Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita.

I'm your host, Jim Santos, along with my wife, Rita.

And welcome to the second season of our podcast.

In the first season, we set in motion our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increase our retirement nest egg by selling our home and car and spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world.

While we did manage to increase our net worth while we traveled, a bout of pancreatitis in Latvia caused us to return to the States for surgery and recovery and to rethink our plans in light of our ages and other factors.

Enter Plan B.

We now have a home base set up in eastern Tennessee and are ready to hit the road once again.

Our plans are now to spend anywhere from six to nine months a year abroad, returning to the US to visit friends, family and to recharge.

Join us now as the adventure continues on Travels with Jim and Rita.

Hello everybody, and welcome once again to the podcast Travels with Jim and Rita.

A couple weeks ago, we started going over our recent 10-week overseas trip with Tales from Our Stays in Portugal and Spain, so it's going to pick things up now with the second phase our exploration of the United Kingdom.

By the way, I should mention that as we're recording this, it's the third week or so of June.

We have four kids and nine grandkids between us, and this week six of them are going to be in Europe.

I know we flip-flopped.

Yeah, so I like to think we corrupted them a little bit for that.

Right.

Now, before we start talking about our adventures in the UK, if you're planning a trip there, or even just doing a layover anywhere in the UK, you have to register with what's called UKETA, the Electronic Travel Application.

Now you can download the registration app on your phone or go to UKETacom.

It only takes a few minutes to fill out the form.

It's basically you know your name, birth date, passport number, travel dates.

It costs 16 pounds and it's good for two years.

You don't get a card or anything, you just get an email acknowledgement that you are now in the system.

Anyway, on to London.

This is back on April, the 11th.

We used TAP, which is the Portuguese airline, to fly from Lisbon to London Heathrow.

It must have been a fairly routine flight, because I don't remember anything about the flight, do you?

No, it was smooth and they didn't call like rows, you know.

Yeah, I think they loaded from the back.

Yeah, they just did the back forward, which makes so much sense.

You're not climbing over people who are ahead of you in the plane.

So, yeah, it makes sense.

What I do remember are the really long lines getting through the Lisbon airport for security and passport check.

We got there like three hours early.

Thank God.

And it was still just barely enough time.

Right.

Because of the long line.

Heathrow Airport also was really big, but it seemed to be laid out a lot better.

We got through there pretty smoothly, didn't have to show our passports who just had our faces scanned at a kiosk as we came in a little background.

Before we go on here, once we knew we're going to be in London, I did something before our trip that I'm always telling everyone else to do.

I look to see if there's a public transportation app for getting around in the city, and there was one.

It's called TFL Go.

It lets you put in your location and your destination.

It gives you the bus and the tube routes that you can choose from to get there, and you can also use it to pay your fare from the phone, doing what they call tap on and tap off as you get on and off the turnstiles, and we found it very easy to use Right.

So with that tool, we were able to plan ahead a bit on getting from the airport to our hotel in downtown London.

Now, if we'd done our usual Bolt or Uber ride or used our priority pass, it was going to cost us over $75 to get downtown because Heathrow's kind of out there.

But using TFL Go.

We found there was an underground station at the airport.

There's an express line that takes you right to Paddington Station in just 15 minutes, but we would have had to change trains then, and there was a one train option.

that just seemed simpler.

Yeah, we didn't have to move our luggage.

Yeah, just having the luggage.

It was easier to just get on one train and then get off of it at our stop.

Because the tube does have stairways.

Yeah, some of them have stairways.

Rather than escalators.

Some have escalators and elevators, but not all of them, and actually the app does tell you which stations have them and which don't.

Right.

Luckily, it was only a four to five-minute walk from a baggage claim to the tube station and we were looking for the Piccadilly line towards Cockfosters.

I know you love that.

As British as you can get.

We need the Piccadilly Line for Cockfosters please.

Yeah.

Our stop was called Holborn and we came up above ground.

There we were just two blocks from our hotel and it only cost us about $6 each, so it was really a great deal.

A lot of these when you're in big cities in Europe.

The airplane terminals are so far out you know, an hour or more drive for a taxi, and it can cost you as much as 90 bucks to get into downtown, whatever city you're going to.

So this using the metro is just the bomb.

Yeah, we used to do quite a bit while we were there.

Yes.

Now, the hotel itself was a little bit of a shock.

We had booked it through American Express's hotel group and I think we were expecting something like the hotel we had in Prague.

Right, a suite, yeah.

Some nice little fancy suite and it looked really nice from the outside in the lobby.

It was a grand old building right in downtown London, but it was very well renovated.

It was a beautiful hotel.

It was a beautiful hotel Right in downtown London, but it was very well renovated.

Yeah, the only thing was, it was very, very small.

It was a closet.

Actually, we didn't even have a closet.

No, we didn't, that's true.

The bed took up about half the room.

Right and it just ran right up to all three walls.

Right.

So you could only get into it by crawling into it.

It was like camping.

Yeah.

Luxury camping.

Instead of a closet, there was just a couple of hooks on one wall.

There weren't any shelves.

Yeah, Beautiful bathroom though.

Beautiful bathroom, but beautiful yeah, a tiny little space to get into it, and since we had to put our luggage in our little hallway, you had to kind of sidle sideways to get in and out of it, it was a shuffle.

So, on the other hand, it was within walking distance of a lot of the places on our list and we had that handy tube station.

Right.

So that was definitely a plus.

That first day we went out for a walk along the Thames River, took us right by the Scotland Yard office, which was kind of cool.

Right, you could see the Big Eye across the river there, the big Ferris wheel, big Ben, westminster Palace, westminster Cathedral they were all just right around there.

