After our hike we barely made it to the campsite at Thistledown Farms in time before they closed for the night. We got all set up at a beautiful site with 2 big trees and the makings of a treehouse and a swing.This campground was the BEST I’ve ever seen. The bathrooms were clean, the grass is amazing, and all the spots were very private. You could hear the sheep and the birds singing. It was great :)

We were too exhausted to cook, so we went into town to eat at a pub called the Rose & Crown. It was really cool. The steak and mushroom pie was amazing, and we made our own black & tans ;) English pubs all have about the same selection of Real English Ales so far. They are kind of flat and watery to us, so mixing them with the Guinness really helps. We had a lot of fun there and then made our way to camp. We slept ok, but kept kind of sliding down the hill we were camped on. The tent didn’t move, but our sleeping bag kept sliding to the end of it. There wasn’t anywhere flat at our site, so we tried our best to pitch it in the flattest spot. Beasley is such a wuss though! He loves camping until it gets dark and then he is just waiting to go to a hotel. We had to get some things out of the car and he jumped in like he was all ready to leave and only reluctantly got back out to follow us to the tent. lol!

 

 

After Stratford we drove to the Cotswolds, which are gorgeous English countryside where you can hike on all the public footpaths. We took a hike from Stanton to Snowshill. The towns were out of a story book. The Cotswolds are known for the honey colored stone walls and lots of flowers. A lot of the walk was through sheep pastures and high up in the hills. It was so beautiful. Beasley was in heaven with all the smells and poop. lol! He actually licked some before we could drag him away from it! ewwww!

First pic is me in front of William Shakespeare’s Birthplace. They preserved the cottage and gardens of his family from the 16th century! The downtown area by the Avon river and the Swan Theater was really beautiful. We took a jog down there and the weather was amazing! Unfortunately, we were staying a bit away from the pretty part and the locals seemed to be a bit sketchy, but we still had fun and now know where to stay if we went back. We saw Hamlet at the Swan as well. It was brilliant! ;) They wore 60′s clothes instead of the traditional Shakespearean look, which when we found that out we were disappointed, but the actors were really good.

Check out the name on the river boat above :)

Here is Beaz and I sitting on a lock. These are all over the canals in England. When the boats go through they close these gates and raise or lower the water to let them through to the next section of canal. It’s really neat. I know back in the day they actually used to use horses to pull the boats down the canals. There are swans in all the canals here too. So pretty, but they all hiss at Beasley, lol!

 

Launceston: pronounced Longston (we were told by the locals at the pub:))— The huge earthen mound was started by the brother of William the Conqueror as early as 1067. Then in the 13th century, Richard, Earl of Cornwall and brother of Henry III built it in stone. There was a huge stone staircase leading up the where the Earl’s quarters were. The views were amazing, and we could hear the sheep baying in the pastures all around it. You could see how the town sprung up in around it still in the Medieval pattern of the original town.

As usual we go to lunch as everything was closing, so we got pastys and sat in the grass at the castle to eat. Beautiful day. :)

This place just seemed so out of place across the street from a castle! The sign is hysterical!

We were going to take a bus from Tintagel to Boscastle and then do a really amazing 6 mile hike back, but we just didn’t have enough time to do that and see the castle. So the next day we drove to Boscastle, a nearby really quaint town. The marina where we went is right on the ocean, and I guess the water level raises and drops pretty drastically everyday because the boats were all tied to the docks but sitting on the sand. When we were in London our tour guide said the Thames raises and drops 20′ everyday. Pretty crazy.

We had Cornish cream tea there, which is really popular and basically tea with biscuits that come with fresh Cornish whipped cream and jam. Let me just say….England is making me fat. Lol! No, but seriously, we were saying this would be a million dollar idea to have back in the US. OMG it was soo good! Below, I put some on Beasley’s nose…he approved :) You can see the smear on the pavement where he had been licking it off. Oh yeah, and we almost got attacked by seagulls again here! British seagulls don’t play, meng!

