We’re going to England and Scotland!

Sue Anne, Bruce, Sue Anne’s sister Aimée, and her husband Steve will be going to England and Scotland for two weeks in October. October is a great time for a trip—Germany 2000, China 2006, and Italy 2007 for SA & B, and Germany and Austria in 2007 for A & S! Off-season prices, fewer crowds, but weather generally still pretty nice.

This will be the first time there for Aimée and Steve, and a return trip to lots of favorite places plus some new ones for Sue Anne and Bruce.

Here’s our tentative agenda:

Saturday, October 4 - SA & B fly from Manchester, NH to Chicago. Seems kind of strange, but that’s how the air fare we got at www.cheapoair.com (a Web site, not an airline!) (which we found through www.farecompare.com) worked out. Does anybody really understand how airline routing and pricing works? But this actually turns out well for us, since A & S live not too far away, near Madison, Wisconsin. They take a bus to Chicago, and we meet at the airport. Then we fly overnight to Manchester, England on British Midland Airlines. Great circle route.

Arrive in Manchester on Sunday, pick up rental car, drive to the Lake District. Beatrix Potter country, lovely! It was described to us before our first visit as one of those places which suddenly opens up in front of you and fills the horizon as you top the final hill on the way in. And that’s just how it was.

Week of October 6-10 in Scotland. Day trips in and around Edinburgh for a couple of days (including St. Andrews, home of golf), likewise out of Glasgow (home area of Bruce’s Scottish grandparents), heading as far north as Loch Lomond.

Then we head down into England, stopping for a walk around the walled city of Chester, which dates back to the Romans. (All the ‘-chester’ and similar sounding cities do. It comes from castra in Latin, meaning ‘camp.’) Then on to the picturesque town of Ledbury in the Malvern Hills, where we’ve booked a cottage for the week.

We’ll be using Ledbury as a base for lots of day trips—Stratford on Avon, visiting old friends and favorite pubs (Hobnails & Apple Tree especially!) in Cheltenham, nearby Cotswold villages, and northern Wales.

Fly back via Chicago on Saturday, October 18th.

Stay tuned for more news as it develops.