Saturday, July 26, 2008

We began the day leaving Edinburgh for Gretna Green, about a two hour drive. Gretna Green is on the Scottish / English border and is a traditional place for young couples from England to get married in Scotland without parental consent. The tradition is that the village blacksmith served as justice of the peace. Today it continues to be a popular place for weddings. We stopped for a quick look at the buildings, statues, and tourist shops.

From Gretna Green we drove through the Lake district, on the north western side of England. It was a truly beautiful area with rolling hills, stone fences bordering small fields with numerous sheep. As we drove the hills became larger, the valleys deeper with small water falls cascading down the valleys. We passed several beautiful lakes including Windmere on our way to Grasmere, where Wordsworth lived and is buried. We stopped in Grasmere for lunch and their famous gingerbread and mint cake.

After Grasmere we began the over two hour drive to Chester, a historic country town on the River Dee. In Grasmere we visited the ruins of a Roman amphitheater from approximately 80-100 A.D. The circular amphitheater originally seated 7000 people. Some of the walls, altar and north entrance remain. We also walked around the town, which contains many black and white buildings build in the Tudor style. Alan and Joyce walked along the top of the city wall for a good look at the city from above. They also explored the outside of another cathedral, which every city seams to have. On the way back to the coach, they walked through a farmer’s market, which was closing. We ended the day in Wrexham (or Wrecsam in Welsh), Wales at a very nice Ramada Inn.

It has been a challenge to deal with laundry. We the baggage limitations we were given, we had to keep the clothes we brought to a minimum. The hotels do not have coin laundries and laundry mats are scarce and no where near our hotels. The hotels offer laundry service, but at more than $8 US for only pair on pants, we will not be doing that!! While in Edinburgh, Alan and Joyce washed out some underwear and socks in the bathtub, giving the clothes two days to dry. The problem is how to deal with the jeans, shirts and blouses. We have been told there is possibly a laundry mat close enough to walk to in Dublin. Today we found some Febreze for fabrics. Hopefully, at least we won’t smell! J