It was just really interesting being able to see the stuff that you've only seen in movies and on TV.

Yeah, it was a real short walk.

We also stopped at the Westminster Cathedral.

Normally there's a fee for getting in there.

Were we too late for the tickets or so we did a workaround?

Yeah, I don't remember if they were sold out or if we just looked and saw that there was a big fee, but also saw that you could get in for free.

I probably thought it was, if you stayed for the Evensong service.

Right, which was like a canter service.

It was nice.

Yes, we did that, and you could take pictures afterwards.

Right, it was well worth it I mean worth your time to wait in this little line.

You would have had to have waited in line even if you came in earlier in the afternoon.

Right after that we had our first pub experience, just within sight of Big Ben and everything.

Right there on the main street.

I had my first beef pie with mash and mushy peas, of course, and also my first Guinness.

That started a.

Thing.

Yep, I'm afraid it did.

On the way back we found these gardens called the Victoria Embankment Gardens.

They were just really beautiful.

It was a few blocks of gardens and parkland and everybody out enjoying it.

Oh, it was wonderful.

All the flowers were in bloom.

It was gorgeous.

Yeah, it was really nice to see right there in the heart of the city.

So that was our first day.

Second day we had arranged to get to the British Museum.

Technically it's free.

But you have to have a ticket to enter.

You have to have a ticket.

It's timed entry to kind of spread the crowds out.

They do ask you to make a voluntary donation of five pounds or more, and we did, Rita.

What did you think about the museum?

It was a beautiful museum.

But if you had been to the areas that they were trying to represent in the museum, it was kind of down low Like Athens for the Greek architecture and whatever that they were showing, it just doesn't quite get it.

But if you've never been anywhere, that museum was very educational.

Yeah, If you've actually been in Athens or Rome and walked through the Colosseum and walked through the.

Parthenon.

That's a really different experience from seeing smaller pieces in a museum.

It is.

On the other hand, I did really enjoy the Egyptian area.

The Rosetta Stone, rosetta Stone.

They had a lot of mummies.

Because we've never been to Egypt.

Now that is on our list A lot of mummies.

Because we've never been to Egypt.

Now that is on our list.

Yeah, and the Assyrian art Right.

I kind of like that too, and there's a feudal Japan display.

Right.

That was also interesting.

So you know, all in all it was worth our five pounds.

Oh gosh, yes, the building itself was beautiful.

Now that evening or afternoon rather, we hopped on the tube again to head a little bit further away from the hotel.

This time we went to the area where you can find the Tower of London, which is the old royal residence.

Not really much of a tower, I think, it's only about two stories.

Right right.

That's also where they keep the crown jewels.

Across from that is the Tower Bridge.

Which is beautiful, which is?

beautiful.

It's the one that everyone always calls London Bridge, but it's actually called the Tower Bridge.

So we did walk across the bridge and found dinner at another pub there.

We tried to Got there and they said, oh, food service doesn't start for a half hour, so we just started drinking.

And there were some locals there, a couple of ladies, it was a family of sisters.

Yeah, some sisters, some had come from outside of London there to see the sights.

Right had some sisters uh, some had come from outside of london there to see the sites, right, and it was really interesting because we became their family.

Then we had a nice little talk with them while we were waiting for our food and then they came by to tell us it'd be another half hour and we ordered more drinks, but the ladies gave up at that point yeah, they went home, they went home eventually we did get some food.

it was getting late by then and after all those Guinnesses we decided to go ahead and just get a bolt home.

The next day we were back on the tube, this time heading in a different direction, went to see the Buckingham Palace area and there's a couple of parks there.

One's called the Green Park, with really bad timing.

Right, but I'm glad we saw it.

Yeah, but we got to Buckingham Palace just before they did the changing of the guards ceremony, and it was a Sunday, I think.

Right.

So there are thousands of people there, Thousands of people.

We actually got stuck in a big crowd of people trying to get around the palace.

To get past the crowd, we got stuck between two gates and the guards weren't letting anybody pass because they were going to be coming out one going in the other.

I actually got great pictures, though, because they kind of like parted the sea there at the gate and I was able to snap some.

Yes, we did get a few pictures, but I think it took about an hour.

It did to get around that yeah.

From there we walked up just a short distance to Hyde Park, which was really beautiful and huge.

We just saw a small portion of it.

We walked along what's called the Diane Princess of Wales Memorial Walk.

Which was gorgeous.

Yeah, just past flower gardens everywhere.

And the people are the ones who did that Diane Memorial Walk.

It was very moving.

And again, a lot of people out.

It was decent weather that day.

It was a little cool, but there was still a lot of people out on the park out there enjoying it.

So at this point went back to the tube and headed up to Camden Town for lunch.

It's just an area that we had always heard about.

I think there was a show that we watched that took place outside Camden Town and we knew about the canal that goes through there, and it was just a totally different world when we got out of the subway.

I wasn't prepared for that at all.

No, it kind of reminds you of you're not at the beach, but Venice Beach on steroids.

I mean, it's a freak show, or what you imagine England was like during the punk rock era.

Right.

You know the.

I mean there were punk rockers, huge crowds, people making every fashion mistake you can imagine.

But everybody loving it.

Yeah, everyone was having fun oh they were having a great time.

Yeah, the buildings were really garishly decorated, I remember one had a huge pair of lips on the front of it with a joint dangling out of it.

Yeah, it was wild.

But you know, we found our way to the canal.

We actually managed to find a table at a place called lock 17 at dingwalls yeah yeah, we're able to have a decent lunch there yeah, it's a nice little.

It wasn't a bus, that's for sure.

