Letter 16 from Europe RV trip

We found the campground in Lincoln with no trouble, and pulled into a place. It was Saturday, and the facility was packed, but there were a couple of spaces left. This is a city park but it has more than adequate facilities and will be very convenient for seeing the city.

On Sunday we opted to go to what turned out to be the largest flea market either of us had ever seen. We got there at 9 a.m. and left at 2:30 p.m. but hadn’t quite finished touring all the aisles. Of course we bought things. There were farmers with freshly dug potatoes (which are supposed to be better than what we normally get), cauliflower, sweet potatoes, carrots, and beans. Many of the vendors had books – and we picked up a number of booklets about various places in Britain. One farmer had delicious cherries for one pound a kilo ($1.85 for 2.2 pounds). Ron told her that was the only genuine bargain in Europe. But he tells that to many vendors.

The butcher stalls, operating our to refrigerated trucks, followed the old custom of hawking their goods. One of the men in each truck wore a microphone and kept shouting about what he had for sale. We came home with an assortment of things.

For those of you who may want to look at a map, here’s a description of our travels in England. We don’t have the ability to present a map of our route now, although we will post one when we get home. In the meantime, it may be helpful to describe our route. We started at Dover, on England’s east coast at about the same latitude as London. From there we traveled west toward London, first to Maidenhead and then southwest to Chartwell, and then north to London. When we left London we traveled southwest to Hampton Court at Kingston-upon-Thames. Then we continued further southwestward to Winchester and then northwest to Salisbury. We continued further northwest to the village of Crowcombe, Somerset, which is very near to the Bristol Channel, and southwest of Bath and Bristol. By the time we reached Crowcombe, we were close to England’s west coast. When we left Crowcombe we headed north to Gloucester and Tewksbury. As you know, we used the bus to get to Gloucester and back. When we left Tewksbury, we headed west to a small town called Ledbury, then further west to a campground near Hereford. After visiting Hereford by bus, we drove to a tiny village, Pembridge, northwest of Hereford. From Pembridge we visited other nearby towns: Weobly, Leominster, and Ludlow, all by RV. We left Pembridge intending to head straight east to Worcester to see its cathedral.

Of course, in the end we didn’t stay in Worcester. Instead we kept going east and then north to Lincoln. This city is just northwest of a bay called “The Wash” which is all the way over on England’s east coast. This leg of our trip in England was as long as the trip from Salisbury to Crowcombe – 3 ½ hours for our slow chariot. All the other hops were about an hour each. That is one of the great things about driving here. You generally do not spend much time getting from place to place. The short distances also keep costs down and these otherwise would be quite substantial. Gasoline costs are in the neighborhood of 50 cents a mile. We would not be here if England were as large as the U.S.

Speaking of gasoline, i.e., petrol, we have been paying between 93 pence per liter and 97 pence per liter. Converting the pence to dollars and the liters to U.S. gallons, these prices are the same as between $6.40 per gallon and $6.82 per gallon. While we are on the subject of prices, an average sandwich of 3.50 pounds is $6.37 and an average cup of coffee of 1.20 pounds is $2.18. And campground fees that have averaged about 13 pounds are equal to about $24.00. We are talking prices in small towns, not London where prices generally are higher. Except for the price of gasoline, these prices are a tad high, but not extraordinary. However, they seem to us to be decidedly higher than prices for the same things were in France. Why? Don’t know.

We stayed three nights in the Lincoln campground. After the flea market, we were, as they say in England, “knackered” and we just relaxed the rest of the day. On Monday, we took the bus to the center city and walked from the bus station, through the High Street and up an aptly named “Steep Hill”. There was an electric bus that runs up that hill, but we had time before we had to meet friends from Consett (150 miles away) in front of the Cathedral. Steep Hill is also part of the most interesting section of Lincoln, and if you do take the bus, you’ll miss most of it. What we found most interesting were two houses, built in 1190, and purchased in the next century by a Jewish merchant. He didn’t own them long. In 1290 King Edward I expelled the Jews. Nevertheless, it is still known as “The Jew’s House”.

We met Coral, Tom and their daughter Arwen in front of Lincoln Cathedral. As we waited, we sat on a convenient bench and opened a little booklet about the Cathedral that we had bought the previous day at the flea market. We’d both read it after we bought it , but it didn’t make a lot of sense until we were actually looking at that beautiful building. The Cathedral was built over many years, but the predominant style is “Decorated”. And is it ever! It is also huge – the third largest in England. Lincoln Cathedral is also where parts of the movie “The DaVinci Code” was made, so if you see the movie, you’ll see the cathedral.

Across the street is a row of beautiful Georgian houses built to accommodate the staff (and still used that way). They are known as the Numbered Houses because they were the first in England to be given house numbers in the 18th century! Before then, houses had names but no numbers.

When we finished touring the Cathedral, the Cloister and the Chapter House (a circular building where the monks sat along the walls to discuss the Cathedral’s business), we walked part of the way to their car with our friends. After we said our good-byes, we continued walking until we found the New Port Arch – which “was old when William the Conqueror walked under it” as our booklet said. We also looked at the remains of the Roman wall, and the Roman stones in the street. By this time it was time to walk down that terrible hill, but we admit that it did seem a lot shorter going down!

After Lincoln, we had only four days before we were scheduled to visit another friend in a village near Oxford. We made a list of places between Lincoln and Stonesfield – Boston, Peterborough, Ely, and Stamford were on the short list. In the end, we decided to take a look at Peterborough’s Norman Cathedral and the Gothic cathedral at Ely (pronounced as if it were spelled ee lee). We skipped the market town of Stamford, which is apparently so lovely that it has been used as background in many a filmed production.

We can’t see everything. We may have to leave some things for the next time.