I thought this bus message was funny. It seems like everywhere in Britian people say “sorry” a lot! I even saw a coffee mug that said, “Sorry, I’m British.” Haha.

We thought we would have to skip Tintagel b/c the weather was supposed to be horrible like the day before, but the clouds went away and it was a really beautiful day. We had a lot of fun walking the hills and sea cliffs there. The grass and flowers are beautiful. Beasley had a really good time running through the grasses and pouncing on them.

MVI_2706

The first photo of Beasley in the wall is my favorite! He was so cute that people were stopping and asking if they could take his picture too. What can I say, I have a cute dog ;)

We were eating lunch at this cafe and a group of seagulls simultaneously attacked us! It was crazy! One actually landed on our table and tried to snatch our food. He only flew away without anything because Beasley unwittingly poked his head out from underneath my chair to see what the commotion was about. The seagull saw him and flew away before Beaz could even figure out what he was or what was going on. It was so funny bc he totally took credit for scaring off the bad bird afterwards by acting all tough and proud of himself. lol!

Here is inside Merlin’s cave at the base of the cliff. Beasley found sand!

Where we ate pastys for lunch and nearly got robbed by rabid birds. Beaz in front of the old post office ~600 years old.

That night we were all excited to go to ‘A Hole in the Wall Pub’ since we missed it by a few minutes the night before. We had checked online and everything to make sure they were still serving food. We get there and the cook had left early bc it was a slow day and she was having personal drama. We couldn’t believe we missed it again! We had left Beasley at the hotel bc he was in a happy doggie coma from running around Tintagel all day, so we decided to stay for a beer. We were the only customers in there except for an older local English gentleman. The bartender, James, was bored and I think he had as much fun showing us around the pub as we did. We told them about how we had ordered a black & tan in Hackney, and they had never heard of it and how in the USA that is the most popular English drink. James got so excited, he really wanted to make one and they both got so interested in it that we ordered one just so he could make it. It was hysterical the effort they put into it and the old guy leaning over the bar telling James he was pouring too fast, etc…  I made a joke about,  “How many Englishmen does it take to make a Black & Tan and they were laughing and the old guy says “Two!” Well James botched it pretty badly so he actually googled it and watched a video on youtube on how to make one. (pics below) He insisted on taking our email when we left to email us a pic when he gets it right.

Turns out the pub was an old debtor’s prison in the 1700′s. People who couldn’t pay their debts were locked up there. They have a list of the executed ppl outside and it is pretty long! The pub also has all kinds of things hanging from the low rafters. We thought it was all just decor the owner put up there or something, but James told us everything up there was traded to the bar by ppl to settle their tabs when they couldn’t pay. He started to show us some of the stuff they had from ppl since the bar has been around. There was a wooly mammoth tooth (super heavy!) and a captain’s sword from the early 20th century. (that’s the picture of me holding them both at the top of the post). There were tons of antique rifles too and Zulu spears. There were also many war medals, some Nazi medals from WWII. It’s called “A Hole in the Wall” bc they didn’t feed the prisoners, so if you got food it was bc your family came and passed it through a hole in the wall of the prison to you. Crazy history….but a great night!

We stopped at Stonehenge on the way from London to Cornwall. It was really beautiful. You are going over these green hills covered in bright yellow flowers. They use thick hedges instead of fences to separate the sheep and cattle from different farms. Then, all of a sudden, you come over a rise and there it is: Stonehenge. It really is just giant stones set in a pattern in the middle of a field on a hill. You can’t walk right up to it anymore, but you can get pretty close depending on what side of it you are on. It isn’t a whole day stop, for sure, but it was definitely worth it to stop.We parked in a field and let Beasley out of the car to run around for a bit. It was really windy and cold, but he loved running around and rubbing himself in the tall grass. We were also in a sheep pasture, so you could see wool in some of the weeds and see the flock off in the distance. We bought some pastys ( really awesome hot pocket thingys:)), our first of the trip, and tea and sat in the field with Beas for lunch. It was great!

