Friday, December 17, 2010

Triannual UK trip

When I was in College in 1982 I spent the month of January in London studying theater. I spent the following summer back home working and living off $100 a month to pay it off but the trip was worth it and I fell in love with the country.

Chris and I were married in 1983 and we have been traveling to the UK since 1993 every three years around November. Our first trip was 7 days in London in 93. We then did 14 days in London in 1996 but we took a weekend trip to Paris via the new tunnel and a weekend in Edinburgh Scotland. It was that trip that we fell in love with Scotland and it's people. We took a 3 week trip to the UK were we spent 1 week London and 2 weeks in Scotland in 99'. We took 2 trips in 2003 one week in February for my 40th birthday in London and 2 weeks in Scotland for our 20th anniversary where we stayed in a castle with our family and friends for a week and then a week in Edinburgh. We spent 2 weeks in the UK in 2006 staying 3 days in London and the rest in Edinburgh Scotland.

During most of our trips to London we have taken day tours all around the area to Dover, Canterbury, Salisbury, Bath, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Oxford, Warwick, and Windsor. But we also like to just stay in the city and go to museums and theater. We always rent an apartment if we are staying at least a week no mater where we are so we can feel at home.

We had planned on taking our next trip in 2009 but the exchange rate was so high we decided to skip the trip and wait a year. So in 2010 we planned a 3 week vacation to the UK. So many of our friends had heard about our stay in the castle in 2003 that they wanted to arrange another trip like it. So we rented a castle and had 5 other couples stay with us. We stayed 3 days in Edinburgh our favorite city before the castle stay in West Kilbride on the west coast of Scotland. After the castle stay we traveled to the southern tip of England and stayed in Penzance and traveled around Cornwall which is an area we have never seen before. We then spent our last 3 days in Bath which included a day tour of the area and a day train trip to Cardiff Bay to see the Dr. Who exhibit.