You can always say you saw it right and then you can always jump back on the tube and get back to reality right.

Now we had to get back, also because we had scheduled another free church visit.

We wanted to see St Paul's Cathedral, but again there was a big fee for taking a tour of that.

But we found another way to get in for free.

They were having an organ recital, so we showed up to listen to that.

After a few minutes, though, I think I would have rather paid for the tour.

Right or paid to get out.

Get out yeah.

It was the strangest organ recital I think I've ever heard in my life.

The guy they introduced was like a technician for the organ company.

Yeah, I think he was just blowing out the pipes, honestly.

Yeah, I thought we were going to hear some Brahms.

Yeah me too.

We were all excited about going Something really nice here, but it was just really a series of just chord changes.

Weird chord changes and running through arpeggios.

It just didn't really have any cohesion.

No, that's just what it is.

No, it didn't.

But still, we were inside St Paul's Cathedral and it was gorgeous.

The outside too, it was very beautiful.

And on our way back we stopped at Covent Gardens, which is like the next neighborhood over from our hotel, at a place called the Prince of Wales Pub.

I guess it was almost our local, because we went there twice.

We did, yeah, and we were only there a week, yeah, but it was a nice little pub experience because there are families in pubs.

Right.

Up until 10 o'clock kids are allowed in them, so they're usually kind of noisy, they can be a little boisterous, but it's just good family fun.

It is yeah, we had a little sleeping.

Yeah, there were two little girls sleeping Six-year-old I think On the bench next to us.

Yeah, beside us.

They were worn out from traveling.

Yeah, by now we were having a little bit of a problem because you were starting to feel very bad your cough and cold symptoms were slowly getting worse, so we ended up stopping at Boots Pharmacy to ask one of the pharmacists what you should have for that if they had anything you should take for that, they recommended that chesty cough syrup.

Right, and that is what it's called.

It is called chesty cough syrup.

You know they're not going to give you anything that really takes care of it.

They just want to kind of give relief so you can possibly sleep.

Yeah, I think lozenges and cough syrup is what we came out of there with, so we only had one more full day left.

In London, we signed up for the only tour that we took on the entire 10 weeks and actually kind of reminded us why we usually don't sign up for tours.

Yeah, why we don't do that it?

was supposed to be.

You know, see Windsor Castle and explore the streets of Windsor, and it turned into a more of well.

Take so long getting you there and parking the bus and then getting you to the admission area that you can choose either the castle or the city.

And you have to run around to do that.

Yeah, and it was $100 or something.

It was an expensive tour.

Yeah, it was like 35, 40 pounds each, so it would have been around $100.

Yeah, I mean, and it was a beautiful, beautiful castle area and the streets down Windsor look amazing.

We would have really enjoyed that, but we chose the castle and ran through it.

And it was annoying because they have a no photographs policy.

But we did enjoy seeing the castle.

I'm glad we did it.

But if we would have been on our own which we were the very next day, we had a car the very next day we would have spent half a day there.

Yeah, you could have easily spent the whole day there.

And I think they only allotted us about an hour and a half.

Yeah, by the time we finally got in there.

Yes, it was you have to be back at the bus.

Yes, it was ridiculous.

Yeah, I would rather just pick up the audio set and, as you come in to a castle, a museum or whatever and take my time going through whatever exhibits you want to see, rather than somebody poking you like with a cattle pride all the time to get back to the bus or whatever.

Yeah, I almost forgot the best part.

Coming back into town it was kind of rush hour so it was sort of slow going and at one point the bus driver just announced okay, I'm going to pull over here and let everybody out.

Oh my God, I forgot about that.

There's a tube station around the corner, but you know they picked us up at the bus station.

Right.

And they were supposed to drop us off at the bus station.

Right, where you could easily get onto the tube or or where you may have parked your car.

Oh, yeah, or something like that, and there was a handicapped.

There were a couple of people that were having a little difficulty walking In a wheelchair.

Well, there was a lady in a wheelchair too.

Yeah, they just dumped her out on the street.

I'm like really.

So we were fine because we had our TFL go and tap on and tap off, yeah it was just incredibly inconvenient for us.

Oh, that was awful.

I guess his time was up, so he was unloading.

And, of course, they wanted a tip, which we didn't leave.

Oh no, not after he dumped that woman off on the street.

No, no tip.

But all in all, in spite of the tiny room and your worsening health, I think we did pretty well in London, don't you think I loved it yeah?

I absolutely loved it.

I loved that we were able to just maneuver around the city so easily on the tube.

It was great.

We could have used the tube to get to the train station Paddington Station for our trip to Oxford but, like we were saying, some of the stations don't have have stairways or yeah?

Or elevators.

So we decided to splurge and go ahead and get a, a car called a bolt or uber, one of those right to get us to the train station it's convenient.

Yeah, we thought we'd allowed plenty of time, but the london traffic really slowed us down.

It was really only about three or four miles right from our hotel, but it took us almost 40 minutes yeah to get there.

So luckily, london trains are also very well organized.

So the station was laid out very logically.

There was a lot of signs.

We could see immediately right where we were supposed to go right and again.

You just scan the ticket on your phone right as you go through the turn, stop on the train so we were able to get on the train and depart.

I think it was starting to pull out as we were sitting down.

Right, yeah, we just made it.

But we did make it and it was a nice ride.

This was the first time we really got to see a lot of the London countryside as we went through there.

I think it was about an hour and a half to the Oxford station, something like that.

It wasn't long, yeah.

So we got to our new home and the keys that the little automatic box gave us were for an apartment that was on the third floor, which was not what we had asked for.

We had asked for, you know, a ground floor apartment.

Yeah and truly, I couldn't have done that for a week.

