travel blog of European countries
We were very fortunate to have glorious weather for our final day. It started off cool, but leaving the B & B, I immediately shed my jackets. It was a short walk past the Tring Station to the trail head. Since we thought we were only walking 5.5 miles, we carried our packs. As we…
Today’s walk provided beautiful vistas from several Chiltern Hills, chalk escarpments in South East England. This morning I saw my first Red Kite, a medium-large bird of prey. Though we climbed up down the various hills, the walk was not strenuous. If fact, it was quite enjoyable. We walked through the outskirts of Princes Risborough,…
Lightning, thunder, and driving rain awakened us during the evening. As soon as the sun was up, around 4:00 A.M., the birds started chirping and cawing. Sue May had returned from the reunion and prepared the English Breakfast for Dennis, while I had a lighter meal. She drove us to the trailhead so we wouldn’t…
We had thunder storms all night and awoke to grey skies. Richard and Kim, owners of The Swan were very sympathetic and kind hosts who seem to understand hikers and their needs. In the morning Richard took us to the trailhead so we wouldn’t need to cross the wet fields and shorten our walking about…
Michael Lowrey, the proprietor of the Fox and Hounds, pointed out the stylized Uffington Horse. (Small white spot on hill). It is hard to discern and best when viewed from the air. He has not hiked the Ridgeway and is new to the area, so his directions down from the scarp were misleading. When he…
By the time we finished taking buses back to where we finished the hike yesterday, it was almost 11 AM. From the start, we climbed steadily under the shade of overhanging trees. Occasionally we could see the Og valley slowly diminishing as we climbed back up to the Ridgeway. Once on top, we were exposed…
We hopped on the train in Portsmouth to Swindon, and the took the number 49 bus to Avebury. As we rode northeast along the coast we saw small hamlets along the bays, the harbors filled with boats and yachts. The cerulean blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds competed with the dark blue sea and…
There was no breakfast at the hotel this morning, on Monday’s they do not open until 9 am and we had to catch the 8:43 bus. We were not informed about this when we paid in advance, but we were able to get reimbursed. After leaving 12 frantic messages at the bike shop yesterday, we…
Searching for dad We put-puttered north for about 6 miles (10 km) to Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte to see if we could determine the location of the above photos. Dennis’s dad is the upper right man in the top photo and the one standing third from the left and near the blur of the flash in the lower…
D-Day +70 years We replaced the bicycles with a motor scooter. We buzzed (like a hive of bees) to Sainte-Mère-Église, travelling only about twice as fast as we did peddling. The highest speed was around 30 mph (50 km). Dennis commented that the motorbike was giving it its all to climb the hills, but so…
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