, and of course there are times when I can think “oh, I could have gone faster and seen [site XYZ] if I’d been on my own.” But looking back on the pictures and being able to recollect memories together is beyond worth it. I don’t know how many more chances we’ll have to travel internationally together, so I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity.

It also struck me more clearly on this trip how much I value that “close to the ground” type of travel. When we stayed in the B&B’s, it was so clear how the people running the place wanted us to feel like this was our home, and you know what? It did! The hotels we stayed at in Oxford and London were perfectly fine and adequate for our needs, but the vibe was totally different and less personal than what we experienced in Bath, York and Whitby. I would not hesitate to stay in any of the B&B’s again!

Thanks for your comments and encouragement as I wrap up this report. It’s fun to go back through my journal and review the highlights. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I can do another report. Who knows where that will be? Scotland, Switzerland and Iceland are definitely at the top of the list for international destinations, and I even found a copy of the Rick Steves Switzerland guidebook from the library the other day. I will never stop dreaming about new places I want to visit!

Absolutely, Linnae - we never stop dreaming about that next trip. And I have been the mom in the traveling pair and those trips will live in my heart till I die. I am sure your mom feels the same.