Welcome

Hi Folks,

Welcome to our travel blog. As you might know ,this is our second attempt at a trip to Europe and the UK this year. We had to cancel our first attempt in the spring. This will be a shorter trip than we first planned and we will concentrate on England and Scotland.

We plan to fly directly to London from Halifax arriving on Tuesday, August 9. We will stay in London [A] for a few days and hopefully have a chance to see the London production of Billy Elliot. Then we will return via the subway (I mean Tube) to Heathrow and rent (I mean hire) a car. We will drive to the Birmingham [B] to visit a man who served with Cathy's father during the war and was a very good friend.  Then later that day we will continue on to the town of Pickering [C] in North Yorkshire and spend Friday and Saturday nights in a B&B. We plan to visit the city of York and also spend some time touring the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. Our literature speaks of many ruins of abbeys and priorys that were destroyed by order of Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the years following 1531. We also need to visit Betty's Cafe Tea Room for tea and cakes.

From North Yorkshire, we will drive north to Alnwick [D] in Northumberland on Sunday for two more nights in a B&B. We hope to visit Alnwick Castle, which was used as the exterior of Hogwarts for the Harry Potter movies. The Northumberland National Park and Hadrian's Wall are nearby as is the sea coast.

From Northumbria we will travel west to the Lake District [E] where we will stay for 3 days in a B&B in Keswick. We hope to visit the Castlerigg Stone Circle near Keswich. It sounds like there should be lots to do and see in the Lake District. We will also need to sample the traditional Cumbrian gingerbread and ice cream from Buttermere.

From Keswick we will head north to Scotland on Friday, August 19 where we will stay two more nights in a B&B in Inveraray [F]. We plan to tour the west coast and hopefully reach Glencoe which is described in our literature as one of the finest glens in Scotland.

From Inveraray we will travel the airport in Edinburgh [G] where we will drop off our car. We will take a bus to a hotel in the New Town area of Edinburgh (it is called New Town because it was planned and built after 1767). We have 3 days to explore Edinburgh on foot before we fly back to Halifax via London on Wednesday, August 24.