Yeah, cause these were narrow Oxford stairs.

Yeah, straight up.

Straight up and very narrow, high steps.

But I used the ring camera at the door there to talk to the manager and he said there was just a mistake.

They had just made up the wrong room for us when we asked for the early check-in.

So he was nice enough about it.

He invited us into his office for tea.

Yeah, that was nice.

Until they could get our unit ready.

He entertained us.

Yeah, he entertained us, so that was nice.

Yeah, ready, he entertained us.

Yeah, he entertained us.

So that was nice.

But the main problem was by this point Rita was still feeling worse.

The chesty cough syrup was not really doing a lot.

So the first thing we did was take a walk to a nearby hospital to see if we could get her a doctor visit.

We explained our situation and that we were tourists and we were told pretty politely that since we weren't on the NHS system the national health system it would take a few days before you get an appointment there.

But she did give us an alternative.

There was a larger hospital a few miles away that had an A&E center and again, we've watched enough British television that we knew that was accident and emergency.

So we took her advice.

We got an Uber and went to the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Now there was a big form to fill out since again not on NHS and a short wait before we were directed to kind of a triage nurse.

She was very helpful.

She gave us an appointment slip for a clinic that was just across the parking lot and said that a doctor could see us.

It was about a two-hour appointment or two hours away.

But she said, if we just showed up they'd probably take us in.

Which they did.

I think we were only there about 20 minutes before you saw the doctor.

He did a pretty brief exam, really Looked in your ears and down your throat and listened to your chest.

That was about it, Said it was a minor infection and prescribed antibiotics Right when we left I was a little surprised.

The receptionist just smiled and said goodbye.

They didn't ask us to pay anything.

No.

And the pharmacy that we went to also did not charge for the prescription.

The next day Rita was feeling a little better, so we set out to explore Oxford a bit.

Oxford was beautiful.

Yeah, it was really a charming town.

That's our first punts.

We saw punts there in the river.

I always thought of Oxford as just Oxford University, but it's actually a collection of 30 or so colleges.

I didn't realize that either.

Or that there were so many of them.

I mean just on a short walk.

We were at University College Oriel Merton and Christchurch.

Yeah.

Christchurch.

We actually went inside there.

That was the place where we did buy Church, yeah Christ.

Church we actually went inside there.

That was the place where we did buy tickets Right and went inside.

But it was a very nice tour and you could take pictures.

And you could take pictures, thank goodness, because we could show the kids Harry Potter scenes.

Yeah, there were places where they had filmed some of the scenes for Harry Potter, an entrance hall where you first met Dumbledore, and you saw the hall that they use for the dining hall.

Yeah, it was a beautiful structure.

So that was fun.

On the walk back we were near another college, magdalene College, and that's where I had my first scones and clotted cream Right, and a little bakery there.

We're getting close now to my moment of truth, something I frankly had a little bit of anxiety about.

Our plans called for us to pick up a rental car in Oxford and spend the next week roaming the Cotswold.

So I was about to get my first experience of driving on the wrong side of the road, not to mention shifting with my left hand, since most of the rentals in the UK are manuals, unless you want to pay a lot of money for them.

It was certainly awkward at first because you know, because I've been driving for 50 years, so you're fighting 50 years of experience and reflexes.

Our first stop, luckily, was only like a mile or so away.

I think it was like two turns.

Right Two difficult turns, though yeah Turns yeah.

You have to make sure you're turning the right spot.

Right.

But it was a laundromat because we hadn't had a place to do our clothes since we left Portugal.

That's right.

We were in London for about a week, yeah, so we had to desperately do our laundry.

Right yeah.

Now I found the place, okay, it was fine, but there were no parking spaces in front.

So I foolishly thought, well, I'll just circle the block and maybe there'll be somebody there.

I could park a little earlier or something.

But so we went down, made the first turn, went to do the second turn and it was a little narrow alley.

With metal bars at the end.

Yeah, I got about halfway down and saw that it was blocked off at the end and we were there for a while because I couldn't get the damn thing in reverse.

Yeah, that was strange.

That was a strange mechanism to do reverse.

I pushed the knob.

I tried to turn the knob, I tried to squeeze the knob, tried to lift it, did all kinds of things to it and finally stumbled on.

You had to grab the collar under the knob and lift it up, and then you could shift.

So it was just really strange, well.

I guess they didn't want anybody accidentally going into reverse.

So a piece of advice you rent a car in a foreign country, figure out how to go in reverse before you take off Right Now, fortunately, car in a foreign country.

Figure out how to go in reverse before you take off.

Now, fortunately, we made it back to the main road and there was now a parking space.

Of course, we were on the wrong side of the road now, but I zoomed in anyway and just parked.

I was facing one way.

All the other cars are facing another.

But actually we saw that the whole time we were in the.

British House, that was perfectly normal.

No, and later on we were to see if that was perfectly normal.

That was perfectly normal.

I wasn't even on the sidewalk.

I wasn't even on the sidewalk.

No, yeah, so that's a plus yeah.

So, anyway, I figured that would be a problem for later.

Now let's go ahead and get our laundry done.

It wasn't the cleanest laundromat that we've ever been in, no but it worked, but it did work.

But by the time it was done it was almost 1130 and we were trying to get to the Leonardo Hotel in Swindon, which would take us through the Cotswold on the way and stop at a few villages.

So we kind of had to get moving.

So we get in the car.

I'm facing oncoming traffic and I need to go the opposite way, but with both of us watching, you know, the mirror and the road and everything, we saw a big enough break.

I made the 180 degree turn and we were off and after a while I noticed something looked a little odd.

We're in the bus lane.

About the situation.

