I'm in Nafplio as I write this and it's the morning after the night and the day and the night before which sounds exhausting to read and was to live as well. We left Broadway around 10am after having to strip the beds, empty the bins, wipe out the sinks and vacuum according to the "rules". We thought the vacuuming was really a step too far and quite honestly I don't do that much housework in my own home so to participate in cleaning this three story, multiple bathroomed "mansion" on our last morning in the Cotsolds really felt like overkill!
We were driving to Oxford to drop off the hire car at 4pm and had a car service arranged to take us to Heathrow from there. We filled in our day with a quick stop to see the Rollright Stones, a lovely morning tea at Woodstock and a visit to Blenheim Palace on the way. Appreciating the splendour and yet intimate beauty of Sudeley Castle as we did the other day kind of spoiled the Palace as it couldn't live up to that. It is inarguably very grand and, as the birthplace of Winston Churchill, had interesting exhibits as well as incredibly opulent rooms and stunning period portraits every which way you turned.....it's truly enormous and impressive but yeah perhaps just a bit too grand for this little Aussie tourist! The best part of the experience was actually that they have a hedge maze in the grounds and as Gwendols and I had been SO disappointed to miss the Bourton on the Water one the other day we were thrilled to learn this and determined to get to try it. Now it's a funny thing as I totally love the idea of hedge mazes, purely from a misguided romantic idealism kind of angle I think. My sense of direction is average, so not so bad as to make me panic at the idea of getting lost but not so great as to be fully confident that I wouldn't and I think that is the fun of a maze...... Not so much with my companions though....they were the epitome of the extremes. I hadn't realised but Larn actively dislikes mazes and as for Gwendols, her sense of direction is as freaky as her sleeping ability so we had to maintain a sprint to keep up with her. I think the sign said it would take around 20mins and she had us in, around and out in about 5.......Which was a good thing at that stage due to our time frame restraints and I'm sure Liane appreciated it as I don't think wandering around lost as entertainment is her cup of tea! We dropped the hire car off and waited there for the car service to come pick us up. So far we'd been really lucky with the weather but it had by then started to really cloud over and sure enough just as the last guy left from the Avis office, and we'd refused his generous offer to re-open the office and wait with us inside, it began to lightly rain...... We stood flat against walls and reassured each other it was just a passing shower and our lift would arrive any moment but it continued to fall so after 5 minutes or so we gave in and opened our bags and got out rain jackets......and INSTANTLY it stopped raining.....we hadn't finished a sentence marvelling over how funny that was and the car arrived to pick us up....Timing is everything eh? Our wait at Heathrow wasn't long at all and was enlivened anyway by some shopping......Gwendols bought some sunnies she LOVED and I bought an IPad which I have to say (though no doubt I am way behind the times and everyone knows this already!) is the best thing since sliced bread! Gwendols can now pay me back for all the teasing I subject her to over her phone attachment as I now don't like to be away from my IPad too long either! And then we were off to Athens......


(L) Very sad to see this part of the trip come to an end but also very excited to get on with the Greece part.... the travelling day, not so much. We left Broadway at 10am and had an entire day to fill in as we were getting picked up in Oxford at 4.30pm, thank goodness we decided to get the car service from Heathrow to Oxford and back cos it certainly made things way easier, I really didn't want to be driving into Heathrow at 6pm on a Saturday afternoon. First stop of the day was down towards Chipping Norton for a look at the Rollright Stones, similar type of thing to Stonehenge but not nearly so large and famous. http://www.rollrightstones.co.uk/ it has opening times and prices etc but we just pulled up and walked in, there is a gate with a sign saying 1 pound per person but as it turned out it was an honestly box, well of course we paid but I'm sure someone would have just pinched it cos it was in an open container!! I don't know that I'd make a point to go out of my way to see them but as we were (sort of) going that way anyway it was a great stop. We were all pretty hungry by now... this has become a bit of a mantra on this trip " would it be a bad thing if I say I'm hungry?", so stopped in Woodstock for a bite. We found a lovely little tea house and I ordered Scones with jam and cream. This isn't the first time we've had this but by now are a little intrigued that the scones have all got sultanas in them. A quick bathroom stop, where we had to pay 10 pence each to gain entry to the loos then onto Blenhiem, we did take one wrong turn in Woodstock but Jane was there to put us right! Blenheim is another property listed with the Hudsons Heritage Pass and we had no problem using them to gain entry to what is an enormous and extremely impressive Palace and grounds. There was a production team shooting scenes for a big Hollywood movie but the guy at the gate wasn't allowed to tell us which one... he did however say " think of horse, carriage...... and a pumpkin"... we all went aaarrrrr Cinderella!!! Anyway..... we spent about an hour here and as Deb said although it is truly magnificent it just didn't have the same charm or magical hold over us that Sudeley had. I do have to confess that I had a "moment" in the maze... as Deb said.... I have never been an avid fan of a maze but have over the years gone through a few ( one in New Zealand with Rodd and Jack that was absolutely HUGE and the one on the Sunshine Coast ) however for some reason with this one I just couldn't cope with the thought of being lost in here, I guess it was just that we'd been full on every day and wandering around lost for hours is not my idea of fun... yes.. I'm seriously directionally challenged and yes I would have been tearing those bushes out by the roots to get out... thank goodness Gwendols is a human compass, honestly her sense of direction is quite uncanny!!
Woodstock is very close to Oxford so it didn't take us long to get there and drop the hire car off. Gwendols and I walked into town to buy a few bits and pieces and get some more food while Deb stayed at the hire car place with our bags.... not sure if there was some special occasion or if it was just a Saturday thing but Oxford was absolutely packed. I'm so glad we got to go there on our way out as it was crazy busy and not the pleasant village type atmosphere we'd noticed earlier in the week. OMG we hardly recognized the place as there were shoulder to shoulder people in the streets... ugh claustrophobia!! From here to airport was pretty smooth, the car service place was a great idea and only cost us 65 pound each way so worth every cent. Not much to say about our nearly 5 hour wait for our flight... some of it was spent drinking red wine and chatting... a pleasant way to start or end a journey!! I should just mention here ( thanks Tory) that the accommodation at Mellowstone was $985 for 5 nights.. although we were only actually there for 4 nights we paid for 5 as we were arriving so early in the day and the usual check in time is 3pm.... we were more than happy with the price and the place... really it worked out at only around $65pp per night for our own room and bathroom. Car hire was from Avis but I booked it through Auto Europe, we paid $176 which was a bargain and we only had to put $70 AUD worth of petrol in for all the driving we did, mind you we had a fantastic little VW Golf Diesel . So... on to Athens!
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