Two Weeks in England

My husband and I explored England for two weeks and enjoyed some must-see attractions and local cuisine. Join me as I recap our English adventure.

Hubby and I took a trip to the UK, some of the time was spent with my mother and aunt, and some was by ourselves.

Two Weeks in England

The trip was divided up into two portions: the first part we spent time in London and Southampton with my mother and aunt. The London portion of the trip was after our trip to Scandinavia, the Southampton portion was before that cruise.

Hubby and I went back to the UK on a cruise after our trip to the Netherlands and Brussels, so this post is going to refer to those trips, too.

My mother turned 80 this year and I wanted to take her on a nice vacation. She had not been on a long trip since my father passed away in 2020, and they had traveled a good portion of the world together. I asked her where she wanted to go, and she considered Iceland and Greenland or Scandinavia.

We looked into Iceland and Greenland (ironically one of my aunts went there after our cruise) and we felt it might be a bit too much walking for her. She had her knee replaced in 2022, and was not certain how well she would get on. She saw the Scandinavia itinerary and decided that might be the ticket as she had never been (of the four of us, only I had been to a Scandinavian country and that was Denmark about 45 years ago. I remembered little.)

We took a Caribbean cruise last February/March with her and my aunt to see if she was comfortable with travel after the knee replacement. That was a huge success, so we booked that Scandinavian cruise.

My aunt lives in New Hampshire so she drove down to my uncle’s house near Boston the night before our flight. My mother flew into Boston a few days prior and spent some time at his house visiting. Hubby and I flew into Boston the night before our London flight. We all coordinated so we would be at Logan airport a good four hours before our international flight.

While the TSA line in Logan was crazy long, my mother has wheelchair service in an airport so the four of us breezed through security.

We flew Jet Blue Mint Class which is their version of international business class, and while it was better than the back of the bus, it isn’t something I would go out of my way to take again.

We landed in Gatwick (Sonny-boy had been to London recently and told us in no uncertain terms to not fly into Heathrow, hence the Jet Blue flight), went through customs (wheelchair, so they drove use from the gate to our luggage and on through customs (no custom stamp though (insert sad face)). Hubby had arranged for a car to take us to Southampton, and we were off!

There is not much to do in Southampton itself, but it is a gateway for cruise ships, the Isle of Wight, and Stonehenge.

We stayed at a Holiday Inn hotel very close to the docks (surprisingly quiet) that had a full service bar and restaurant. This came in handy a lot.

We took the first day to assimilate and brush off jet lag. The next day we took a ferry to the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday so there wasn’t a whole lot open, but my mother got to shop and I got a good fish and chips (good chips – French fries – were VERY difficult to come by this trip. Apparently, the English like them soft, not crispy) and we encountered the only person on this trip who none of us could understand due to his accent. Heh

We also learned that if you get food in a pub, you order at the bar. They do bring it to you, but your order and immediate payment is made to the bartender.

The Isle of Wight would be a terrific place to spend 3-4 days. We could not go interior due to the ferry times, but there are a lot of nature trails and such. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a summer home there.

Oh, one thing Hubby loved – I swear he shouted out and left me in the dust – he found his first Poundland. He likened it to the English version of a Dollar General. While this was the first he went into, it was by no means the last. (sigh)

The next day, Hubby, my aunt, and myself went to see Stonehenge. My mother had been before (she’d been to England many times in the past) and decided to spend the day lounging. Since the hotel was full service, we all felt comfortable with that.

We took an Uber to Stonehenge as it was much cheaper than the taxi. We took a taxi into Salisbury afterwards, then an Uber from Salisbury back to our hotel.

I am not going to lie: Stonehenge is … a pile of rocks.

While it is very easy to get to once you buy your ticket, I’d never go again. We saw older prehistoric megalithic rock formations in Scotland that we could get much closer to.

There is a visitor’s center which has some finds on display in a small-ish room that is so crowded we were lucky to see anything.

Outside there were some huts portraying what life might have been like back when Stonehenge was formed.

After that, a wheelchair/handicap accessible bus drives you the 5 minutes to the prehistoric megalithic structure and you get off the bus and you are a good half mile from the structure.

It is now so closed off, and the pathways so far away, that you cannot see the carvings from that distance. Well, I couldn’t, and I have 20/25 vision without glasses, 20/20 corrected.

While there is a downloadable app to guide you, it was not working with my Samsung phone so I had to find out a lot about the area afterwards. My mother is the one who told us about the carvings as when she and my father went, they could walk right up to them to observe and touch if they liked.

Afterwards, we went into Salisbury Cathedral to see the Manga Carta. We figured we were that close, why not!?

The church had a nice presentation but no photos were allowed of the Magna Carta itself. This is to aid in the preservation.