I was in the bus lane and then I realized not only was I in the bus lane, but I was in the bus lane for oncoming traffic.

Right, yeah, yeah.

So I had to slide over to that left lane there and frankly I was a little shook, I was a little hungry.

So we saw the McDonald's ahead and just stopped and said let's eat lunch and then we'll leave.

Yeah, the only reason we did the McDonald's is it was so convenient and we needed to honestly just stop and get our stuff together.

And regroup.

And regroup yeah.

Yeah, Also, we had a slight problem that we were using our phone for directions and it wasn't compatible with the dash display.

Right.

So we had to kind of balance it on something while I was driving and sometimes you couldn't see it because the shifter was in the way.

Yeah, yeah, so it was a little bit stressful.

Yeah, that car rental was not as smooth as it could have been.

Yeah, fortunately the entrance to the road we needed to get out of town was right across from the McDonald's.

Right, and that made it so much easier.

Yeah, so we got out with only one roundabout.

Right.

Yeah, which is another problem.

I mean, we've used roundabouts before, but these all go in the wrong direction Opposite direction yeah, and they have a lot of roundabouts.

No stoplights Roundabout.

You know that first village that we were going to.

Burford.

Burford, First little village in the Cotswold this is the Cotswold, if you're not familiar with it is known as an area of extraordinary natural beauty.

And it was.

That's what they call it Really beautiful.

Of course, while you're driving, though, you run into a lot of very narrow roads with vine-covered stone fences on either side right up to the edge of the road.

Yes.

And it's probably there where I smacked the passenger side mirror on a branch or something as we were going by, but we made it.

We got to Burton there was a church there.

Burford, I'm sorry, burford.

There was a church there called the Church of St John the Baptist, which had the creepiest graveyard you can imagine.

Well, how about the skeleton underneath the?

Uh, yeah, under underneath the tomb?

Yeah, there was a tomb for one of the patrons who helped uh?

build the church right and under the tomb there was a skeleton laying there yeah, and I'm like what?

Did it fall out the bottom?

I don't, I don't know we had never seen anything like that before.

But it was a beautiful area, beautiful countryside.

It was.

And we were soon on to our next stop, which is called Borton-on-the-Water, and it was on the water.

There was a stream that ran right through the town.

Once we got back, we found out that Clarkson's Farm a TV show on Amazon.

Prime.

I think it is.

Yeah, Diddley Squat Farm was actually looking at buying a pub in that town.

It was a really cute town.

Parks all along that canal, kids out there playing and enjoying themselves, chasing the ducks A little stream, going through all these little cute little restaurants and all kinds of commerce, going people selling their wares.

It was really nice.

There was one called the Old New Inn, which I really liked, and the pedestrian bridges going across the canal, though, was kind of odd.

They had no guardrails at all.

No, yeah, well, there was actually.

There was like a one-inch curb or something.

But we drove over one.

Yeah, one of them.

You did drive over.

Yeah, you had to drive over.

We drove over one, yeah, one of them.

You did drive over.

Yeah, you had to drive over.

You had to honk to get people out of the way.

Right yeah, but by this time it was starting to cloud up, so we decided we'd better head straight to our hotel in Swindon, and that turned out to be a really pleasant surprise it was only 51 pounds a night.

Yeah, and it was more like what we were expecting with the American Express.

Yeah, it was a comfortable hotel it was a beautiful hotel.

And I don't know why it was so inexpensive.

Yeah, I don't know.

The other Leonardo hotels that we saw in other towns were like $2.50 and all kinds.

Yeah, we were thrilled with that.

Our original plan had been we'd just stay one night there and then look for accommodations in each place along our path, but we found that when we were looking for rooms, it was difficult finding a place that also had parking.

Right.

And this was a place that had its own lot.

It was cheap, it was very convenient, very comfortable.

So we changed our plans a little.

We figured we'd just ask them if we could stay there five nights, which they allowed us to do, and then we just did day trips from there, also that that way we avoid having to pack up our stuff and move or keep stuff in the car while we're out exploring.

So it was nice to have a little base for that exploration.

We asked them for recommendations for local restaurants, and there was a beautiful indian restaurant but the food was just average.

yeah, great it seems like every big town we get to, though, we always have have Indian food, and it's usually fantastic, usually great, yeah, it was just okay.

A little disappointing.

Yeah, another reason we decided to stay there was again, rita was not feeling great.

We wanted to give the antibiotics some extra time to kick in.

So we just took a day to relax that first day and just kind of walked around town a little bit.

I think I went to the Tesco to get some supplies and that was about it.

But the next day we were off on our first day.

Now we'd consider going to the big city of Cardiff, but instead of going to another big city we slipped on down the coast a little bit to a town called Pennarth.

Yeah, and it was beautiful.

Yeah, really glad we did that.

It was one of those surprises, unplanned surprises.

Little tiny village right there on the ocean had a boardwalk.

Yeah, we had a nice lunch, some great seafood.

Up here.

Yeah, and that was hilarious too, because when we went in to ask to be seated, they said do you have a reservation?

And I looked around and there were like 50 available tables with nobody sitting in it.

Yeah, there's hardly anybody in there.

Yeah, so it was just a funny experience.

We found out that that little town is part of an 870-mile Wales coastal path.

Little town as part of an 870-mile Wales coastal path and there was a nice little pier that you could walk out on and see and the buildings were really beautiful really colorful.

So it was really just a really enjoyable day and completely unplanned, so I was glad we did that.

Oh, absolutely.

The next day was even nicer, really.

We went out to explore the city of Bath Now it's called Bath because the Roman baths are there.

There's a natural hot spring that feeds the area.