The last 2 pics you can tell everybody is tired and been blown around in the wind—we were getting ready to leave for Cornwall and Roarke was trying to set the nav, but Beasley is so used to sitting on the right side of the car he keeps sitting in the driver’s seat here and he won’t move unless you pick him up! Funny little guy :)

On our last day in London, we decided to walk around Hoxton to see some of the street art. Here are some pics! The first one is a Banksy that has some graffiti over it, but the wall has been white-washed around it. That was pretty cool to see. I love the little blue guy showering in the window of the abandoned building too. There is so much street art just around the city. It is really neat to see pieces by the same person all over. They all have really unique characters…I also loved the picture of Beasley on the double decker bus we were on. He loved riding on the top of these and watching out the window.

We went to the Royal Mews, also known as the stables, because I really wanted to see the Queen’s horses. Well we get there and there is one horse. I found out (after we paid of course) that it was Ascot Day a race day) and all the horses and trainers were away at the event. We got to see the stables and the carriages, the coolest of which was this golden one. But afterwards we took to calling it ‘The Royal Rip-off’ instead of the Mews. lol!

We went on a short tour down the Thames to see the Tower of London. I liked this shot of us with Tower Bridge in the background. That’s one thing I definitely learned, is that Londoners get really annoyed when people think this is London Bridge. We went under London Bridge, and really, it’s nothing spectacular.

We also saw The Tempest at the Globe Theater. It is a recreation of the original theater, but it is still really awesome. They make it authentic too in that it is casual and you can get beer and food. We got standing tickets (only 5 pounds) and got there a little early so we could get spots leaning on the stage. The characters are also known for interacting with the audience and throwing water, etc into the crowd, which they did, but none hit us ;) The one guy even spit into the crowd… They were amazing. You can see the outside of the Globe from the Thames here. It is the white building with the brown roof. It was funny because since it is open air, planes would go by overhead and the actors were so good they even incorporated that into the play. It was hysterical!

Kensington Palace is where Prince William and Kate live. The gardens were amazing. Beasley had a great time running around in them! The swans did not like the look of him though!

The last 3 photos are a pub we ate dinner at called the Swan. It was a really cool place with quite a history.

Hyde Park was definitely my favorite. The flowers were absolutely amazing. The flowers here in England are insane in general, but Hyde Park was the best! The rose bushes flower in big bunches of roses that you can smell just walking by. They also had a big pond with swans and ducks in it where we got ice cream. It was also some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had :)

The last 3 photos are of this crazy tree in the park. We have seen these around here in the parks, but this one was by far the best. It grows downward so that it kind of makes a tent with its branches. You could go inside this one through a little hole they cut in the branches. Very cool!

First photo: St. James’ Palace, commissioned by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn, but he had her head off before it was completed.

Here are some of the bigger sites in London. St Paul’s Cathedral was enormous! I like the photo with Big Ben framed inside the London Eye.

We kept going past this store I was dying to go to, Top Shop, so Roarke was teasing me and took a pic of me window shopping ;) But I did finally make it there later.

The lanterns were at a restaurant we got food at. I LOVE them. More funny signs…

We went to London after the Queen celebrated her 60th year and they had the Royal Jubilee, so these banners were up along the streets.

Roarke and Beasley before we got on the tube. Beasley was such a good boy. We ended up on there at rush hour and were packed like sweaty sardines. He wasn’t scared at all and just sat there panting in Roarke’s lap. It was so funny because a girl was standing in front of us holding on to the rail right next to Beas’ head, so he looked over and licked her hand. Well we were so packed on there that she couldn’t even see him, so she totally freaked out! She was so relieved when she saw Beasley sitting there! lol!

Here are some photos of Buckingham Palace. I love the crowned rose and all the crests. We also got to see the changing of the guard which was really cool. They have the mounted horse guards come out and a marching band. I know it’s really touristy, but it was worth it! ;)

Next are some shots of Green Park which is across the street. It is really beautiful and you can bring your dog. I love the parks in London!