TRIP TO ENGLAND AND RHINE RIVER CRUISE SEPTEMBER 14 TO OCTOBER 8, 2013 Having traveled in France from September 20 to October 11 in 2011 and having experienced mild, even warm (and quite frankly hot) weather, we assumed we'd find the same as we drove through the English countryside (The Lake District, Ironbridge Gorge, The Cotswolds, Wiltshire) and then cruised the Rhine River from Basel to Amsterdam. And for the most part, we were fortunate. Yes, we did have rain (lots of it) during the first few days in England, but very little additional over the next two-and-a-half weeks. In my France 2011 and Germany 2012 travelogs, I paid tribute to my wife for her brilliant planning of our journey. So it was this time as well. In the months leading up to our departure, we (i.e., Lee*) did yeoman ______________________________________________________________ *From time to time, she** will be referred to as SWMBO (She W ho Must Be Obeyed), whereas I will be known as HWMO (He Who Must Obey). So it has been and so it will forever be. **Through her long and distinguished academic career, she acquired other pseudonyms (bestowed with love and appreciation by moi), including TWOU (The W oman of Us, borrowed from a John Barth novel), OBLOTN (Our Blessed Lady of the Neutrons), EATCOUT (Executive Assistant to the Chancellor of UT), and VPUK (Vice President at University of Kentucky). ______________________________________________________________ (yeowoman? yo, woman?) work in these areas: (1) deciding which regions of England to visit; (2) scouring web sites for suitable lodging; (3) negotiating with super travel agent Stefan Bisciglia of Specialty Cruise and Villas, a family-run travel agency in Gig Harbor and part of the Virtuoso network of travel agents around the world, concerning the plane tickets, the hotels in England, and the Rhine cruise; and (4) reading helpful web sites and travel books. In the course of the trip, I took some 2600 pictures!! Only a relatively small number* have been uploaded __________________________________________________________________ *By this I mean a mere 2200 or so. W ell, I did say relatively small. ____________________________________________________________________ to my Picasa account: some of the pictures were poorly focused; others were poorly lit; some were very very very very repetitious; and some showed the two intrepid travelers in a less than flattering light. Also, many just contained pictures of text (as a reminder for me) that was posted on the walls at various museums. You can view those that I've chosen to share at http://picasaweb.google.com/ronmagid. (To put the seven England-Rhine 2012 picture albums in the order that we visited the sites, click on sort by ALBUM DATE at the top of the Picasa page.) SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 TO SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 As I wrote in my Northern Europe travelogue from 2012, the super-reliable Steve from Brooklyn (I never did learn his last name) sold Harbor Taxi and Towncar and moved to Florida. The Peninsula Gateway, our local newspaper, reported that there is a new taxi service in Gig Harbor run by a woman (Gloria*) and _____________________________________________________________ *She proves to be a good (if also somewhat aggressive) driver (see p. 71) and an interesting conversationalist. She says that as an infant, she was in a car the crossed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge the day before it collapsed into Puget Sound on November 7,1940. ______________________________________________________________ her daughter. I had called Gloria last month and arranged for a ride for September 14 at 6:00 am. She appears right on time in her KIA Soul, and transports us and our luggage* to Seatac where we arrive in 2 ______________________________________________________ *In addition to the airline-authorized "one carry-on and one personal item," our past usage had included a large soft-sided suitcase (on rollers) for each of us and a large soft-sided bag (not on rollers) that had to be balanced on one of the others. Schlepping these through crowded airports had become an annoyance, so shortly before leaving for England we each purchased a Delsey hard-sided case (a "four-wheel spinner trolley," if you must know). These are light-weight (10 lbs), expandable, and have two large compartments, each. They can be pulled on two wheels (like conventional cases) or, if left vertical, pushed on the four wheels - or, if one is feeling silly or just plain bored, spun on their vertical axes. Each proved capacious enough that there was no need for a third large bag. _____________________________________________________ near-record time at 6:35. Our