That was a nice self-guided tour.

Yeah.

I enjoyed that.

My brother used to live there and I always wanted to know I mean, I always wanted to visit and see what it was all about it was gorgeous.

Yeah, the stream that runs through the town has a beautiful horseshoe waterfall.

I had never seen anything like that.

Yeah, that was really attractive.

They built that in.

A lot of parks.

We saw the Abbey Church of St Peter and Paul.

Yeah.

While we were there.

That was also very nice, and the Royal Crescent is there.

You may have seen that in movies and shows too.

It's about 30 homes that are arranged in kind of a park.

Georgia architecture.

Yeah, it's really nice.

And they're around the Royal Victoria Park.

So again it was beautiful seeing all these people out enjoying the parkland.

It was.

And enjoying the weather there.

So really wonderful two days.

But Rita was feeling worse at this point.

Yeah, I was not doing well.

So the next day, April 21st, we devoted to trying to find another doctor.

This time we knew a little more about the system and we had a car.

Right.

So I drove us to the Great Western Hospital there in Swindon, which had an urgent care center, more forms and about an hour wait, but you did get to see a doctor.

And got an x-ray.

And got an x-ray.

She did a much more thorough exam.

Got the x-ray and got an x-ray.

She did a much more thorough exam.

Got the x-ray right there at the hospital.

Right.

In a different area.

He recommended a shorter course of stronger antibiotics.

Right and again.

No charge for the visit, no charge for the x-rays.

Right.

And no charge for the antibiotics.

By that time, it was time for us to leave our little nest in Swindon and head to high clear castle yeah, the downton abbey castle, yeah known for downton abbey.

It was really cool seeing the building and and the park around the grounds, and everything, but I have to say I was a little disappointed with the tour of the house itself I was yeah yeah, especially because they had a no photo policy.

Again, it's pretty annoying because after 52 tv episodes and two motion pictures filmed in your home, I think saying, oh, we need privacy for the families.

Right, yeah, it was a little bit much.

And no kitchen tour, no servants areas or anything like that.

No, uh-uh.

And it's probably because they've all been modernized.

Yeah.

But still it was a nice day.

I think we saw actually more Downton.

Abbey stuff at Asheville, at the Biltmore.

I think so too.

I think their display actually was more enjoyable it was, but still it was a very nice day.

I also really got a kick out of something I spotted on a map.

Highclere Castle is right next to Watership Down, and Watership Down just south of that is a little village called Ephrapha.

Now, if you haven't read the classic book Watership Down by Richard Adams, I know that means nothing to you, but that is a book that I think should be required reading for all human beings, so if you haven't read it, pick it up and then you'll appreciate why I like seeing Watership Down and Ephrapha.

We should have gone there.

But anyway, we were working our way back to Oxford at this point, staying about a half hour or so south in a place I'd really been looking forward to, because it was called the Swan at Thatcham, right, yeah, I just really liked the way that sounded.

Now Thatcham is the village.

Yeah right, the Swan is the pub and there's some rooms attached to that.

Right.

Rita, I think you were a little put off by the room itself when we first got there the rickety wooden door yeah.

Yeah, I mean really there was no point in locking the door.

Anybody could have probably just walked in, but it was in such a sweet, sweet village.

And the fact that we could regulate our own heat, regulate our own heat, yeah, the place was warm, it was comfortable.

I Regulate our own heat, regulate our own heat.

You know, play a little warm.

I was happy with that, yeah, so it was really nice and the pub was great.

Oh my gosh, yes, the food.

Rita took a little nap and I had a Guinness while I worked on my laptop sitting in there.

Actually, I might have had two, yeah.

I was getting pretty addicted to Guinness by this point.

Yeah, actually there was a great breakfast that was included the next morning.

So all in all, for a way to end our little Cotswold experience.

Well, to tell about how sweet this was, I left my purse in the pub.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

And I thought uh-oh, there it goes.

I'm going to have to cancel all these credit cards, blah, blah, blah.

Thank God my passport wasn't in there.

I go back the next morning and they pulled it out of a drawer and gave it to me.

It was just I mean, that's how sweet that place was Left it there at dinner and didn't realize it was missing until the next morning when we were packing.

So from there I was off to Oxford to return the rental car, with a sigh of relief from me.

They did charge us for the mirror that I dinged, but our insurance reimbursed us.

So not a big deal, it was a small cost that one day.

Yeah, I was just happy to have survived the experience.

Driving it yeah.

The train station was only a short distance from the rental place and we walked it?

Yeah, because they were doing work on a bridge.

A car would have taken us about 20 minutes.

Right and we were able to walk to it in about 10 minutes, five or something.

Yeah, five or 10 minutes.

It was training a bit, but I think by that point we really didn't care.

No.

It was kind of used to just a light drizzle.

Yeah.

So our goal from the Oxford train station was a train to Manchester.

We were on our way to Glasgow in Scotland, but it was a long trip so we thought we'd break it up.

We could get a train to Manchester and the next morning get a bus to Glasgow.

We picked this hotel because it was kind of right in between the train station and the bus station.

And on paper Manchester just looked like a little industrial town, like not a big deal.

But once we got there we were really sorry we didn't have another day.

It was a beautiful town.

Yeah, we really enjoyed it.

Beautiful town.

We were in a very nice area there.

We went out to find our bus station so we'd know where to go.

In the morning we found that we were right next to the gay district which always means great bars and great restaurants.

A lot of art scene yeah.

A lot of murals on it yeah, we would have enjoyed that.

Yeah, it would have been great to spend a little more time there, but the next morning it's Flixbus time again.

Beautiful bus ride, and the countryside by now is really getting interesting.

