Today was our day in London.. We caught a train for our hotel town of Waybridge to Waterloo Station.  

Our first stop was the London Eye. That is the huge ferris wheel. We considered riding it but it was $60 and it would have taken over an hour to go around once. It has 32 cabins and it never stops. People get on and off as it is moving. It moved very slowly. It is really an amazing structure. It is like a large bicycle wheel with cables in tension forming the spokes. It is supported only on one side. The wind was really blowing but it didn’t seem to be swaying.

We then walked over the Golden Jubilee foot bridge to Trafagler Square. We had a croissant, cappuccino and a hot chocolate in a small cafe. We then walked around the square, the National Museum. 

We walked down Whitehall Street to the Westminster Abbey, the parliament and Big Ben. We had a real relaxing walk, stopping often to just watch the activity around us. 

We then caught the train back to our hotel. We have had a great vacation but, as it always is, we have had enough and we are ready to get home to our friends, our puppy dog and the warmth of Tucson. We will be up early tomorrow as we have to be the Heathrow airport at 7:30 am.

It was raining when we left this morning but that was not to last long. It would rain for awhile, then the sun would shine and then it would rain again. We headed 50 miles east to Brighton. Just north of there we found six towns that had once had people from my past. They were Hickstoad, Twineham, Bolney, Cuckfield, Cowsold and Wivelsfield. Sound familiar. Five of the six had old churches that were there when my ancestors where there. At one we met an old woman that was the church warden. She knew all about the area, the church and the graveyard. Like most people here she had a nice dog. We miss Maisy.

Then we headed to the Ace Café. It has been an internationally known British biker hang out for over 50 years. It was worth the drive but what a drive. It is nine miles west of London and my GPS said we had 58 miles to get there. 

You have never seen bad traffic until you have seen London traffic. A lot of stop, and stop again, and then go slowly. We made it there, hung around for awhile, bought and Ace Café hat and then headed south again to Weybridge again in stop and go traffic. Our hotel for the last two nights is here. 

It was cold and raining when we got up this morning. We had breakfast. Outside our hotel room window is this huge old church. As it was Sunday, we walked across the street to see what was going on. We were pleased as there were some young people there, they had a video screen set up and they were preparing their music using a guitar and a key board. I expected a dark church full of old people. They said to get the young people there they have to be more contemporary. Just like home.

Our first stop was the Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum. It is here in the New Forest. Sammy was the worlds top trials rider and won a lot of road races as well. I had met him the last time we were here and at 81 he comes in to the museum 6 days a week but not on Sunday. It is a wonderful museum with over 350 great bikes.

We were off to Portsmouth. My Littlefield namesake was from here. His wife and kids went to Utah in 1860 and he stayed behind. He died before he could go. We did a four mile walking tour of the old dock area. This was a real tough shipping area in those days. They have done a nice job fixing up the dock area including a 500 foot spear monument.

Then we were off to find the birthplace of the Littlefields. It was 15 miles north of   Portsmouth in a little farm village. We found a beautiful old church. It was getting late and the 6:00 pm bells were ringing. We loved it.

We have been eating our way through the British Isles. Tonight we decided to just split a sandwich and , a glass have of wine and a liter of lager in the hotel bar. 

Today we went to the Isle of  Wight . It is an island off the south coast of England. It was also the home of several of my ancestors in about 1700. We had the names of four towns where they lived.

We caught a ferry about 8 miles south of our hotel. It is a 4 mile ferry ride each way. We had to go on line the night before and purchase our tickets. 80 pounds or about $120 for the round trip. We were questioning if we had to have reservations but it is good we did. It was a beautiful sunny day and the island is a beach resort get-a-way for many of the English. The harbors are just full private sail boats. 

There was a big market going on that drew thousands of cars. The island town of Yarmouth, where the ferry landed was jammed.

After getting out of the town we found our first little town. It was again a small farm town down several single lane roads. 

There we found another wonderful old church. In the second town there was an old woman doing flower arrangements in that church. She was a new comer to the town, having lived there only 40 years, but she was a wealth of information about the area going all the way back to Roman days.

The third town, though small, was too newly developed to even find the old church. The fourth town had another great old church.

We drove around the entire coast line of the island. It was probably about 30 miles. The southern part was really pretty. There was little traffic there, some cute beach towns, and the road was fun to drive.

We got back to catch the 5:00 pm ferry back to the mainland. We stopped at a pub on the way back to the hotel for a dinner of pub food. 

Again we woke up in a hotel on the beach with it pouring rain and the wind blowing. Later in the day we will see some sunshine but small rain drops kept coming too.

This is a day for gynecological searching. Jan is real good at this. She had towns all over England and Ireland where one of or m of my family trees originated. We started in Bedwelty Wales. Then in England we found the villages of Coaley in Gloucester and Chilmark and Homington in Wiltshire. In each town we would look for the old church and take photos in the village.

We try to picture our distant ancestors living in these villages and what it was that led them to take the long journey to America. These were all very small towns down narrow one lane roads. They were all farming towns at one time but it appears they are bedroom communities or retirement hideaways now. There are BMWs and Audis parked in front of wonderful old restored homes. This is really beautiful country and there were great views around every corner.

We are staying in a real nice old hotel in Lyndhurst which is in the center of the New Forest in Hampshire near the south coast. 

We have been real laid back this trip. We usually are in no hurry to get out of bed. We usually make it to breakfast by 9:00 am and are on the road by 10:00. Not this morning. We had to be at the ferry at 8:00. We were to breakfast at 7:00. I had a few Euros left and as we were going back to the UK where they use Pounds I stopped and bought gas. Still $7 .00 a gallon. We then lined up for the ferry. The ferry ride was 3 ½ hours. I roam the ship and Jan reads. We found some big lounge chairs at the very back of the ship and watched the water churn as the huge ship leaves it behind.

After landing we immediately turned down a narrow back road heading for some small towns along the southwest coast of Wales. We drove south to the very furthest tip of the British Isles. The roads were mostly one lane so we have always be prepared to slow down and move to the left or wait in a wide place in the road so oncoming cars, trucks and tractors can pass. We went through several beautiful small villages. They had wonderful beaches. The sun was shining and the fields are all a bright green. What great photo opportunities.

We went to the last town before the end named Dale and then continued out to end of the land. We then turned around and headed toward Tenby. It is a larger town along the coast with more beautiful beaches. It also has its original ancient walls still in tact. There was a narrow road going through the wall. Jan reminded me that I couldn’t drive there but I got through fine. We ended up going very slow down a narrow shopping street clearing the people out of our way.

We are stay tonight in Swansea in a Best Western across the street from the ocean. We both had fish and chips.

We left Cork heading for Ardmore. It is a small village on the south coast. It is sort of out of the way for tourists. Jan had read about a craft store there. It was a small  place ran out of a woman’s home. She had some really nice things. Jan bought a small pitcher.

We headed north on small roads to Castle. It is site of most significant ruins in Ireland. He climbed the long hill to the castle and cathedral. It was raining when we went in but stopped while we there. That is the first rain we have had in Ireland.

 It was 85 miles to Rosslare. It is in the southeast corner of Ireland. We are back in a nice Best Western. We catch the ferry to Wales from here in the morning.