Winterbourne Stoke

Awoke to a peaceful morning, with the air refreshed from an overnight rain and birds chirping gaily. I relaxed with a cup of tea, enjoying a cool breeze and quiet flat, listening to the sounds of London starting its day.

Prodded the boys to get a move on for our nearly two hour trip, so we could beat the crowds at Stonehenge. Already on 'vacation time', we were an hour behind my 'schedule', but all went smoothly. Biked to Paddington to pick up our rental car - a Citroen Cactus (huh?!) Tom navigated traffic on manual transmission, mostly remembering to stay on the left side of the road, while I navigated the route. Nice to spend a day outside the city!

I read to the kids about Stonehenge along the way and we spotted megaliths from the highway before we arrived - anticipation mounting (at least for me!) It was a place I'd thought to skip as being horribly touristy and just looking at a bunch of rocks (says the daughter of a geologist!), however, I'm glad we went. The fact that ancient stone-age peoples 4,000-6,000 years ago moved 20-30 TON rocks 150+ miles away is mindblowing. Like Chichen Itza, they are perfectly aligned to capture summer and winter solstice. So cool!

After a light lunch of cheese, crackers & apples, we headed back toward London, for a mid-afternoon tour of Windsor Castle, arriving after the tour bus hoards had virtually vanished. Really impressive and beautiful structure. Neat to hear about 700 years of history, some of the interesting royals who lived and died there, and a bit about the modern monarchy. Each of us enjoyed a different aspect of the site - indeed something for everyone. No sign of Harry, Meghan, or Archie though! ;-)

Departing the castle grounds at closing time, we walked down the hill for a yummy Greek tapas-style dinner and gelato next door, before driving back to the Paddington Station car park to drop off the Catcus. Besides a couple of wrong turns resulting in scenic re-routes, it was an incident-free day! We got very lucky - forecasts were for showers and beyond a few drops while at Windsor, we remained dry. Sun even poked out toward the end of the day!

A quick 15-minute pedal and we're back at our flat for shower and bed. Only 16K steps today and one more (full) day left to explore London! :-/Read more