It was really changing a lot.

It was A lot of sheep and cows.

but then you got into areas where there were big brown hills, almost mountains in there so it was a really changing landscape as we went through there Right and we had an interesting pull-off there.

They stopped for lunch, gave us about an hour and a half for lunch at a little roadside pull-off they had this farm-to-table area.

All the restaurants were that.

Yeah, it was like farmer's markets and two different restaurants, one for sit-down meals and one for fast sandwiches and things and it was really good food and a really scenic spot.

There was a duck pond out there in beautiful countryside.

It was really a pleasant surprise.

And it was so nice that you didn't have to ingest fast food.

It was just a beautiful place, great food.

We enjoyed it.

Yeah, so we were in a really good mood then when we got to Glasgow and took a boat ride to our Glasgow.

Airbnb.

And it turned dark.

It was kind of a dump.

The neighborhood was a little sketchy.

There were tattoo parlors and pawn shops on the corner there and then we got inside the place.

It was dirty, it was dirty.

There were dead bugs.

You had to move the refrigerator to plug in the washing machine.

Yeah, we said no, this isn't going to get it.

The refrigerator didn't even look like it was on.

There was a notice about how long you had to wait before there would be hot water.

Yeah so we immediately contacted Airbnb and told them you know this was unacceptable.

And we were leaving and started the process for getting our money back.

Luckily enough, we did find an apartment downtown that was available immediately.

Right, and it was way more convenient.

Yeah, it was really a very nice place, it was.

It was nice, clean, newly renovated.

It was nice.

Yeah, it had an elevator.

Yes.

It had the washing machine.

It was clean.

It was nice.

Yeah, had an elevator.

Yes, had the washing machine.

It was clean.

It was near a lot of restaurants and grocery stores, and things like that.

So it was very convenient.

It was near some things that we wanted to see in town.

We did eventually get a refund, but it was from Airbnb rather than the host Because they said that even though we took photos of the stuff they said we didn't offer enough proof that it was not usable.

You know, it only takes one bug, I'm out.

You know, or a little filth and I'm out.

Just everything was just worn out and dirty.

So the next day we walked around that pedestrian area where we were in, enjoyed the architecture and some street musicians, and found our way to a hop-on hop-off bus Right.

And we decided to get an overview of the town just by riding the complete circuit.

That was really very interesting, it was interesting.

Yeah, we saw a lot of the city.

We saw the statue of Wellington with a traffic cone on its head.

Yeah kids love that.

Apparently that's just something they do.

They'll occasionally decorate it, usually with a traffic cone.

Rita really liked the college campus there.

Oh, it was gorgeous, the Glasgow University.

It was on Gilmore Hill and you could it overlooked the Glasgow itself.

It was just a beautiful sight.

What was it called the Kelvin Grove Art Gallery and Museum?

Right Was this beautiful building, yeah, and that is like it's in a complex of museums and it's called Hunterian Museum which is a group of museums that are operated by the university there, and it's the oldest museums in Scotland, so it was very interesting.

Very interesting.

Unfortunately, though, our trip to Glasgow was interrupted a bit because, once again, the antibiotics had stopped working, didn't do anything.

Rita was feeling bad again so we thought we'd take another day to find a doctor.

Scotland was a little different.

You could only get an appointment by dialing 111, especially since it was a weekend.

At this point it was a.

Saturday.

Right it was, and our cell phones, of course, wouldn't dial one one one.

So I'd found a workaround, found I could call a local hospital and ask them to transfer me to the one one, one line, which, which they did.

Now it was at least 20 minutes before someone actually picked up and talked to me.

There was an initial interview, a transfer to a triage person.

Then they wanted to talk to Rita for a while and then transfer to someone else to make the appointment.

So it was about an hour and 40 minutes, but I did end up with an appointment for six o'clock that same evening.

So you know again another doctor, even stronger antibiotic by 7.15, we were back in the Airbnb with a new prescription and since by this time the pharmacies were closed, he gave us three pills to start you off, and this was our third week of antibiotics, so I was getting really a little bit nervous because he led me to believe that it was getting a little bit worse.

But still no Dr Bill.

No Dr Bill.

I really insisted that Rita take it easy the next day, sunday, as well, since it was a little cool and rainy out and we wanted to give the new drugs time to kick in.

So we basically just hung around there.

I went out and picked us up stuff to eat at the grocery stores there.

It must have helped because by Monday you were feeling well enough for us to walk to the bus station instead of calling for a ride.

Yeah, that was a short.

It wasn't very two blocks maybe.

Yeah, it was just up the end of the pedestrian block.

It wasn't very Two blocks, maybe it was really close.

This would be our last Flixbus for the trip, this time for the short ride to Edinburgh.

This time again we were in kind of a borderline neighborhood.

But it was a nice.

Airbnb apartment.

It had a very narrow hallway.

That was the only drawback you couldn't pass each other in the hallway it was like the bedroom was on one end and the kitchen was on the hallway.

Yeah, it was like the bedroom was on one end and the kitchen was on the other, but everything worked and it was warm you could turn on the heat, so it was all good.

We were right around the corner from a grocery store.

Yeah, it was very convenient.

We walked to everything from there.

Yeah, it was close to everything we wanted to walk to and see.

In fact, the next morning we walked out to the Edinburgh Castle.

We did.

We had time, ticket entry and plenty of time to get there.

We kind of took a wrong turn, but we still saw some interesting stuff.

Oh yeah.

On the way there, in an old cemetery we stopped to take pictures.

As you got close to Old Town you could see everything.

Just looks Scottish.

I don't know how to explain it.

Oh yeah, it's very dark and brooding.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was interesting.

