Bob & Betty go British

Dorset discoveries

This weekend just gone we took a train ride 100 miles south west of London to Dorset. Simone was kind enough to have us stay with her in Gillingham and was kind enough to ferry us around to see lots of old things. We saw ruins, castles, gardens and old houses.

The train trip was reasonably pleasant after the first hour and we managed to get a seat in the air conditioned carriage (we spent the first hour standing in the doorway with sweat dripping off us). I was curious as to how fast we were going considering you couldn't even read the station signs as they wizzed past. We played a lot of games of sudoko in the 2 hour trip (yes, Robert has finally convinced me that suduko is almost fun - at least it is fun on the palm pilot when you can ask it to check for mistakes).

On Saturday morning we had a leisurely cooked breakfast of blue eggs (just the shells, not the egg yolks) and Dorset bacon. Then we set off to Sherborne. Sherborne is a nice little village which has a 1300 year old Abbey. If I remember rightly, the site has had some sort of church on it for 1300 years, but I doubt that the entire church has been there for that long. We also checked out the market and bought some olives before having lunch at a cafe. It being a perfect summers day, we sat outside in the courtyard.

After lunch we went to find the old Sherborne castle. This castle was destroyed after an 11 day siege and was a favourite castle of many kings and queens throughout the ages. At some point in history someone decided to built a new castle with the view of the old ruined castle being terribly romantic. We didn't go to the new castle but did take a photo from the old castle.

For dinner we went to the local pub - The Dolphin. A long way from the water in North Dorset, but I guess it's that whole hippy/dolphin thing or something. When we got home we had Rose wine from Waitrose (the highbrow organic English supermarket that even Madonna frequents) and played our own version of a boardgame called 'Articulate' and giggled a lot.

On Sunday we visited Stourhead House and Gardens. Created by a crazy Englishman who on return from his grand tour of Europe wished to recreate one of those Italian landscape paintings. I have to say he did a pretty good job. We viewed the house, the herb garden and took a turn about the lake which was quite amazing. I put lots of photos up on Flickr. The one above looks like we could be anywhere in Europe.

So now it's back to work for another week and then off to Vienna and The Czech Republic on Sunday to see the Brno Motorcycle Grand Prix. Looking forward to taking lots more photos.

I know I've been rather slack not writing for a whole week. But aside from finding some authentic Sydney-style yum cha and catching up with Carolyn and Scott on Monday night in Wimbledon, we didn't really do too much. Still, bigger adventures to follow...stay tuned :-)

posted by Elisabeth @ 9:55 PM