Sunday 12th August - London
We walked and trained to Heathrow to collect the rental car. There was a longish wait for the Hertz shuttle but we arrived at the depot in good time. We produced a numbered ticket from a machine on entering the office and waited for that number to be called. The woman who served us tried to up-sell us extras along with the rental but we felt we had everything we needed. We were allocated a Vauxhall with around 50 miles on the clock.
We drove to Salisbury as we had only passed by this place on previous visits to the UK. There we had a nice lunch at a quaint pub (above) called the Pheasant Inn. They clearly made food one of their strong points. We had tried a pub across the road from this one, but felt uneasy about it for some reason. We were happy with that decision. The inn had fancy power points with USB charging sockets near every table. We could not find a wifi connection there though.... odd.
The duck option. A lot of meat and very nice sides with the meal.
From there we drove to the Salisbury Cathedral but were put off by the crowds and parking costs. We were kindly offered a short free park, but decided time was running out and a look at Stonehenge (Brett has yet to see it) was of greater interest.
We headed to Stonehenge. It's all very different from what it was last time. We couldn't even get a glimpse of it from the road we were on. After seeing the long traffic queues on the other road be flagged it this time. We found a caravan park to turn around in and headed off towards Reading.
The weather changed and there had been some drizzle at times. We found a pub for a cuppa break.
Brett seemed to be anxious to get home, so we pulled Reading off the route and started using a more direct route home. We made a wrong turn that cost us about 16 miles of re-navigation. We struggled with the London roads, but eventually made it back for a light dinner at home.
From there we drove to the Salisbury Cathedral but were put off by the crowds and parking costs. We were kindly offered a short free park, but decided time was running out and a look at Stonehenge (Brett has yet to see it) was of greater interest.
We headed to Stonehenge. It's all very different from what it was last time. We couldn't even get a glimpse of it from the road we were on. After seeing the long traffic queues on the other road be flagged it this time. We found a caravan park to turn around in and headed off towards Reading.
The weather changed and there had been some drizzle at times. We found a pub for a cuppa break.
Brett seemed to be anxious to get home, so we pulled Reading off the route and started using a more direct route home. We made a wrong turn that cost us about 16 miles of re-navigation. We struggled with the London roads, but eventually made it back for a light dinner at home.