Yeah, we were able to follow the bagpipe music after a while to the Royal Way and you could see parts of the castle.

Right.

We knew we were in the right spot.

Yeah, so I thought it was a really interesting area, but way too touristy.

How about you?

Oh yeah, and I was so surprised because this is April when we were there.

Yeah, it was late April.

And I didn't expect it to be.

Oh wow, it was late April and I didn't expect it to be.

Oh wow, that was the biggest group of tourists.

I think, not even London.

Yeah, just a lot of crowds and all of the tourist stores.

About every third store was selling the same stuff Right as the other store.

Right.

So it was like whiskey and wool and gilts yeah yeah, beautiful products.

I mean, if that was your thing.

But we usually travel light, so we're not buying souvenirs we're not buying souvenirs.

Yeah, so we did look at St Giles Cathedral.

That was good, that was interesting, they were asking for a five-pound donation at the door which was reasonable.

So we, went in to see that.

Was that with the blue ceiling?

Yeah, over the altar area.

It's gorgeous.

Was that with the blue ceiling?

Yeah, over the altar area.

Scorchers.

The ceilings were like a deep blue with white supports crisscrossing.

It was just really really beautiful.

It was stunning.

So finally we were at the top of the hill, then went to see Edinburgh Castle, but we were too early so we had to walk around one of the tourist stops to waste some time Toyed with the idea of buying bagpipes or ordering a kilt.

Oh, yeah, right.

But we didn't.

We would have taken the whiskey tour, but they wanted like 26 pounds each.

And plus who wants to be drunk the rest of the day?

Well, you probably didn't get much of a sample, but I don't know.

But still 52 pounds.

You could buy a lot of whiskey in one of the parks?

Yeah, really Definitely.

And I don't know.

We finally got inside the castle, but I really thought it was more impressive outside.

I did too.

I thought it was beautiful walking around inside the grounds and the cannons and, yes, I thought that was gorgeous.

Yeah, there weren't really that many parts of it where you could go into buildings.

No.

And the ones you could go into.

They weren't really that interesting.

They didn't really have a lot in it.

It wasn't.

I mean, the castle itself was beautiful.

When you're outside you see especially the big stone cliff that it's on.

I think they're very impressive and great tours from it.

And I know people just absolutely love that and you know we've seen tons of castles.

But the outside was very impressive.

St George Castle in Lisbon was actually much more interesting.

Yeah, yeah, but St George Castle was more of a ruin and this was really in good, still maintained, still maintained.

But still, no day is a bad day when you have some bangers and mash and a Guinness for lunch.

That's right, that's right.

Stopped at a place called Campbell's, took a different walk home, the way we were supposed to have come out, so we got to see different scenery.

Yeah, that was nice really.

We made a circle Past the end of the world pub or world's end pub, I think it's called.

We passed the Hollywood Castle and took some pictures from the outside, but again they wanted ridiculous entry fees.

Well, it was four o'clock too, and they were closing.

Yeah, so it didn't seem worth taking a look at that.

No, I didn't think that we would get a chance to actually see it.

We would be asked to leave at 4.30.

Yeah, the next morning we set out in a different direction, walking again this time, heading down to the port area to see the old Royal Yacht, the Britannia.

Now, we originally thought we'd just go take a look at it again because there was a big entry fee to get in, but they have it hidden behind the mall.

So you have to go into the mall and down the mall to get to a little entrance area and then pay a fee before you even get to where you can see it.

So we decided to go ahead and pony up the dough for it.

And it was well worth it.

Yeah, I'm really glad we did.

I am very glad we did that, yeah we really enjoyed the tour and you got to take a little break in the cafe on board, so I can say I had tea and scones with clotted cream and jam on the royal yacht, yeah but actually you saw every inch of that ship.

You saw the working the engines.

You saw where you know everyone slept, and the royalty as well as the people manning the ship yeah, it was a self-guided audio tour.

Yes, that you carried around.

But it was very.

You could stay as long as you want.

We were in there quite a long time.

We were there a couple hours, yes, and it was a good tour.

Yeah, I think the last thing that we did in Edinburgh was to visit the Edinburgh Museum.

Oh yeah.

Not really a highlight for me.

No, it was a beautiful building, yeah, the building was incredible and they'd obviously put a lot of work into some of the displays, but it was just oddly arranged.

I think it was more.

A one section was more of a hands-on children's exhibit.

Yeah, and that was really nice for children.

But then they had an area that was clothing styles and of course, machinery.

Scott's engineers are famous for that.

But they didn't group their exhibits to make it all inclusive of whatever it was that they were showing.

If it was clothing.

There's just something odd about the layout, yeah they were kind of mismatched in with other stuff.

Now, we did get to see Dolly.

We did get to see Dolly the cloned sheep was there, and on the way back I did see probably my favorite store name on any of these trips.

It was called the Och-I-the-Moo Och-I-the-Moo.

Yeah, like whatever.

So that was it for Great Britain, and now it was time for the main event, for our trip spending just over a month in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The good news was this last batch of antibiotics finally seemed to be working for Rita.

Right.

And she was starting to feel better.

Yeah, I felt like I was living again.

Yeah, the downside is I'd once again be behind the wheel, on the wrong side of the road, this time for 29 days driving on unknown roads.

So how did we do?

Well, you'll just have to wait for another episode to find out.

Absolutely, at jimsantosbookscom and our YouTube channel and Instagram for videos.

Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories at jimsantosnet, and there are links to those sites Instagram, youtube and so on in the show notes.

We'd love to hear from our listeners as well, so if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover, or you want to tell your own travel story, email us at jim at jimsantosbookscom.

Until next time, remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us.