The Great Taxi Adventure

We had the continental breaky at our hotel this morning. It was, hands down, the best breakfast I've ever had at a hotel. It was typical continental breakfast food but the quality was better.

We took the underground to Paddington Station. They had a kiosk with Paddington Bear merchandise, which was cute. Tina and I went to a news stand where she bought water and I bought a little journal, a glue stick and a pen. I've decided to keep a travel journal, of sorts, where I glue in the business cards of places I go and write myself comments on what I liked and didn't like. It's now 0:12 so I'll be taking excerpts from that to expedite this entry. But what I think was most fascinating about Paddington Station is that the station was so clean and litter free despite the lack of trash cans of any sort on any part of the platform.

Anyways, In Bath we had lunch at the Cellar Pub. It's name is a very accurate description. But at least it was a clean cellar. We got naans (a pizza like food without sauce) with chips and drinks. All the food was good. The prices were fair. The bathroom was smelly and basement like.


After lunch we walked around for some sightseeing and shopping. This is the Roman Bath, a reminder of the expanse of the Roman Empire's rule. We spent a while picking up gifts in the gift shop.

This is Bath Abbey. In our guide book it told the story of the man who designed it. God spoke to him in a dream and this is how he described the abbey he was to build. At least he was only having strange dreams instead of hearing voices. We weren't allowed to enter the Abbey because there was a college graduation being held in the chapel.












We went to a few small shops (mostly candy stores) that had all sorts of cool, British candy.














This is a pretty statue in a river level park near the Roman Bath and Bath Abbey. It was so quaint with it's well-kept lawns and gardens, free public lawn chairs (I'm sure there's some cooler British term for it, but I don't know it) and sunbathing natives.













Then we took the train to Warchester which is the closest stop to the little town of Longleat, our destination. When we got off the train Tina said we needed to stop at an ATM. Unfortunately there were no ATMs at the station. We had enough to take the taxi from the station to Longleat House.


In spite of the lack of ATM, there was a beautiful stray cat. He was very friendly I wouldn't have minded adopting him.










Anyways, we then took a cab for about 10 pounds to Longleat House. When we went in to find a map and/or purchase tickets to the hedge maze (the only reason that we came) the nice, old man at the countertold us everything closed up at 17:00. It was 16:20ish. The maze was at the very back of the the estate grounds. On the way to the maze we tried to stop at the ATM. No good. It wouldn't read any of our cards. At all. We had, Tina said, 8 pounds. So we went to the maze. It was 3 pounds a person and it didn't take cards either. But that didn't matter because we weren't allowed in. It was too close to closing time. Even though the people before us in line were allowed in.



We followed the signs to an alternate ATM at a gift shop 2/3's of the way across the grounds that still wouldn't read our cards. Tina and I dug about and found 2 more pounds as well as some odd change. We made our way back to the other ATM which was next to a phone booth where we had some difficulty calling a cab (Okay, I had trouble. Tina did it.)



We walked a short path through a topiary garden where we
saw dragons and witches and stuff cut out of bushes and decorated with moss and flowers.


















The whole taxi ride back to the train station, Tina and I kept eying the meter to makes sure it didn't exceed 10 pounds (at which point we planned to stop the taxi and walk the rest of the way). Fortunately we made it back on 9 pounds and change. Safely on the prepaid for train we decided to dine in Bath.

The Rat and Parrot is a cool pub on a back road in Bath. We chose it because it was bold enough to put rat in the name of a food establishment. I had a raspberry collins which was great, with raspberry puree in it. Tina had sweet and sour chicken and I had chicken tikka and we shared chips topped in cheese. I really enjoyed my food and drink. We decided to use the toilets before our long train ride. They were in the basement. The drippy, stinky basement that had puddles all over the floor and no light at all in one stale. I had stinky Bath bathroom water drip on my head. Ew.

Then we caught the train back to Paddington Station and then the underground to the hotel. Where we've continued our unfortunate evening tradition of watching horrible British quiz shows.

And on that note, I'm going to go take a baseball bat to the tv. Or go to bed. Either way.