destination is Manchester, UK. We wanted to fly on Delta or one of its partner airlines, but there are no direct flights to Manchester from Seattle on any airline. Nor are there convenient connections via Paris or Amsterdam, Delta's nonstop destinations in Europe. We could have flown nonstop to London on British Air, but it would have been significantly more costly and wouldn't have provided useful frequent flier miles; Delta's nonstop service to London had not yet been instituted in September, 2013. So, we decide on two nonstop Delta flights: first to Atlanta and then to Manchester. Originally, we were scheduled to leave Seattle at 10:00 am, but Delta changed our itinerary so that we would leave Seattle at 9:00 am and arrive in Atlanta at 4:42 pm. This "allows" us the luxury of a 4.5-hour(!!) layover in the Peach Tree State, as the flight to Manchester does not leave until 9:10 in the evening. Once again, we are profligate as we raid the coffers of the Magid family retirement fund in order to purchase business class seats. Aside from more comfort on the plane, this gives other perks, among which are the "priority line" at Delta's check-in counter followed by the expedited TSA security line (no removal of shoes or belt; no emptying of pockets; no display of dangerous or explosive liquids in a zip-lock bag). So why do I go to the bother of emptying my shirt and pants pockets before entering the security area? I have no answer. Because of the speedy passage through check-in and security, we find ourselves at the Delta Sky Club at 7:00, just one hour after leaving home. I indulge in coffee and a bagel, but nothing more as we are quite certain of being well-fed on board the plane. At 8:25, we leave the Sky Club (in S Satellite) and take the airport train to terminal B. We board the plane (a Boeing 757-200) at 8:35 and find our seats in Row C. Push-back occurs at 9:04. Unlike many planes, this one has a clear PA system and, best of all, the flight attendants do not possess the drawl found in so many Delta employees. The safety video is the same (amusing) one that we first saw on our flight from Paris in last December. Here's what I wrote in my Germany 2012 travelog.* ________________________________________________________________ * It is filled with good humor and stunts, things that it is hoped will attract the attention of the jaded traveler who usually tunes these things out. Rather than my describing it, why not watch it for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/bowacz8 (this is the version for a Boeing 737, but it's essentially the same one that we get to see). Hours from now, after we have landed in Seattle and we're waiting for the doors to be opened, I chat with two of the flight attendants and I tell them that I think that the humorous video is an excellent idea. A couple of them disagree, arguing that people won't take them seriously. Lee and I think that they're wrong. They also tell me that Air New Zealand produced a humorous video of their own in which the flight crew are naked, save for tactically- and tactfully-applied body paint: http://tinyurl.com/ngxaky ____________________________________________________________________ It is a dark day: even though well past sunrise, the plane's windows are wet from the fog and mist. The plane's taxi is a long one but finally we are air-borne at 9:21. Even though we break through the fog in a few minutes, our view of the ground is obscured by thick clouds. This is an older plane, so there is no 3 choice of movie or other entertainment on one's own video display: instead the same movie is shown to everyone on the overhead monitors, but (fortunately) the sound is off. W ell, not quite - prior to the movie there are several annoying ads (for Delta, Coke, and other products) and these are accompanied by very loud voice and music. The movie starts and the sound is still on. Loudly! After a few more attempts, the movie is begun again but in silent mode; only those who want to watch can use their headphones to listen. At 10:20 PDT we are served juice and coffee, then an omelette with bacon and potatoes, a bagel, and some fruit. I spend my time working New York Times crossword puzzles, reading issues of The New Yorker that had accumulated, and reading the first couple of chapters of TransAtlantic, a novel by Colum McCann that I had downloaded from Pierce County Library onto m y new Kindle. (Through this trip, I'll read other books on the Kindle. I find that I much prefer reading the book in conventional "dead-tree" format.) A snack is served at 11:40 PDT. The movie (title m ercifully forgotten) ends shortly afterwards and is followed up one ad after another on the plane's monitor - mercifully, the sound is muted.