Was it worth seeing? Yes, just to say we saw it. It is a small document written in old Latin in a very cramped manner, so there is no way for a lay person to decipher it. They had translations with really helped!

We went to a very old pub/restaurant in town and had yet another fish and chips (my goal was to try as many fish and chips as possible). The food was fine, the stairs were treacherous, but we had a good time!

Salisbury itself is very charming and worth the time to walk about.

After this, we took our cruise to Scandinavia.

On our return from that cruise we took a car back to London. We had to wait a bit as we factored in time for customs at Southampton, and there was none! That knowledge helped Hubby and I later when were did a back-to-back cruise out of the same port.

In London, Hubby had booked us a black car tour. There was no way we were walking all of London to see the sights, so this was wonderful. It started off a little squirrely as there was a large political protest going on and our driver had to figure out a way around that (miles of streets were closed), but we got to see London Bridge, Tower Bridge, the neighborhoods (which I LOVED) and some monuments and buildings.

Hubby had booked us a market tour at Borough Market and the place kinda sucked – and it is a wildly popular tourist attration!

We have been to enough European markets now to tell a good, well thought out market from a poorly considered one. And many of those markets are very old but have been repurposed to reflect modern use. In the Borough Market there were a few standing tables to eat at, a set of outdoor bleachers for people to climb up, sit and eat (thank goodness it was not raining), and that’s about it.

Considering how much of this market is dedicated to prepared food, I found it odd. The extension across the small street could have set that up differently for consumers, but nope, just vendors and standing around eating. If this was still a sell-and-go market (there were a few stands that sold to go) it would be fine. It is a sell something to eat market and I found it ill utilized for that.

The next day we went to Windsor Castle.

The admission bought you entrance as well as an audio and a headset. Unfortunately, half of ours did not work and there was no where we found along the way to exchange a non-working one with one that worked. Still, we knew a lot of this history already and there was so much to see and so much being described and proctors in each room to strike up a conversation with, that we did not miss the audio too much.

That castle and grounds is massive. While you are only allowed in the castle and St George’s (there are other houses on the estate), you could spend all day there.

While I loved the outside of the castle and the grounds, the inside was crowded and meh. My mother, who had been before and loved it, said it was less “personal” than in the past.

No photos were allowed inside the castle, although we could (and did) take many of the grounds.

We did encounter a changing of the guard. They come right at you and will mow you down, so get out of the way if you see them coming!

That is a close-up of the guard standing in front of that portion of the castle!

The final day with my mother and aunt we had nothing planned. The weather was going to be dicey, so we had to choose carefully.

One thing I must state is that our weather this entire trip was absolutely dreadful. We were in the UK in August and October, and the temperatures were in the 50s. I expected the rain, and packed accordingly, but the cold in August was a shock. Normal temperatures are 10-15 degrees higher in August than what we experienced. I was very glad I brought gloves!

We ended up at the British Museum and I was thrilled to be there! What a fantastic place. I got to see the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone. Absolutely marvelous!

We had tickets to get in (free, but an entrance timed ticket) but as soon as they saw my mother’s walker we bypassed any line and were let right in. There is a funky elevator off to the side to get inside when you need handicap accessibility but the inside of the museum was pretty must ADA friendly. Not bad for such an old building.

My mother had had enough after an hour or so (she’d been there before) and Hubby had an errand a few blocks away, so my aunt and I spent some time exploring the floors and generally having a great time.

For me, this was my highlight in England. I absolutely loved the place and could have spent days there.

There is a lot of history from all over the world there.

This write up from here on out is going to be a little choppy as my mother and aunt flew home, and Hubby and I took the chunnel train to Amsterdam.

When we returned to England from Brussels we did so via a ferry in Calais (very pleasant) to Dover and spent the night in Dover.

We did get to see the White Cliffs of Dover on the approach and that was nice. When we got off the ferry and took a taxi, they were up close and personal.

There was little to do in Dover except the castle and some churches as we were there on a Sunday. I did get more fish and chips though and Hubby got to shop at yet another Poundland.

We went back to Southampton via car, spent the night in a different hotel than our last time there, and then boarded the Princess Regal ship the next day for a trip around the UK and a transatlantic cruise home.

In all, we spent about two weeks in England although it was broken up.

This ship was in the news recently as it had major issues while we were on board. We smelled the electrical fire from our balcony while on the first cruise (we did a back-to-back with the second cruise being a transatlantic), and all the power went out when we were leaving Grand Cayman on our way to Galveston. The ship (after we got off in Galveston) then cancelled the next three cruises while they worked to repair their generators and electrical. Yikes.

Since there are so many photos of this very long trip (12 weeks total) I am going to break these posts up to England, Ireland (Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (UK)) – I have to include Liverpool here, and Scotland – I have to include our transatlantic trip home here. Posts on Scandinavia, Netherlands, and Belgium are also separated.

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