UK countryside travel day

Woke up at 730 readied ourselves and were o the dining room by 8 for our prepared breakfast. Traditional English breakfast. Then we settled out bill packed our things and drove up towards the Dover castle and white cliffs. Found the white cliffs and hiked to a gorgeous view of the Dover castle. Then we walked along the cliff edge to a decent view, snapped some pictures and returned to our car. Determined to make it to the Battle of Britain museum at 10am open time. Paid the 8 pounds a piece to enter until the history museum. They don't allow mobile phones or cameras due to thefts. Walked the five buildings with an extensive collection of artifacts from te battle. Including airplane engines that have been mangled from the crashes. You'll have to ask matt more on the details, but the collection is brilliantly extensive with details on the various persons involved. One that stood out was a color blinded South African who was not accepted by their Air Force, came to the Royal Air Force. Was in numerous crashes and finally passed away during battle. The gas masks and turn out the lights memorabilia are crazy too. After two hours and only one picture of us I front of the replica spitfires they have out, we were onto Stonehenge. 2 hours drive through the country "dual motorways". Arrived to find a massive visitor center erected 1 mile from Stonehenge. 16£ each to gain access. The mystery of what Stonehenge was used for still exists but the methods on how it came to be have been explained in the visitor center. We then hopped a shuttle to the rocks. Got our tourist pictures and before we knew it were on the road again.

This time Bletchley park was in our sights for the night. Except, along the way we were going to pass through Oxford. Established 1096. Has to stop to experience the history. Tried locating a bed and breakfast there with no luck as the ones that were left are all 200$ and up. So we found a car park, with a lovely collection of homeless to watch over the vehicle while we were gone and started towards kings cross church, the dining hall is where Harry Potter movies were filmed. Walked along the Thames and through the grounds to the church entrance. Continued towards townhall so we could use the tiolet and saw some of the actual artifacts dating back to 1200. We walked past a few food trucks wanted to wait for the wood fired pizza one but realized they did one pizza at a time and there were about 7 orders ahead of us, and the sun was already set and we were atleast an hour from Bletchley park, so we skipped it, returned to our untouched vehicle and hit the road. Did I mention we got a manual vehicle and the driver sits on the right of the car,??? Poor matt, in combination with all of the roundabouts and lack of attention to right aways I'm sure his blood pressure was elevated the entire time. May need to lay on a beach for a few days to recuperate.

Made it to the highway. About 9pm decided to check with the best western in buckingham for a room. 94£ a night. Too much. Continued onward and found a travelodge. It's now 920pm and b&bs are out of the question as everything closes early here.

Jacqui the night watch was full and suggested the bell hotel in Winslow. A 16th century hotel in a quaint little town just up the road, a straight shot. She called and they had vacancy for 85£ a night including breakfast. Sold. Small English town. Bed and breakfast. We arrived after a moment of freight after we drove past the hotel on the Gps without seeing it (like never finding out hotel in fez morocco). Arrived at 10, were promptly greeted, shown our room and this might watch actually grabbed us some cold milk cereal and yogurt as we never had dinner. Then we retreated to the hotel bar for a de-stressing pint, matt had an English ale, I am English cider and we started conversation with then bar tender. Before long two older local ladies came in and started talking to us about our travels. In the conversation they mentioned keatch's church, a locked local church that was erected in 1636 and the key is kept at the state agents house. The pews are original and it's a breathtaking feature of the small ancient town. Before long, the shorter local old lady bought us a second round (which miraculously was about 1/3 of our tab) and we learned about the ancient walls of the hotel built with mud and sticks and other non memorable things about the town. It was interesting as the bar tender called last call. Packed up his drawer and left while the bar was still full of people. The volunteer first responder in town (as we learned from the shorter old lady as she had an incident a week ago which required a visit to the hotel) was sitting at a table waiting for us to leave. About thirty minutes later we parted our ways, checked the flights for Thursday and called it a night.
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Arrive to London

Got to the airport about an hour before departure, just before boarding started and got cleared right away for our first class lay flat seats. Settled in with some sparkling wine and picked out our dinner and looked into the movie choices. Matt had the cheese tapa meal and I had a stuffed chicken. The coconut Thai soup was really good. Got a good 4 hour nap in before breakfast was served. Matt was snoring but was woken up before the breakfast service was done.

We got fast passes for the speedy customs line and were allowed off the plane first. Made it through London customs in about 20 minutes! Much better than the 2 hours like last time. The border patrol officer was very intrigued and was trying to figure out why we didn't have a hotel address. "No sir, we just have a car rental. We planned the trip yesterday after we missed our flight to Paris. We are departing Thursday. Just a short last minute stopover" finally he caved still flabbergasted and stamped our passports. We exited the arrivals hall, bought some coffee and started googling things to do in London. About 10 minutes of research we decided on cliffs of Dover, Battle of Britain museum. Stonehenge. Bletchley park. London. Home. Went to the rental car place and waited about 45 minutes for service then we're in the car ready to embark on another whirlwind road trip. This time poor matt has to drive stick and be on the other side of the road.

Planning on staying at bed and breakfasts we started out towards Dover. About a 2 hour drive we made it to the Battle of Britain museum just in time for it to close. Had to come back tomorrow. Stopped at the memorial atop of the white cliffs, and then headed into Dover to find a place to sleep. Trip advisor #4 bb had vacancy posted, the owner showed is the two twin bed room we agreed on a price just to find out someone else booked the room 30 minutes prior online through booking.com. She directed us to a few other b&bs down the road. The second was the east lee. The owner was outside gardening and she had the "one really small double left" she refused to rent it out without people seeing it as it is "much smaller than the others and its discounted 5£". It was an en suite with pink decor. Perfect. 75£ includes breakfast. We settled in then went in search of food. Stopped at the local fish and chips where locals would drive up to get food to go. Ordered two and enjoyed it on the patio with the Dover castle in the background. After we ventures to the white horse pub, the oldest pub in Dover. Had a pint and chatted with the bar tender. The walls are graffitied with times-how long it took each individual to swim the English Channel. Getting tired we then went to the beach to see the famous white cliffs. Stopped at the gas station (aka garage) to get cash and parted back for our bed. Fell asleep almost immediately, with plans to see the Dover castle white cliffs, Battle of Britain museum, Stonehenge and overnight in Bletchley park. We'll see how productive we can be in the am!

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